“Have you and Lulu been to a lot of parties together, Jason?” Bea asks sweetly. God, even when she’s being a pain, Lulu loves her. What an exquisite bitch.

But Oliver isn’t a junior who can be cowed by Bea’s candy-coated rudeness. “Please. Everyone knows the girl is thirsty,” he says. “Everyone knows this girl has got the thirst. Speaking of which. Ryan. Is this one your lady?”

“This one’s not anyone’s anything,” Cass says, ducking out from where Oliver is trying to throw an arm around her shoulders.

Don’t do that, Lulu wants to tell her. Don’t let them know they’re making you uncomfortable, but it’s too late. She understands better than ever why Cass avoids parties: She’s sharp enough to understand so much of what’s going on at them—and she can’t hide the look on her face that broadcasts how dumb she thinks all of it is.

“Oh damn, an independent woman,” Oliver says. “A free agent. Got a lot of single women at this party, actually.” Lulu sees him realize it, but there’s no time for her to stop what comes out of his mouth next. “Got a lot of options for you, Lulu, huh.”

Lulu freezes. She and Bea have never talked about the Sloane snap, certainly not in terms of what it meant about her, and she doesn’t think Cass or Ryan knows about it at all. So she could just write his comment off as drunk nonsense. If she ignores it, maybe everyone else will too? Or is Oliver going to try to press the point? Will they even really get what he means if he does?

Bea steps up easily. She isn’t afraid of them, probably because she knows the boys are too distracted by the girl they think is their prey to see her best friend coming. “Sounds like you’re looking,” she says to Oliver. She actually physically puts herself between Jason and Oliver and Lulu, making her body available to them as a distraction. “Show me who you’ve got your eye on.”

“Who don’t I have my eye on, more like,” Oliver says, turning away from Lulu and Cass to survey the party. “Okay, see that girl there, in the pink?”

Bea nods.

Thank you, Lulu thinks at her back, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

While Lulu was distracted, Cass was conferring with Ryan. Now she steps in close and says, “Hey, um, I think we’re gonna take off.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah.” Cass shrugs.

“I’m sorry if Bea—”

“No, no, it’s not her fault I can’t hang,” Cass says. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even come, probably. I don’t do well in these situations.”

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Oh,” Cass says, and Lulu knows she said the wrong thing.