In the spirit of sisterhood, Lulu lets her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LULU STANDS OUTSIDE of The Hotel’s gates with empty hands. Cass texted her the code this morning, with an invitation to come hang out. Lulu recited it to herself on the drive over, across the long, hot plane of the freeway, and then as she wound her way through the lush, quiet neighborhoods, up and up into the hills.

She knew it was stupid to be scared, but she worried anyway—that she would get there and the message with the code wouldn’t load on her phone, that she wouldn’t be able to call Cass and ask to be let in, that she was in some kind of fairy tale where, when you tried to come back in daylight, on your own, you couldn’t even find the door.

But The Hotel isn’t a fairy tale. It’s just a place. Lulu enters the numbers and the gate swings open for her as easily as it does for Cass. Lulu steers her car along its tree-lined driveway with the windows down, one arm stretched out to grab palmfuls of the warm, dry air.

The front door is unlocked, but she can’t find Cass or Ryan in the lobby. Upstairs, they aren’t in either of the finished rooms. She’s about to go back down when she hears Cass call, “Ryan?”

“No,” Lulu says.

“Hey, Lu!”

“Where are you?” Lulu turns in a circle in the hallway, like Cass is camouflaged in it somewhere.

“Walk to the end of the hall,” Cass calls. Her voice is muffled by the space between them; she sounds like she’s underwater. “Through the last door on your left.”

In the room, Lulu is hit by a wall of sunlight, echoing white off the floors and the walls. She holds a hand up to her eyes instinctively, squinting.

This must be where whoever works on The Hotel when she’s not around leaves their tools: The ground is littered with tarps and rollers and tool kits and cans of paint. Past them is a sliding glass door that opens onto a balcony. Cass is sitting out there in a folding chair with her back to Lulu. Her hair glimmers copper under the sun.

“Come hang,” Cass says, raising a lazy arm in greeting.

“Hey,” Lulu says. She makes her way across the room, careful not to step on stray nails in her thin-soled ballet flats.

“Did you see Ryan on the way in?”

“No.”

“Huh.”

“Should I have?”

Cass shrugs. “He wandered off a while ago. I thought he might be downstairs.”

“Should we go looking for him?”

“Nah. I’m not worried.” Cass stretches her legs out to rest them on the balcony’s top railing. She’s wearing a pair of jeans so worn that they might be actual vintage, not new-made-to-seem-old. Lulu wonders if the denim is as soft as it looks.