It’s a bad lie, but Kiley is too drunk to notice. They’ve only been there an hour or so, but she’s already looking pretty sloshy, the alcohol loose and glistening under her skin. “No,” she says. “It’s over here.”

“Great!”

Now there’s nothing to do but brush themselves off and follow her.

Kiley looks at the phone still in Lulu’s hand. “Is it true that you have, like, five thousand Flash followers?” she asks.

Lulu says, “Whoa. Um. Yeah.”

She doesn’t know how to feel about that number. It’s sort of a lot, and sort of not, really. It’s not like anyone’s offering her sponsored content deals or auditions for television shows on the strength of it, anyway. She’s definitely not a Kardashian, or some famous heiress or Instagram model. Mostly it’s just that Owen’s dad is famous, like seriously famous, like eventually-definitely-gonna-be-in-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame famous, and so people care about Owen, and then, for a while, people cared about her.

And then there was that other thing.

As if on cue, Kiley says, “You always do such cool stuff. It’s not surprising. I didn’t see the one with Sloane—”

“We’ve gotten some pretty good stuff here tonight,” Bea says, cutting her off. “With the, um, we were posing with some of the art. I think maybe this is Lu’s finest work yet.”

Lulu shoots her a death glare, and Bea smiles sweetly.

“Sorry,” Kiley says. “Am I asking too many questions? Am I too drunk?” She leans in conspiratorially. “I’m still figuring out getting—ummm—drinking—how to get drunk right.”

“You’re fine,” Bea says. She puts a hand on Kiley’s arm. Lulu wishes she were less annoyed by that. The part of her that can’t bring herself to be rude to Kiley wants Bea to do it for her. “How do you know Isabel?”

Kiley opens a door that leads into a much more normal-looking bedroom. “From, uh, we used to go to the same ballet studio,” she says. “When I did ballet. Oh, look, there’s the vodka.”

Bea and Lulu are still in the hallway. Bea knocks her shoulder against Lulu’s. “Whatever,” she murmurs. “She’s a baby.”

It doesn’t matter if Kiley is cool or not, Lulu thinks. She’s really just very pretty, and she doesn’t have a history with anyone here, which means she has what Lulu wants: the ability to get drunk unself-consciously, and meet someone new, and feel like she belongs places. To be excited, and exciting.