Lulu doesn’t think of herself as a photographer. She loves taking pictures for her Flash, but that’s different. It’s not art; it’s just easy. She found out the difference when she tried to take a photo class last year and wound up hating it—all the technical talk, f-stops and exposure length and blah blah blah. But she recognizes Ryan’s instinct: She knows exactly what it’s like to see a moment and want very badly to figure out how to keep it for yourself.

“Cass and I were just talking,” Ryan says. He barely looks at the camera as he turns it on and focuses it on Cass. “She says you’re big on—”

“I thought we covered that,” Lulu says. She tries to sound polite. What planets have fallen into alignment? Why does the universe insist on reminding her, over and over again, of Flash, and then, inevitably, of Sloane, and that night?

“I fucking hate Flash,” Ryan says. “Roman was smart to make it, but it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Another platform where all anyone does is make themselves look good.”

Lulu wants to ask more about Roman, but she knows better than to pry. She remembers the way Ryan and Owen assessed each other last night: the way Ryan said my dad, your dad, and that put them on the same terrain. No one here knows who Lulu’s dad is, or cares.

“Are you making me look bad?” Cass asks.

Ryan doesn’t answer her. He’s holding the camera casually, but Lulu can see, in its tiny screen, that he has Cass neatly framed. He says, “No one ever records their hangovers. Their actual first-thing-in-the-morning selves. I woke up like this is total fucking bullshit. It’s all just, like, filters, and the best fifteen seconds of the party.”

“That’s not exactly—” Lulu starts, and then stops herself. Does she really want to defend Flash? She likes it, but Ryan’s not wrong about how she uses it, especially lately: to make her life look beautiful and interesting, especially when she’s lonely, or uncertain, or bored. “So you’re doing something different?”

“I don’t photograph people, mostly,” Ryan says. “That’s not what I’m interested in, as subjects. It just feels cheap, you know? It’s not hard to take good pictures of hot girls.”

“What’s this, then?”

Ryan gives Lulu a look she doesn’t understand. “Mostly what I’m doing is process shots,” he says. “The Hotel as it’s being rebuilt. I’m documenting the whole thing so I can have a record of it.”

“It’s one of our projects,” Cass says. “While the space is being made, we make things in it.”

Ryan holds the camera up a bit, and it draws Cass’s focus. Lulu watches him watch Cass smile.

“You want to come sit with me, Lu?” Cass asks.