Chapter 13
13
I arrive at the ice-skating rink five minutes early. At ten on the dot, Tyler comes into view, headed my way on the path from the main lodge. He looks even more like an REI model than usual—dark jeans, red flannel shirt, leather-and-shearling bomber jacket, wavy hair peeking out from under a charcoal-gray beanie, forest-green backpack.
Honestly, he could pass for a model model right now—like full-on Paris runway, if you swapped out his woodsy chic for high fashion. I’m trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that feels different, and I land on his beanie: something about it accentuates his cheekbones, making them look more chiseled than usual. Maybe it’s just the lighting.
As soon as he spots me under the lamppost where I’m waiting, his face splits into a huge grin.
“Hey,” he says when he gets closer.
It’s a single, simple syllable, but it’s the way he says it that gets me—soft and low, like a secret.
“Hey,” I reply. “Sorry I had to cancel earlier.”
He waves it off. “It happens. Need to talk about it?”
“Maybe. Not now, though. Right now I want to forget work even exists.”
Tyler grins. “ That I can help with. But first—”
He gestures for me to follow him, so I do. Instead of taking one of the paths away from the skating rink, though, he leads me closer to the entrance to the ice.
“I thought you said we weren’t skating tonight?”
“We’re not. But we are in need of some cozy snacks,” he says. “I have it on good authority that you like the soft pretzels around here.”
Flashback to me devouring more than my half last night when we split one, and the way his gaze lingered just a little too long on the salt on my lips.
“Not sure what gave you that impression,” I say, straight-faced. “But if you insist, I guess we can get one.”
“Oh, we’re not getting only one this time—we’re getting a half dozen!”
“A half dozen? Are we building a tiny pretzel fort for some lucky squirrel?”
He laughs. I love that I can make him laugh, even with what might have been the dumbest joke anyone has ever dared to tell.
“One for you, one for me,” he replies, “and a few for me to eat tomorrow morning for breakfast.”
He really does order a half dozen, and the girl behind the counter doesn’t even blink. We also get a pair of hot cocoas to go—marshmallows on mine, whipped cream on his. The cup is delightfully warm in my hands; I didn’t realize I’d forgotten my gloves until it was too late.
“The best way to eat these,” he says, setting his cocoa down on the smooth pine railing, “is like this.”
I watch as he carefully removes the lid, then—horror of horrors— tears off a piece of his pretzel and dips it into his cocoa . When he pulls it out, it’s soggy, brown, and streaked with whipped cream. He devours the whole piece in a single bite.
I blink.
“What. Just happened.”
Amused, he replies, “It’s salty. It’s sweet. It’s perfection.”
“It looks disgusting.”
“Haven’t you ever heard that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Alix?”
“First of all, that’s no book. And second, if it were and it looked like that, I would absolutely judge it because clearly no one loved it enough to keep it from drowning in a muddy swamp.”
His smile is contagious as he tears off another piece, dips it in, and holds it out to me.
“C’mon, you should try it. Just a bite.”
He’s looking at me with those gorgeous eyes, grinning like he knows there’s no way I could possibly say no.
“Okay, fine. But if I hate it, I’m holding you personally responsible.”
And if that’s not an empty threat, I don’t know what is, but I take the soggy pretzel piece and try it.
“ Mmmmmphhhhkgh ,” I mumble, in undeniable culinary heaven.
“That good?” he says with a playful smirk.
I close my eyes, finish the bite.
“You have ruined me for all other pretzels for the rest of my life.”
“When I say something’s good,” he says, with a pointed look that heats me up from the inside out, “you can trust me.”
The thing is, I really feel like I can.
A few more bites of cocoa pretzels later, and he turns to me, eyes full of stars.
“Ready?”
“Are you sure that wasn’t the main event?” I ask. “Because it could’ve been.”
He grins. “Follow me.”
We turn down a path I haven’t taken before, one that leads away from the lodge and the village and toward the mountain. The slopes closed hours ago, so I have no idea where he could possibly be taking me.
I’m even more confused when we arrive at one of the gondola landings.
It looks very, very closed.
As in, the only light on—other than the lampposts on the path we took to get here—is a small, red emergency button.
“I know what you’re thinking, but trust me. This is going to be so worth it.”
He pulls a key card from his back pocket, holds it up to the sensor beside the control booth door. There’s a hum as the lock releases, but I just stare.
“You’ve got a key—to the gondola lift?”
He grins. “I’ve got a key to everywhere .”
An all-access key to the entire lodge? To the entire mountain ?
Julie must have a lot of faith in him.
“And Julie’s okay with you just, like—using the lift after hours?”
“Julie’s the one who taught me how to use the lift after hours,” he says, grinning. “Jules and her brother and I used to hang out up at the scenic point all the time. The stars are next-level up there.”
He pulls out his phone, opens a text thread with Julie.
TYLER
Meteor shower tonight, okay if I take someone up to watch?
JULES
Who are you, and what have you done with my reclusive friend??? Of course it’s okay. I’ll let security know.
I’m buzzing with anticipation. I can’t remember the last time anyone put Tyler’s level of thoughtfulness into their dates.
“Sounds amazing,” I say. “Let’s do it.”
Halfway up the mountain, I look out the gondola window and take in everything around us.
The snow that blankets the slopes below is so thick and smooth it reminds me of an impeccably decorated wedding cake, like if I took a treacherous leap from this gondola it would turn out just fine, because I’d land in a sea of buttercream frosting. And then I’d take a big scoop of it in my fingers to taste it—and it would be sweet, and perfect—but I’d smell like sugar for days.
Down in the valley, lamplight and string lights and flickering flames in their firepits give the whole place a warm, cozy glow. The village—and the lodge behind it, and our building just down the path—looks like something straight out of a postcard.
It’s a clear night: only a waning crescent moon slices through the black, velvety sky, and the stars—the stars ! Just imagine someone took a whole bowl of silver glitter and flung it up to the heavens and somehow it stuck. That’s what it’s like. More stars than I’ve ever seen, more stars than I even realized could be seen with the naked eye, sparkling and wonderful. It’s gorgeous.
“Beautiful, right?”
His voice cuts through the silence.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say.
“Just wait ’til we’re at the top,” he replies, eyes twinkling like all the glitter in the sky.
But nothing could have prepared me for the feeling that slams into me when we reach the scenic point landing: pure, awestruck wonder.
“This—this is—”
The words get stuck in my throat.
There really aren’t words for it anyway. Nothing I can think to say feels big enough. Good enough. Enough enough. It feels like we’re giants on top of the whole world, yet infinitesimally small under the multitude of stars.
“I know,” Tyler says, his voice quiet, smile soft. “This is where I go when I need to clear my head. There’s nowhere else like it.”
He sets his backpack down on a nearby bench, pulls out a fleece blanket and wraps it around my shoulders. I look like a blanket princess, my nearly empty cup of cocoa my scepter, this entire mountain my kingdom.
Even with the blanket, it’s freezing.
Tyler notices I’m still shivering, then leads me by the hand to the bench. We sit, and he pulls me in close. I won’t be cold for long, not with his arm around me—and most definitely not with my back pressed up against his chest, which feels even more solid than it looks. Heat radiates between us.
“I’ve got these, too,” he says, shifting slightly to pull something out of his backpack.
He passes me a rechargeable hand warmer, fingertips brushing against my skin as he settles it into my palm. It’s smooth and heavy as a river stone, already toasty to the touch, like it came straight from a hot spring.
“Feels good, right?” he says.
I can hear the smile in his voice, feel the barely there graze of his lips against my temple.
Everything feels good, I want to tell him.
“It does,” I reply.
We settle into the most electric silence I’ve ever experienced, the two of us keeping each other warm on top of a mountain, with all the stars in the universe looking down on us. His message to Julie mentioned a meteor shower, but I have yet to see any shooting stars. It’s a good thing we’re not facing each other, or else I wouldn’t know there were any stars up there at all.
I could sit up here all night, honestly.
I most definitely do not feel cold anymore.
He’s still holding me tight, firm but tender. Neither of us has acknowledged the way his fingers have found my hair, the way his knuckles brush up against my jawline every now and then, the way the memory of this moment will forever be entangled with the night sky: expansive and sparkly and unforgettable.
“It must be amazing to have this kind of view in your backyard all year long,” I say quietly.
Not once have I missed my apartment in Brooklyn since arriving here. I don’t miss my loud neighbors, the unreliable heat, the uninspiring view, the never-ending construction across the street. I don’t miss Lauren making the place feel even smaller than it already is. I’ve always considered myself a city girl at heart—but maybe that’s because I only ever wanted to get out of the small town where I grew up.
“I love it,” he says. “Some people up here… I think they stop seeing the world around them after a while and forget how incredible it is.”
“But not you?”
He’s quiet again, and I feel the rise and fall of his chest with every breath. I think back to last night at dinner, how he changed the subject when we delved too deeply into his life. Is he about to share something real now? Something more than the fact that he took up ice-skating because his best friends were training for it, I mean. Something more than his odd (but admittedly respectable) preference for dipping soft pretzels into hot cocoa.
Finally, he says, “I left this place behind for a while. I had a job opportunity that paid well and took me all over the world.”
It’s like he’s poked a hole in the sky—the barest pinprick of blazing light, hinting at everything still hidden behind that thick velvet curtain—and now I want to rip clean through it. I wish he’d let me see all the things he so clearly feels he needs to keep to himself.
Maybe if I don’t push, if I just let him give, he will.
“But you came back here to be with your friends,” I say, because it’s a fact—because it focuses on where he ran to and not what he ran from.
“I did.” He takes another deep breath, sighs it out in a long exhale. “You travel the world long enough, you leave a little bit of yourself every place you go, and after a while, you start to forget who you are—especially when the people who are supposed to have your back turn out to be snakes.”
Suddenly all I can think of is Sebastian Green, of everything he went through with his manager and how perfect his life looked on the surface. I guess you can never truly know what someone is going through.
I stare up at the sky, wondering just how awful a person would have to be for someone as great as Tyler to refer to them as a snake.
“It makes it hard to know who to trust when that happens,” he goes on. “When you’re not even sure who you are anymore, so you question your own judgment, and it just makes you more and more paranoid, but also more reluctant to listen to your own instincts because you aren’t sure what’s real.”
I stay quiet, give him space to continue.
When he doesn’t, I say, “I’m so sorry anyone made you feel that way.”
I want to say I can’t even imagine it happening.
“It wasn’t just someone,” he says. “It was pretty much everyone.”
It’s hard to imagine Tyler outside of the context of this ski resort, as some sort of fancy businessman traveling the world, surrounded by people who ended up breaking his trust—it’s starting to make a lot more sense why he came back to his roots. To Julie, to his best friend, to the peace and quiet and serenity of the mountain. Maybe he doesn’t want to be a recluse so much as he’s afraid not to be.
I’m weighing how— if —I could ask more about what happened, since he’s trusted me enough to crack the door open and let me peek into his past.
But then he says, “It was a long time ago. I want to hear about you .”
And just like that, he closes the door.
I watch the sky. Still no sign of shooting stars.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Well, I know you’re a writer,” he says. “And I know you’re writing a book. And I know you can’t talk about the book. But the first day we met, you told me the subject matter was in your field and that’s how you got the job. What do you normally write about?”
Never in my life have I had to think before answering that question—but now that Sebastian’s book is in the mix, it gives me pause. Tyler doesn’t at all seem like the type who cares one bit about entertainment journalism: if I had to guess, he’s the type who curls up in a worn leather armchair, reading his spy thriller novels until well after midnight, not a smartphone in sight.
He’s given me more than I expected—it’s only right that I give him something real, too.
“I’m in entertainment,” I say. “Pop music, reality shows, royal weddings. Stuff like that.” It’s a vague enough answer: maybe I’m writing a book about a prince!
Still leaning against him, though, I feel his muscles tense. But as quickly as I felt it, he relaxes.
Maybe this was a mistake—maybe he’s like my brother and thinks entertainment journalism is a complete waste of time. A complete waste of my life . Maybe—
“How long have you been doing that?” he asks.
Relief floods through me. There’s no trace of Ian-like disdain in his voice at all.
“A little over a decade now. It started as a side gig my freshman year of college but turned into my actual job somewhere along the way.”
“Do you ever get to interview famous people?”
“I’ve interviewed more famous people than I can count,” I reply. “It’s not as great as everyone thinks. Most of them act like they’re some superhuman gift to the planet, and like all the rest of us were put here to worship them. It used to make me feel small. Then it made me feel angry. And now—now I’m mostly indifferent.”
There’s an edge to my voice I didn’t mean to let in, at odds with this crystal-clear, delicate night.
Tyler is quiet behind me, taking in my words, my sharp tone.
He wraps his arm tighter around me, pulls me in closer. I lean my head back and breathe him in. It’s instant comfort.
“I can’t imagine anyone ever meant to make you feel that way,” he finally says.
“Oh, I think some of them definitely did mean to.” The Jett Beckett interview comes to mind, and I shove the memory back down into the putrid cesspool from which it came. “Pretty sure most of them were too wrapped up in themselves to consider anyone else might have feelings, though.”
He reaches down, finds my hand, and intertwines his fingers with mine. In this moment, it feels as intimate as a kiss, this purposeful connection from someone who’s done everything he can to disconnect from the world—a way to say I see you now that he knows I’ve spent far too many years feeling unseen.
“I’ve never understood why the world glorifies celebrities,” he says softly, “when it’s only luck and timing that put them under a magnifying glass instead of someone else.”
I think again of Sebastian: how luck and timing changed his life, how a single powerful someone happened to see him performing in a high school musical and brought him out to LA for that fateful first meeting at the record studio. It could have happened to anyone—anyone who had just the right mix of talent and charisma and a cocktail of blessed genes.
“Alix,” Tyler says suddenly. “ Look .”
I follow his gaze just in time to see a shooting star streaking across the sky, here and then gone.
Fame is like that, I think.
So are some moments. Like if you were to blink, you might miss your chance—might not know it ever existed in the first place.
Still wrapped in the blanket and his arms, I twist around to face him. I could kiss him right now, we’re that close. All it would take is an inch, maybe half, to close the gap between us.
“That was beautiful,” I say.
My voice is so quiet I wonder if he might ask me to repeat myself.
“We might see more,” he replies, “if we keep watching.”
But he doesn’t turn to look at the stars, and neither do I.
His lips find mine, there in near darkness, soft and slow and tender. He doesn’t hurry, he doesn’t press for more than I might want to give—but that only makes me want to kiss him harder, more fervently. I don’t—
Not yet.
With every lingering kiss, every second I resist the urge to take this fire up one notch, the flames feel hotter all on their own. I can tell he’s holding back, too, relishing the tension as it builds. And it does build—I feel it in how he touches me, one hand in my hair and the other at my low back, firm but gentle, like it’s taking all his restraint to keep himself under control.
Until finally— finally —the tension breaks.
I’m the first to give in.
I kiss him harder, deeper. Like I can’t get enough, like this moment might be every bit as fleeting as fame and shooting stars, like this night will slip away if I don’t stay as present as possible in the here and now.
I take it all in: the hint of pretzel salt and sweet cocoa on his tongue; the scent of him, fancy cologne and fresh soap and fabric softener; the silence and stillness on this incredible mountaintop; the chill I would feel in my bones if he weren’t here, burning me up from the inside out.
Unfortunately, it isn’t long before the temperature drops and reality sinks in—that it is actually very cold out here, that I am currently shivering.
“We could go somewhere warmer?” Tyler suggests.
“Warmer sounds good,” I say, pulling the blanket tighter around me. It doesn’t do a thing.
I don’t want this perfect night to end.
As we make our way back toward the gondola lift, I glance up and see a pair of shooting stars glittering across the sky. I stop dead in my tracks to watch—but Tyler doesn’t see me, doesn’t realize I’ve paused until he barrels right into me. I lose my balance, step right onto a slick patch of ice, and the next thing I know, I’m on the ground staring up at the entire night sky.
My wrist hurts .