She doesn’t even think of Owen until she realizes Kiley is tripping over herself as she hurries to stand up, saying, “Wait, shit, O—” and she understands that the clatter she’s hearing isn’t her own heartbeat in her ears. It’s his feet on the stairs.

Ryan grabs Kiley’s shoulder to stop her. “Give him a sec,” he says. “He’s fine, I’m sure he’s fine. Just give him a minute.”

“Fuck!” Lulu didn’t realize how drunk Kiley was until she starts crying, all of a sudden, like a switch got flipped. Her tears are sooty with mascara and eyeliner. “Fuck!” she says again.

Lulu is glad she didn’t see Owen’s face before he left. She’s always been spared that one small thing. She didn’t have to see it when he realized that what he’d thought was a private message from her had actually been broadcast to her followers and, soon after that, halfway across the internet.

She’s seen the aftermath, the wreckage, his body when it’s near hers always crackling with the hurt of how badly she betrayed him, but she’s never had to see the moment of it happening: the raw shock punching through him like a fist.

Because of course when he saw it for the first time, he didn’t know she’d sent it out like that by accident. He assumed it was a selfish betrayal: that Lulu wanted attention so badly she’d share something private like that in order to get it. And once she knew he thought she was capable of that kind of thing—even though he wanted to forgive her—even though she wanted to forgive him—it opened up a chasm between them.

Lulu has looked at him across a gap for so many months now.

“I have to,” Lulu starts. “I have to go talk to him.” She waits for someone to stop her, the way Ryan did with Kiley, but no one does. Then there’s nothing to do but walk up the stairs and face him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

OWEN IS SITTING on the floor in one of the empty rooms. His phone is out on the floor next to him, but he isn’t touching it. He’s just sitting there.

“Hey,” Lulu says. “Is it okay if I’m here for a minute?”

Owen doesn’t respond.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry that you had to see that again, and I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m just—I’m still so sorry, O. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I feel like I could say it forever, and it still wouldn’t change anything, or take back what I did, and I know that, so—”

“You shouldn’t be sorry,” Owen says. “I know it was an accident.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”