“I wanted to see if Patrick’s hair looked as dumb as I remember when he was trying to do that faux-hawk thing,” Lulu says.
Bea rolls her eyes. “God,” she says. “That was the worst.”
* * *
No wonder she was hard to find. Cassandra Velloro doesn’t have a Facebook profile, an Instagram, a Tumblr, or a Twitter. Lulu almost doesn’t bother searching Flash—why would someone who’s so obviously opposed to social media make an exception?
But then, the whole thing about Flash is that it’s there and then gone again—videos disappear a day after you post them, and there’s a private messaging system too. She thinks that Flash actually might appeal to Cass, whose favorite place in Los Angeles is a spot where no one can hear or see her. Plus, she’s BFFs with the founder’s brother.
And, in fact, there she is. Lulu follows her.
A few minutes later, Cass follows her back.
* * *
Lulu and Bea did Grey Goose shots in Isabel’s room, and they went to Lulu’s head too fast. Now she’s in the middle of the kind of expansive, tipsy feeling that makes everything in the world seem like a good idea. Lulu sends Cass a picture of herself standing still, surrounded by her friends dancing. I keep expecting someone to show up and rescue me, it says.
In the seconds after the message goes she feels incredibly, supremely dumb. She shouldn’t have gotten so fancy about it, all #aesthetic and stupid. Simpler would have been better. She should have just—
Cass breaks every messaging protocol Lulu has ever known and chats her back right away. I was just thinking about heading to The Hotel, she says. The picture shows her sitting in a room so dark that her body is mostly just a shadow on the screen.
And then: Come with?
Lulu slips out of the room before anyone can see her typing and ask who she’s talking to. She finds a couch to sit on and writes back
I’m in Brentwood
I don’t have my car here
I’ll pick you up
You sure?
I’m coming from Silver Lake.
Technically, all of this is out of my way.
Silver Lake. That makes sense, Lulu thinks, or she thinks it makes sense—she doesn’t know Cass or the neighborhood very well at all.
If you don’t mind, she says, and sends Cass a pin of the house’s location.
She’s concentrating so hard on not making any typos that she doesn’t notice Owen coming to sit down next to her.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Are you causing trouble?” he asks, gesturing at her phone.
Lulu blanches.
Owen catches himself. “That’s not—you know that’s not what I meant,” he says.
It probably wasn’t, really. That stupid Sloane Flash. Lulu hates that she can’t think of it without feeling two distinct, unbearable sensations: the warm, thrilled moment of taking it, and the sharp, hot shame when she realized who she’d sent it to.
“Sorry,” Owen says.
They’re definitely not going to talk about this now. Or ever, hopefully, but especially not now, on a night when Owen has some new girl hanging around, on which Lulu is drunk, on which Lulu is leaving, anyway, so—
“I’m heading out in a bit, I think,” she says.
“Is it because of me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, O.”
“Sorry,” he says again. He means it. This is the problem with Owen, the reason she can’t—that no one can—stay mad at him for too long.
“I know you are.”
A cry goes up from another room, and Lulu hears the distinctive rumble of Jules bellowing “Party fouuuuul!”
“How can you leave such a super-cool party?” Owen asks. “So sophisticated. So mature.”
“I know, right?”
Quiet falls between them. Lulu holds herself very still to keep from doing what she wants to do instinctively, which is lean her head against his shoulder. Her body is so convinced that it knows how to be with him.
“Are you just going home?” Owen asks.
“No.” Lulu doesn’t want to tell him about Cass, but she wants him to know that he’s not the only thing going on in her life anymore.
“Found a cooler scene?”
“Wasn’t hard to do.” Lulu smirks.
Owen laughs at her.
Lulu laughs at herself.
“I know I can’t, but I sort of wish I could go with you,” Owen says.
Impulsively, Lulu asks: “Why can’t you?”
“Oh,” Owen says. “I mean, I guess I figured you wouldn’t want me to.”
Lulu wants to ask about Kiley and can’t.
“It would be pretty weird,” she says. She can’t quite picture Owen—solid, comfortable, easygoing Owen—in the dark, strange space of The Hotel.
But it would also be a place she could show him. That the two of them could have together. One last secret, even if they aren’t going to be together like that anymore.
One more thing no Kiley can ever take from her.
“I should be getting back,” Owen says.
“You can,” Lulu agrees. “You should. But you can also come with me if you want.”
CHAPTER SIX
IF CASS IS pissed about Lulu inviting someone to join them, she doesn’t act like it. Lulu figures she’s relieved, probably. This way there’s no third-wheeling worries: just two girls, two boys, an abandoned building, and the night. Exactly the way it’s supposed to be.
Right?
The Hotel seems darker than it did last time. The fairy lights strung through the trees along the entryway aren’t on, and the moon is waning, turning thin in the sky. Owen makes a joke about being a kidnapping victim and Cass laughs politely.
“Lulu made it out okay,” she says.
“Lulu was the bait,” Owen says, straight-faced. “I’m the real prize.”
Cass throws a look over her shoulder at him in the back seat. For just an instant she’s razor sharp, as if a mask has fallen away, leaving the slice of her judgment raking over him. “No you’re not,” she says. And then, just as fast, she’s smiling again. “I mean, I hear Lulu’s the one with five thousand Flash followers.”