Lulu is glad she hasn’t seen a mirror this morning. That’s probably the reason she’s bold enough to do it, she tells herself: to sit down next to Cass, cross-legged, on the bed.

“You want some real morning-after shit, this is it,” she says to Ryan. “I bet you let Cass brush her teeth first.”

“Nah,” Ryan says.

Cass bares them in a grin. “See?”

Lulu leans forward as if to examine Cass’s mouth. It’s all a joke, just part of the weird elongated prank she’s playing on herself by being here, except she’s been thinking about Sloane too much, and here she is again, on a bed with a girl, her body inclined forward. She feels the world shifting around her, gravity rearranging itself. Ryan’s camera doesn’t make noise when the shutter blinks, or maybe he’s not even bothering to take pictures.

Lulu thinks, This is definitely not, and then nothing else because, thank god, Owen is standing in the doorway, looking pained.

“If I was going to puke somewhere,” he says, “do you have a preference about where I do it?”

Once Owen’s stomach is empty he feels much better, so Cass takes him and Lulu back to the cars they left outside of Rich’s house, their first stop last night. “See you soon,” she says, and drives off fast.

Lulu turns to Owen. “So that was . . .” she starts.

“Yeah,” Owen says. “That was awesome. I’ve never done anything like it before. I didn’t even know we could do that. How long have you been holding out on me, Lu?”

“Cass and I met last weekend,” she says. “So not very long.” Lulu feels the weight of a conspiracy—small, inconsequential, but real—forming between them. She looks up at him and says, “It is weird, but I’m, like, into it, you know?”

“I do,” he says.

“Cool.”

Lulu laughs, and Owen laughs too. It feels warm for a second, and then Lulu thinks, It’s been a while since we, and hurt slices through her, sharp and merciless. She looks away and starts fumbling through her bag for her keys.

“Hey,” Owen says. He looks uncertain, at first, reaching out for her, but then his face breaks into a smile and he’s laughing, pulling her tightly against him. He musses her hair and kisses the top of her head a little too roughly, like he can mask the affection of the gesture. “Bring me with you next time too, okay?”