“I told you that party was going to suck,” Ryan says to Cass. Then, to Lulu, he says, “Oh, I mean, sorry, it was your friend’s thing, yeah?” In the candles’ flickering, forgiving light, Ryan looks searingly romantic. He’s dark haired and handsome, with high, finely cut cheekbones and a wide slash of a mouth.

“I thought it sucked too,” Lulu says. She reaches across the table and plucks the pen from Cass’s hand. She may not exactly know what’s going on here, but that doesn’t mean she can’t act like she does. That’s one of the rules: Behave like you belong. “And he’s not really my friend.”

“Why did you go, then?” Cass asks.

They’ve only known each other for half an hour, and once again, Lulu can’t seem to keep herself from telling Cass the truth. “Saturday night,” she says. “I don’t know, it was something to do.”

“Why did you go, Cass?” Ryan asks. “Because as I recall, you don’t think much of Paisley—”

“Patrick,” she corrects.

“Or parties in general.”

“Broadening my horizons,” Cass says. “And hey, look, I made a friend.”

Lulu’s phone buzzes in her bag. She pulls it out and finds that her message to Bea still hasn’t gone through. Instead, Bea sent her: not funny srsly where the hell are you.

Left on an adventure but got a little stranded. Can you come get me? Lulu writes back, relieved to see the delivery confirmation pop up almost as soon as she’s hit SEND.

“Hey,” Ryan says. “No phones up here. There’s only one rule at The Hotel—”

“I didn’t tell her,” Cass says apologetically. “Sorry, Lulu, this is Ryan’s, like, thing.”

“My friend was just saying she’s leaving the party,” Lulu explains. “I think she’s going to come get me. Give me a ride home.”

“You sure?” Cass says. “I got you here. I mean, I can—”

“Thanks,” Lulu says. “But I’m good, really. Can you give me the address to give to her?”

“What the hell was that?” Bea asks. Lulu watches Cass disappear as the gate slides closed behind them. Cass is so pale she looks like a ghost against the driveway’s dim. “Did you get a good Flash or two out of it, at least?”

Lulu blinks at her own reflection where it appears in the windowpane, shimmering under a passing streetlight. She realizes that The Hotel is the first place she’s been in a year, at least, where she didn’t take a picture or a video. Even before Ryan told her she couldn’t use her phone, it didn’t even occur to her to try.