Page 23 of The Lodge

“I moved in not long after she inherited, actually. It turned out to be good timing—she was in over her head. That year was kind of complicated.” He grimaces. “Also, please never tell her I said that. She’d resent the idea that I thought she needed help.”

The phone buzzes on the counter between us.

“Excuse me for just a sec,” he tells me, taking the phone into the next room.

“Yeah,” I hear him say. “Yeah, the one from next door—yeah. She locked herself out.”

Is it eavesdropping if the other person has simply moved around the corner? It’s not like there’s any music to drown out the conversation, and it’s not like he’s keeping his voice down.

“I know,” Tyler says. “C’mon, man—you know I can’t.”

Can’twhat?

I wait for more, but he’s quiet, listening. I definitely can’t make out the voice on the other end.

“I mean, I know. We’ve been over this.” A pause. “Can I call you back in thirty? Yeah, talk to you then.”

I stuff a gigantic forkful of spinach in my mouth and hope it looks like I’m so enraptured with it that I’ve blocked out the rest of the world, especially the phone call I was absolutely not listening to.

“Sorry about that,” Tyler says when he joins me again at the kitchen island, then smirks when he notices my face: I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, literally, and it must be alook.

“Enjoying the salad?”

I nod—withenthusiasm—since I cannot in good conscience try to speak. My ratio of greens to good stuff is very much not ideal; I think I only got a single walnut in this bite, and it’s bitter without the other stuff to balance it.

“Need some water?”

He fills a tumbler with cold, filtered refrigerator water and slides it over. It’s a lifesaver.

Naked spinach: not for me.

“Everything okay?” I say, nodding to the phone.

“Oh, yeah. My best friend—Julie’s brother. Just giving me a hard time becausesomeonetold him I had a woman over.”

I might be imagining it, but I think his cheeks are turning slightly pink.

“And that’s unusual? Having a woman over?”

“Yeah,” he says, meeting my gaze. “It is.”

I study his eyes, hisgorgeouseyes, wondering how it’s possible that this guy doesn’t have a girlfriend—how it’s possible he doesn’t have a woman over every single weekend. He could. I’ve seen what’s under that T-shirt, and yeah, he most definitely could.

You know I can’t, he told his best friend on the phone.

Ski Instructor Tyler is a mystery to me, one I want to unravel.

A knock sounds at the door, three sharp raps in quick succession.

“Maintenance!” a man calls from the other side.

And not a moment too soon—I’ve been here for almostfiftyminutes, I realize when I glance at the clock. Sebastian will be calling any second now. How could I have lost track of time like this?

When Tyler opens the door, there’s a man with a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, his polo shirt and puffy coat both boasting the Black Maple Lodge logo.

“New key card for a Ms. Morgan? I appreciate your patience, we had some technical difficulties.”

“That’d be me,” I say, and he hands it over with a nod. “Thank you.”

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