Page 68 of The Lodge

Truth or dare.

What he does now will make or break any chance of a future with him. Will he lie to me? I’ve given him a wide-open door here, the perfect chance to confess his secrets before things go any further between us. If I had to guess, he’s thinking about how his name on Black Maple Lodge’s ski school pamphlet is Tyler Fox and how he probably wishes theBin the monogram looked just a little bit more worn so he could explain away the discrepancy.

“It was a gift from my mom when I was in high school, but someone screwed up the monogram,” he finally says, and I’m sure—sure—he’s about to lie to me until he glances down at the bag and then back up to me and says, “TheBshould be in the middle.”

His eyes on me are intense.

Intensely honest.

Intensely intimate.

“Because your last name isn’t Fox,” I say quietly, daring him to look away.

Daring him to lie.

He knows I know. I can tell—he knows.

“I remember meeting you before,” I add while I still have the nerve, direct but not unkind. “When you had another name.”

I wait for him to deny it.

He doesn’t.

I’m fairly certain he still hasn’t placed me—the world really must have been a blur to him at the height of his fame—so I slip my phone out, scroll until I find the voice memo I saved all those years ago.

It only takes two seconds of playback for the recognition to hit.

“Shit, shit, holy shit. Alix. That wasyou?”

I’m stunned.

Not a single hint of denial—or explanation—but instead, concern formeis all over his face. His thick brows knit together. I’ve never seen him this serious, not as Tyler. And when he was this serious as Jett, he never seemed this sincere or this kind.

“I remember you too,” he says. “You look a lot different now, though.”

I laugh. “You’re one to talk.”

His eyes are still searching mine, scanning my face for hints that remind him of that day. But he’s not the only one who’s changed his look since then—I ditched my dark hair color eight years ago, ditched the blunt bangs a year after that. When it all grew out, I ditched my flat iron, too—or, at least, I stopped using it to straighten my hair. Now I use it to make my trademark beach waves instead.

“I’ve never forgotten that interview,” he says slowly, carefully. “What you said to me.”

His eyes gleam in the glow of the firelight, the Edison bulbs.

“It was the worst day. The worstweekin the worst month. I was drowning—and I know that’s no excuse for how I treated you—but the world felt heavy and twisted and nothing like anyone promised it would be. And then I remember you asking me something like, ‘Why don’t you just leave?’?”

He blinks rapidly, like he’s trying to clear his eyes—he’s held so much in for so long—and then he looks straight at me.

“It was a lifeline.”

His words are a whip, snapping the world into focus.

“It seemed so simple when you said it. ‘Why don’t you just leave?’ Like it was easy. I remember feeling so alone in that moment—so angry, so trapped. It was the most ludicrous thing anyone could have suggested, especially in the middle of that tour, and the contract we had for three more albums and three more world tours, and the press commitments, and so many pointless dinners, and every single minute of every single day being scheduled out for the next five years.”

His voice is a tightrope about to snap, his bitterness and resentment the most tenuous connection to the past. Still, there’s a tenderness to his tone that tells me it isn’tmemaking him feel bitter or resentful—it’s the memory of everything he left behind.

“But to you, it was simple. ‘Just leave.’ I didn’t think I should have to, obviously,” he goes on. “Iknewno one would want me to, that no one would ever allow it. Our manager, Jason—his wife had just left him because of the band, the person it had turned him into. None of us liked him much except Seb, but of course Seb liked him, because Jason played favorites and Seb was his. I hated that. The more I thought about it that night, the idea of just—justleaving—wouldn’t leave me alone. It seemed impossible. I didn’t see how it could ever work. And that made me want it more than anything.”

His words are a flood, like he’s actuallywantedto talk about it all this time but never knew how to start.

---