Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,4
face: small, secret. Oh, Lulu thinks. “A nice one.”
“I like nice boys,” Lulu says. “And, whatever. What else am I doing tonight?”
“Good point.”
* * *
Ryan must be Ryan Riggs, Lulu realizes as they head inside and up the stairs. Roman’s little brother. He goes to Lowell too, so it makes sense that he and Cass know each other.
Lulu doesn’t know anything else about him, though, which is sort of unusual. Private schools in LA are a very incestuous little ecosystem: Colonies from elementary school spread and mutate into middle and high schools, so that everyone knows someone who knows someone else. But Ryan had a private tutor until his freshman year, and he hasn’t been around much since then. She doesn’t really see him out at parties, anyway.
The room Ryan fell asleep in is still heavy with the scent of his body, a warm, animal funk that makes Lulu think of Owen, and then makes her wish she hadn’t. The rest of the space is very teenage boy too: There’s a twin bed pushed against one wall, the mattress covered by a tangle of white sheets and a white comforter; a coffee table with a vape pen, a handful of empty cartridges, and a collection of lighters on it; then, on the floor, a stack of books and a stack of external hard drives, plus an enormous Mac desktop with a pair of nice speakers plugged into it. Not much else.
Ryan doesn’t flick on the lights when they come in. Instead he goes out to the balcony, brings in an armful of candles, sets them on the table, and lights them.
“You’re getting very witchy, Ry,” Cass says.
“I’m learning about atmosphere,” he returns.
Cass sits on the floor like she did in the bathroom, this time with her back against the bed frame. Ryan settles himself next to her. He doesn’t touch her, but he could.
Lulu knows that distance well. It’s a suggestive positioning of bodies—close enough for warmth, but far enough that contact has to be intentional. It occurs to her that she’s definitely the third wheel in this extremely weird situation.
She sits facing them, cross-legged on the floor. Lulu is relieved when Cass pulls the vape off the table and charges it up before taking a hit. She inhales deeply, and exhales a curtain of white that obscures her face as it drifts toward the ceiling.
Lulu’s not usually much of a smoker—doesn’t like the heady, uncertain way it makes her feel, the unpredictable nature of her own self when she’s high—but at least soon they’ll all be messed up, and she can stop wondering if she should have left before they came up the stairs.
“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