Chapter 24
24
Tyler seriously missed his calling as a chef.
My entire place is filled with the savory aroma of chili—garlic, onion, ground beef, a bottle of Blue Moon, roasted tomatoes—and I can already tell it’s going to be the most perfect cozy meal for the impending snowstorm. Even though the worst of it won’t hit until tomorrow, the wind has already started to pick up.
“You like things spicy, right?” Tyler asks as I watch from the kitchen island.
“In what context?” I say, just to mess with him. “Food or romance books or—”
He laughs. “Yes. All.”
“I like it.”
“And now, a controversial question for you,” Tyler says as he rummages around in his bag of supplies. He pulls out a can of red beans and sets it on the island. “Beans in chili: genius or sacrilege?”
“Is it controversial that I have no strong opinions about it?”
“It would be in Texas,” he replies, taking my lack of opinion as permission to go forward with opening the can of beans. “My mother grew up there, and this is her mother’s recipe—except for one tweak. Red beans. The fight they had over it nearly tore the family apart.”
“That sounds serious !” I say, mentally marking this down as the first time he’s felt comfortable enough to mention his family around me.
“Oh, it was,” he says. “I was ten years old, and we’d gone down for a huge family reunion on the Fourth of July. I thought my grandmother was going to have a heart attack right there in the kitchen when she realized my mother had just, like, nonchalantly added beans to her prizewinning recipe. Everyone turned on my mom except for my granddad, who made the mistake of saying he never felt quite full enough after eating my grandmother’s chili, and—well.”
“I don’t understand how beans could be so divisive.”
“Have you ever been to Texas?”
“I have not.”
“Well, there you go,” he says as he drains and rinses the beans, then adds them to the pot.
“So what ended up happening?”
“People were so hungry that they ate it anyway—and then they had to apologize when they ended up loving it.”
I laugh. “Even your grandmother?”
“No,” he admits. “My grandmother was lovely in so many ways, but she was also extremely petty. She was so offended she wouldn’t even taste it, and she held a grudge about it until the day she died.”
“Wow,” I say. “Your poor mom.”
“My mom was amazing.”
His words hang in the air between us. The sizzle and pop of the bubbling chili now feels extra loud; he gives it a stir and it calms down.
“Was?” I say.
It felt like an invitation—or at the very least, an open door.
“She raised me on her own all the way up here in Vermont. Even before that reunion, we were always closer with friends—River and Julie’s family—than with our actual relatives.”
He adjusts the burner heat, sets the wooden spoon down.
“No one told me she was sick,” he says quietly. “We were on tour, and no one told me .” His eyebrows knit together like he’s staring into the past. “When she died, Jason told me, ‘Oh, shit, man. I didn’t think it was that serious.’?”
“Wait,” I say as the weight of his words sinks in. “Your manager knew your mom was sick—someone trusted him with that information—and he just, like, decided not to tell you?”
“He’d known about it for a week, the whole time we were in Miami and Philly, but didn’t want me distracted on tour. And then she was gone.”
My head is spinning. How could anyone be so selfish, so cold? How could anyone have the audacity to withhold that sort of information?
And how did they keep it entirely out of the press? I was writing about the band that whole time and never heard a single tip about it.
I must have been processing out loud, because the next thing I know, Tyler’s saying, “My publicist covered it up somehow—she said I was going through enough with my grief and everything with Jason. That I didn’t need speculation and scrutiny from strangers on top of that. They wouldn’t even let me do a funeral.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “That must have been terrible.”
Terrible feels absolutely insufficient.
“It felt like someone had ripped the sky in half,” he says. For a second, I think he might say more—but he leaves it at that.
Miami and Philly were the band’s last stops before Boston—it makes more sense now, his disappearance. Why he left when he did.
When the chili is done cooking, we settle onto the living room floor with our bowls on the low, wide coffee table. There are at least three other spots in this place specifically designed for meals, but this one is the coziest, with the fire blazing and the view of the increasingly gloomy sky, the thick blanket of clouds growing darker by the minute. I can already see flurries on the patio.
I take my first bite of chili, making sure to get a little of the Greek yogurt and cilantro Tyler put on top—his bowl is also garnished with slices of fresh jalapenos.
“This is so good,” I say. “Honestly, I see why your mom was willing to cut ties with her entire family over it.”
“Fortunately, most of them came around in the end,” he says, grinning. He takes a huge bite with more jalapenos than seems wise, but doesn’t so much as flinch at the spice.
“So, your sister,” he says. “Is it always like that with her?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “She leans on me pretty hard.”
I’ve wanted to say so many things to Lauren for so long, especially that I think our well-meaning mother did her a disservice by treating her like she might break for her entire life—really, though, it was only the first few weeks after she was born early that Lauren was particularly fragile.
“You’d think by now she’d be better at handling the hard things on her own—she’s like a magnet for drama. Honestly, though, I blame our parents for enabling her for so long.”
It isn’t Lauren’s fault our parents have always fought her battles for her. I try not to resent her for it. Meanwhile, I’ve worked so hard for everything I have, yet I am the sibling who’s treated like a disappointment with a questionable career. It’s frustrating, to say the least.
“Have you ever felt invisible?” I ask Tyler.
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I have to laugh at the absurdity of my own question. No, Alix—a world-famous pop star will absolutely not relate to feeling invisible. Millions of people tracked his every move until he decided to make himself disappear on purpose.
“What?” he asks. “What’s funny?”
I gesture at his entire existence.
“You’re… you . I almost forgot what your life was like before.”
“You think famous people never feel invisible?”
My cheeks grow hot. “It’s hard to imagine, that’s all. The whole world knows who you are.”
“The whole world thinks they know,” he corrects. “But they never do. They know what they’re shown, and then they draw their own conclusions. They don’t know what’s going on under the surface, not really. So I think maybe it’s possible to feel even more invisible when you’re famous—everyone thinks they know who you are, but they really, really don’t. It’s disorienting. If I had to pick, I’d rather not be seen at all.” His eyelashes flutter as he glances down at his hands. “I guess, actually, I did pick that.”
I take in his words. What he’s saying makes complete sense.
“I know it’s not exactly the same, but I kind of feel like that in my own family,” I say. “It’s like no one sees me for me even though I’m right there—it’s like they see potential , but I’m never quite enough just as I actually am. My family has always disapproved of my career. It’s not lucrative enough. Not stable enough. Not serious enough. I’ve worked so hard, but it’s just never enough .”
I stare into the fire, collecting my thoughts.
“And now I’m writing this book, right? This major book. But I feel like they’d still disapprove if they knew about it, because the only books my parents and brother approve of are ones on the ‘classics’ shelves”—I exaggerate my air quotes—“or ones that were written by dead guys more than a hundred years ago.”
Tyler’s eyes are wide.
Maybe I’ve said too much.
“You haven’t even told your family who you’re writing about?”
“I haven’t told them about the book deal at all,” I admit, feeling a wave of sadness. It’s the biggest thing to ever happen in my career—I think it might actually kill me to tell them my big news only to be met with their not-so-subtle disapproval.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, those thick eyebrows knitting together in concern. “About all of it. I still don’t know who you’re writing about, and I know you can’t tell me. But I can already tell it’s going to be huge . And that you’re amazing—the perfect person for the job.”
My eyes well with tears, I can’t help it.
“Thank you,” I say. “That… means a lot.”
His holds my gaze. His eyes are gorgeous—but I miss his real eye color, the one the whole world knows but has most recently been seen by me alone.
“How are you feeling about the project?”
It’s emotional whiplash, going from thinking about Tyler and his lovely eyes to… Sebastian.
I scrunch up my nose in a way that must be particularly telling, because Tyler laughs.
“No good?” he says, amused.
“Oh, my work is fine,” I reply. “I’m just struggling to find a nice way to say, ‘If I could throw this guy’s voice memos in that fireplace, never to be recovered again, I might be doing the world a favor.’?”
His mouth falls open, and I snort out a laugh.
“Okay, maybe I’m just being dramatic because the latest ones were super obnoxious. It hasn’t been this bad the whole time— though I am pretty irritated with him right now. We were supposed to plan a meeting, but he’s been ghosting me for days. I feel like I’m the only one invested in making his life story sound good and that I’m basically all on my own.”
“That must be challenging,” he says. “Writing a book about someone you don’t like.”
It’s the first time I’ve thought about it so plainly, but it really is that simple. The whole world might be in love with Sebastian Green, but I, Alix Morgan, am not sure I’m a fan.
“Challenging is one word for it.”
Suddenly, the lights flicker. The night sky is fully dark now, but in the ambient glow of our building, the flurries are falling fast and furious, blown sideways by the wind.
“I know this isn’t the same,” Tyler says. “But when I was in the band, there were so many days when I just wasn’t sure I could do it anymore.” He smirks. “Spoiler alert, I know.”
The lights flicker again, wind swirling so hard the decorative pillows fly across the patio. I probably should’ve brought those inside.
“But yeah,” Tyler goes on. “For a long time, there was just this disparity between what I’d signed on for and what it actually became. I never wanted to be the guy who broke his contract or, like, ghosted people in the media. If I had known what I was in for when I agreed to it—”
He breaks off, lets out a sharp exhale.
“I thought the band would mean doing what I loved, having the time of my life, and getting paid enough that I’d never have to work again unless I just wanted to. I thought it would mean fans loved me too.” His face goes dark. “I didn’t sign up for all the drama, or for Jason’s bullshit. I didn’t sign up to be the bad guy to Seb’s hero.”
If only he knew Sebastian Green was at the center of both our professional problems.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, but that’s all I manage—I’m interrupted by an intense gust of wind, loud and howling just outside the windows.
The lights flicker three times and then go out completely.
The Yeti isn’t even here yet: if this is only the beginning, I shudder to think of how bad it might get tomorrow.
We’re drenched in darkness, everything pitch-black except for the warm glow of the flickering fire. When my eyes adjust, I can’t help but marvel at the way the shadows fall on Tyler’s face, making the cut of his cheekbones look exaggeratedly chiseled. His eyes sparkle even in near darkness.
“Well, this is an adventure,” I say, my insides doing a little flip.
“It might be like this for a while,” Tyler says. “Even with backup generators, it can take hours for maintenance to get the whole resort up and running again.”
“If only there were things we could do in the dark to pass the time.”
“If only,” he says with a grin, and that’s it—that’s all the invitation I need to close the distance between us. His long legs are stretched out on the rug; I climb onto his lap, facing him, one knee on either side.
“Maybe something like this?” I say, as he settles his hands on my hips and gives a little tug so we’re pressed even closer together.
I feel everything .
“Or even this?” he says, his lips so close I can practically taste them already.
He kisses me, soft and slow, his tongue flicking lightly over my bottom lip and my teeth—every teasing second makes me want to kiss him harder, deeper—but he takes his time. I savor the slowness for as long as I can, but at a certain point even he seems impatient for more, and once we give in, the kiss takes on a hungry new life of its own.
Tyler shifts, sitting up straighter, somehow pulling me even closer as I curl my legs around him. He’s hot beneath me, every solid inch of him extremely present despite the layers of clothing between us. His hands find the bare skin of my back under the hem of my shirt; his touch is electric, and the feeling that courses through me only makes me want more.
And he gives me more—I think, honestly, he’d give as much as I wanted tonight. We stay in the heady space of this push-and-pull makeout session for now, though, the tease and tension of it all, his hands there and then not, his purposely restrained kisses giving way to a feast, all of it so bright and hot I’m surprised it hasn’t restored power to the entire resort.
He’s just started kissing his way down my neck when there’s an unmistakable knock at my door.
In the middle of a blackout, in the middle of the night.
When we pull away, his face looks exactly how mine feels: perfectly disheveled with a touch of bewilderment. I imagine we’re thinking the same thing, too, that it must be Julie or River—someone with exclusive access to our penthouse floor—maybe with an update about the power situation.
Together, we fumble our way through the darkness toward my front door.
When I open it, I see one of Julie’s concierge desk assistants—the emergency lighting is surprisingly bright in the elevator landing—but she’s not alone.
Lauren stands on the other side of my door, a huge smile on her face.
“What are you doing here?” I manage, thrown by her presence. “ How are you here?”
“They had one last train going out tonight before the storm,” she says brightly. “I caught it just in time and thought I’d surprise you. So—surprise!”