Chapter 25
25
This is not what I had in mind for tonight. Not at all.
In fact, I think it’s safe to say this is the furthest thing from what I had in mind. I should have explicitly told Lauren not to come instead of using the storm as an excuse—lesson learned.
“Did you not get my text?” I ask as Lauren steps inside.
“What text?”
“The one where I told you Chloe was all good with you crashing at her place tonight? I texted you, like, four hours ago.”
“Wait, seriously?” She fishes her phone out of her tote bag, opens up our message thread to look. “Oh. No, I totally didn’t get any texts from you today.”
She holds up her phone so I can see it, its light too bright in this darkness. My text—which I distinctly remember sending, because I felt palpable relief at Chloe’s willingness to help out—is very much not there.
“At least I made it here before the storm!” Lauren says, heading down the hall to give Puffin a chin scratch.
Tyler puts a hand on my lower back and leans in close.
“Rain check?” he murmurs.
“Yes, please. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He’s so much more understanding than most guys would be if their hot date had just been interrupted. “I’ll go find some candles for you—maybe we can do breakfast?”
I nod. “Breakfast would be amazing. Thanks for understanding.”
He slips out, and I wave goodbye before shutting the door.
“I bet this place looks incredible with the lights on!” Lauren calls out from somewhere deep in the shadows of the penthouse, her voice echoing from the high ceilings. “Where should I sleep tonight?”
I find her in the living room, her face pressed up against one of the windows even though it’s too dark out there to see much of anything.
“Lauren,” I say, watching as she continues to just… make herself at home. “I kind of have a lot of work to do.”
“In the middle of the night?” she says, genuinely clueless. “In a blackout?”
“No, I mean in general—this really isn’t the best time for me to host anyone.”
She glances over her shoulder, a teasing grin on her face. “Sure looked like you were enjoying your hosting duties with that random guy when I showed up.”
“Tyler’s not just some random guy—”
As if on cue, Tyler returns, two Target bags in hand. They’re full of votives and tea lights and long white tapers still connected by the wick.
So. Many. Candles.
“Think this will be enough?” he says, handing the bags over.
Something about the ridiculous number of candles strikes me as absurdly funny. “Looks like you robbed a candle factory—I think we’ll be good.”
Behind me, Lauren lightly clears her throat.
Because everyone who invites themselves over unannounced, interrupting one of the best kisses of the last decade, is apparently entitled to an introduction.
“Tyler, this is my sister, Lauren—Lauren, meet Tyler.”
I’m thankful for the darkness. She was very into True North back in the day and took Jett Beckett’s disappearance pretty hard. At least she won’t recognize him tonight in such low lighting. Tomorrow, though, in daylight… that could be a problem.
“Good to meet you,” Tyler says diplomatically, like he didn’t overhear every word of our call this afternoon. “How was your trip?”
“Not bad at all,” she replies. “I rushed to the station and got there just in time for their last train out—lucky, right?”
So lucky.
“Even luckier,” she goes on, “the concierge knew exactly who Alix was. It was meant to be!”
She sounds so sincerely excited to be here.
There’s no use fighting it: it’s late, there’s no power, and there’s a ton of snow on the way. Like it or not, Lauren is staying here tonight.
“Guest bedroom is on the left,” I say. “And you’re on your own for breakfast—there’s a café down in the village. I’ll leave an extra key out.”
She flings her arms around me. “Thank you, Alix! I’m glad I didn’t get the text you tried to send—I missed you so much.”
Her hug ends as abruptly as it began; she disappears down the hall, Puffin trotting happily behind.
Once I’m sure she’s out of earshot, I let out a long sigh.
“If you need anything, you know where to find me,” Tyler says quietly, and I feel his fingertips graze my lower back. “See you for breakfast?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
He kisses me, softly and way too quickly, and then he’s gone.
I sleep like the dead, past the point of dreaming, and wake up to the Yeti. Everything outside is blanketed in thick white snow—and it’s still coming down.
On my nightstand, the clock flashes. Probably too soon for the power to have been completely restored, I think, but I’m glad to have any at all.
I didn’t bother plugging my phone in last night, given the lack of electricity, so it’s still somewhere in the living room and very much in need of a charge—I have no idea if Tyler is awake yet. I brush my teeth, throw on a fresh pair of joggers and one of my softest racerback tanks, and leave a serving of Puffin’s favorite food in his dish.
I see no sign of Lauren. I’m guessing she stayed in, given the raging blizzard outside, and is still asleep—though I suppose it’s possible she might have ventured out to get breakfast at the café.
I head over to Tyler’s, eager to pick up where we left off last night. When I get to his door, though, everything feels too still. I don’t smell coffee or waffles or bacon, don’t hear the sound of anything sizzling on the stove.
I knock.
He doesn’t answer.
The quiet is unsettling. I start second-guessing everything: Maybe it’s earlier than I thought and he’s not awake yet? Maybe Julie and River needed his help with something related to the storm? Maybe I should just head back to my place and get breakfast going on my own.
But then I hear the faint sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, and it opens. I smile on instinct, excited to see him—
It fades as soon as I actually see him.
Something’s wrong.
He’s got dark circles under his eyes, and his expression looks empty. Not angry… just vacant. Exhausted.
“What?” I say. “What is it?”
Tyler opens his door wider, gestures for me to come inside. On his kitchen island sits his laptop, a window open to his email inbox.
Or, rather, upon closer inspection: my email inbox.
No. No no no no no nooooooo.
I forgot to log out and close the browser before giving his laptop back, I realize, so of course it would have been on the screen when he opened the computer again. When I think back to the day I returned it to him—the day I traded it for the brand-new one from River—my stomach sinks.
Not only did I forget to log out, but I left the worst possible email open: the one from Gloss inviting me to spill whatever juicy gossip I might know—which also explicitly mentions the memoir. I clearly remember slamming the laptop shut so I wouldn’t be tempted by it.
“The book you’re writing is Sebastian Green’s ?” Tyler asks.
I was wrong before—his expression isn’t vacant. It’s hurt .
“Are there parts about me in the book?” he asks evenly.
As if he doesn’t already know the answer.
“Tyler,” I say, the first of us to break eye contact.
His name hangs in the air between us.
“I’m sure he has nothing but glowing things to say about me.” His voice is tinged with sarcasm, a rare glimpse of the man he once was. “Hopefully you know me well enough by now to not buy into his bullshit.”
Tears well up in my eyes; I blink them away.
“I don’t have much control over what he says in the book,” I say. “Just how it’s written.”
“So that’s a yes.”
I nod. “Yes to him painting you in a bad light. No to me believing it.”
“But you’re still writing it— his side of the story. Just his.”
A statement of fact, not question.
“It’s his memoir. It’s my job ,” I counter. “You could tell your story if you wanted to.”
Tyler’s eyes meet mine, steely and hard. “I think it’s a little late for that.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
He holds my gaze, like he’s actually considering it: what it would be like to come out of hiding now, after all these years. How his side of the story would be the story of the year—how the attention and scrutiny would almost certainly be even more intense than before, at the apex of his fame.
“You don’t have to be the one to write it for him, though, right?” he says, a flicker of hope in his eyes.
“And explain why I suddenly feel like I can’t write it… how, exactly?”
“Tell them you’re having a hard time writing the book since Seb keeps ghosting you, maybe? I don’t know.” His thick brows knit together. “I’m just saying, you could walk away if you wanted to.”
“Easy for you to say—I don’t have any childhood friends waiting to pay my rent for the next year if I break my contract.”
As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I know I’ve said the wrong thing.
“ Easy ?” Tyler says, incredulous. “Nothing about the past decade has been easy.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say.
Outside, the wind howls.
“It wasn’t easy to be blindsided into joining the band,” he says evenly. “It wasn’t easy being made into a villain just so Jason could line his own pockets at my expense. And it sure as hell wasn’t easy to realize my only shot at ever being happy was to leave it all behind and start over.”
He shakes his head, looks away.
“I’ve tried so hard to leave all of that in the past, but this—putting it all in a book—it just immortalizes it. Who I was then, who Seb thought I was.”
I reach out, take his hand.
He doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t look at me, either.
“Tyler,” I say gently, wait for him to meet my eyes.
Finally, he does. The frost of bitterness has melted away, but not the exhaustion.
“I know that isn’t who you are. And I know it hasn’t been easy—that none of this has been easy for you. I didn’t mean it how it came out. I just meant that I literally won’t have money for rent or food if I back out of my contract, especially since I’m on thin ice with my landlord as it is. Not to mention I don’t want to burn bridges with the publisher.” I sigh. “It’s… just… complicated.”
Tyler slumps onto a barstool at his kitchen counter, puts his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you’re in a tough spot. And I know you’re conflicted about it, I shouldn’t have implied otherwise. But… I… I just—”
“Hate it?” I supply.
“Yeah.”
I sit on the barstool next to his, wrap my arm around him. He doesn’t fight me.
“I hate it, too,” I say.
I feel the rise and fall of his thick, muscular shoulders as reality continues to sink in.
“If it helps,” I go on, “I had a video call with Sebastian to get clarity on some stuff he said, and it turned out he’d just worded things badly. I don’t think he’s a good communicator, like, at all. But I think it’s important you know I’ve been doing my best to make sure the book is fair to everyone mentioned in it. That conversation was before I even knew you… were you.”
Tyler gives a half-hearted laugh. “I’m not sure if that helps or not, knowing some of what he’s said was so bad you had to have a call about it,” he says. “But I do appreciate you doing all you can to fix it.”
“I’m amazed we had a call at all, honestly. He’s so bad at getting back to me.”
“Sounds like him.” Tyler shakes his head. “His time is more valuable than everyone else’s, always has been. Does whatever he wants, but only if he wants to. Made for fun band dynamics.”
His words sound awfully familiar, just flipped. It’s almost the exact same thing Sebastian said in one of his voice memos—but about Jett , not himself.
“I promise,” I say, and wait for Tyler to meet my eyes. When he does, I start again. “I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this situation as good as it can be.”
I won’t be able to make it entirely painless for Tyler, I know that. But I can keep questioning the things Sebastian says that feel exaggerated or unfair, maybe talk him into a kinder edit.
Tyler puts a hand to my face, leans his forehead against mine, and closes his eyes. In a way, it’s almost as intimate as a kiss—being this close, drawn together by mutual frustration and not just the heat of the moment.
Undeniably, though, the heat is still there, too. We both shift at the same time: he’s going to kiss me, and I want it just as badly as I did last night. His lips find mine, soft and gentle and warm. He pulls me in close, tugs at my hips until I find myself sitting on his lap, both of us on a single barstool. He wraps his arms around me, strong and safe and so, so hot.
I kiss him more intensely, as if this magical snow globe world we’ve found ourselves in is about to break, as if this might be as close as we’re ever able to get.
I want it to last, I realize. For all the ways I’ve been wounded in the past, for all the times I thought I only wanted something like this just for fun—to prove I was still even capable of fun— this is a man who treats me like I’m worthy of something enduring, something special. He didn’t even question the part of the email where I had the chance to cash in on his secrets; he’s been nothing but trusting of me, nothing but understanding. He didn’t lash out at me when he was hurting like Blake always did—he pulled me in closer.
And he’s kissing me like he never wants this to end, either.
His fingers tangle in my hair, and his five-o’clock shadow will almost certainly leave my lips red and swollen. I don’t care. I want more.
His hands make their way down my body: neck, shoulders, sides, hips. I’ve just felt the graze of his fingertips, hot against the bare skin of my stomach, when a blood-curdling shriek from the elevator landing rips through the silence.
We jolt apart.
That was Lauren, no doubt about it.
Tyler runs to his front door, and I follow. I hold my breath, bracing myself for what we’ll find on the other side of it. He whips it open and goes pale as a ghost.
Out on the landing stands none other than Sebastian Green, clad in the world’s tackiest blizzard couture—and behind him, River Wu, looking sheepish but not altogether sorry.
In the open doorway of my penthouse, Lauren stares at them, jaw all the way on the floor like she is in complete disbelief that two-fifths of True North is right in front of her in the flesh . She shifts her gaze to me, eyes full of stars, and then to Tyler.
Oh. Oh no.
In slow motion, I realize this train wreck is happening whether or not I jump out in front to try and stop it. Context is everything: I didn’t have it when I met Tyler.
Lauren does.
“Is that— Jett Beckett ?” she says, confusion eclipsing her fangirl moment.
Sebastian turns his attention, for the first time, to Tyler; it’s this that finally inspires him to take off his sunglasses. He doesn’t even seem to notice as they slip from his fingers and fall to the floor.
“Holy shit,” he says. “Look who’s back from the dead.”