Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,13

building, and the night. Exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

Right?

The Hotel seems darker than it did last time. The fairy lights strung through the trees along the entryway aren’t on, and the moon is waning, turning thin in the sky. Owen makes a joke about being a kidnapping victim and Cass laughs politely.

“Lulu made it out okay,” she says.

“Lulu was the bait,” Owen says, straight-faced. “I’m the real prize.”

Cass throws a look over her shoulder at him in the back seat. For just an instant she’s razor sharp, as if a mask has fallen away, leaving the slice of her judgment raking over him. “No you’re not,” she says. And then, just as fast, she’s smiling again. “I mean, I hear Lulu’s the one with five thousand Flash followers.”

“That does seem to be the fact of the day,” Lulu says. “Also, currently, five thousand and one.”

Since last time they were here someone has spray-painted actual lines for parking spaces directly in front of The Hotel, which makes it feel less magical. Lulu is pleased that Cass pointedly ignores them, pulling her car in so that it straddles two spots. The same black Range Rover, presumably Ryan’s, is parked sideways to take up the remaining three. “Full for the night,” Cass observes as they step out.

Lulu inhales lungfuls of cold, clean air. Last time she was here she was so caught up in the strangeness of it that she couldn’t see details, but now smaller things come into focus: the spray of pink jasmine being trained to grow along The Hotel’s second story, and the soft rustle of its leaves and blooms in the night. She listens to their small sounds and breathes that blank winter air and feels something go loose across her chest.

The lobby is brightly lit, and from outside Lulu can see a reality TV show playing on a flat-screen installed on a wall. A piece of printer paper tacked underneath it reads WARNING: THESE PREMISES ARE BEING MONITORED BY CAMERAS. Aside from the TV and the sign, the room is mostly bare.

Ryan is alone inside. He’s pacing around, smoking a clove cigarette and looking broody. Lulu wishes Bea were here so that they could make fun of him for being such a pretentious hipster together.

Instead, Cass greets Ryan with a kiss on the cheek. He slings a proprietary arm around her shoulders. “Ryan, you remember Lulu,” Cass says. “And this is Owen.”

“Owen Lewis, right?” Ryan asks. “I know your dad.”

Lulu glances at Owen. He hates talking about his dad. They get along—they’re pretty close, actually—but people get kind of weird about it.

“He played my dad’s seventieth last year,” Ryan goes on. “He’s a cool guy.”

“Oh,” Owen says. “Yeah. I remember that party.” His dad’s band isn’t usually the type to do that kind of thing. Lulu wonders how much money Riggs Senior had to spend to get them to agree.

But it’s a good thing, maybe, because the dick-measuring tension that was in the air feels like it deflates, then disappears. They both have dads people sometimes get weird about; tonight, at least, no one is going to make it weird.

Ryan turns to Cass. “So what are we getting up to?” he asks.

“Aren’t you supposed to be hosting us?” she returns.

“Fuck, you’re right, I am!” Ryan laughs. He detaches himself from Cass and looks around the space, frowning at its emptiness. “Hope you weren’t expecting a cool party or anything.”

“Lulu’s been here before,” Cass reminds him.

“We just left a cool party,” Owen says. “Wasn’t that fun, turns out. So we’re definitely open to other ideas.”

* * *

Ryan takes them up to his room and instructs them to gather supplies: blankets and pillows and candles, plus a big canvas bag and a bottle of vodka. The space doesn’t look much more fully inhabited than last time Lulu was here. She wonders where Ryan actually lives.

She doesn’t ask, though, out of habit. She’s so used to pretending to know more than she does that she’s almost forgotten how to let someone know she’s curious. Plus, Ryan and Owen are deep in a conversation she doesn’t want to join or interrupt. Something about the Dodgers’ spring training prospects.

Instead, she grabs the bag—it’s annoyingly heavy—and drapes herself in a blanket. She follows Cass back down the stairs. “You guys do this often?” she asks.

“Sort of,” Cass says.

“Usually without two randos along for the ride?”

“The Hotel is always changing,” Cass explains. “A year ago it was too dangerous to go inside any