Page 24 of The Lodge

He gives a little salute and heads off to deal with whatever else needs fixing.

Tyler follows me out onto the elevator landing, propping his door open with the dead bolt so the maintenance guy doesn’t have to come right back up.

“Thank you so much for making me dinner,” I say. “It was amazing. Even the salad.” I pause. “Mostly the apples and the goat cheese—but those made up for the spinach.”

He laughs, and I like the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Come back again sometime and I’ll make my famous brussels sprouts!”

I scrunch up my face.

“I’m not even kidding. They’ve won awards—not to mention there’s bacon involved.”

Now I’m laughing, too. “I wouldtrythem. I can’t promise I’ll like them.”

I tap my key against the sensor on my door, and the lock slides open.

“All good,” I say.

There’s a beat there—a moment hanging in the air between us—and then he gives a little wave.

“See you on the slopes,” he says.

I wave back and slip inside my own temporary home, the place where I’m meant to hole up and focus for a month. Focused is the last thing I feel: right now, I’m a mess of fizzy and reckless and fascinated.

Puffin rubs against my ankles, his fur soft.

“I know, buddy,” I say.

I’m in trouble.

File:sebgreen_tipsy elephant.mp3

Date Recorded:February 13, 2025

SG:

Do you want to know what the number one question is that people ask whenever they meet me on the street?

It’s not about my music, or my tour schedule, or that reality show I did. It’s not about me at all.

Every single time—and I meaneverytime—it’s:Do you know what really happened to Jett Beckett?

Maybe that sounds bitter of me to say. Maybe Iambitter. I’ve been in this industry for more than a decade now. When I got into it, I kinda hoped my legacy would be my own, you know? That they’d ask questions about me, not the same question over and over again about the guy I had to share the spotlight with.

And people never like my answer. I have no idea what happened to him, and that’s the honest truth.

All I know is, as much as I hate to admit it, my career has been defined by Jett Beckett. I would’ve had a solo career from the start if not for him and the way Jason pulled us both into the band. If I’d somehow ended up in a boy band without Jett, I would’ve had the spotlight to myself, and that would have been different in so many ways. And when we woke up one morning and found out he’d just up and vanished overnight, he defined my career yet again, even in his absence. That was the beginning of the end for the band, and it was like a bolt of lightning shocking me out of the haze I’d been living in for… well. For a long time, I think.

Jett tried to convince me to quit True North one time—that both of us should quit, not just me—that night over drinks at the Tipsy Elephant. I thought he was full of it, trying to sabotage me somehow. I never considered that maybe he was serious.

People searched, people cried, people mourned. Even if he wasn’t dead, he might as well have been—I knew in my gut that I’d never see him again, and I was right.

Here’s a secret I’ve never told anyone, not ever.

Jett Beckett’s disappearance was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

8

Sebastian never called.

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