Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,65

meet her friends at a party, to kiss someone she’s dying to kiss, to allow herself fizz and pleasure and beauty and fun.

* * *

Bea doesn’t write Lulu back. Instead, Lulu watches Bea’s Flashes of herself preparing for the night—she’s spending it in, with Rich, while her parents are out at some party.

* * *

What are you wearing, Lulu asks Cass, and Cass responds with, No, no peeking.

Will I like it?

I hope so.

I think I will.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THE HOTEL IS dressed up for the occasion. There are lights in the trees that line the driveway and all of the cars are parked, neat and gleaming, in their spots. Uniformed valet attendants usher Lulu from her Ryde into the lobby. A waiter hands her a glass of champagne as soon as she walks in the door.

Lulu doesn’t know what she was expecting, but this is a grown-up party. Roman Sr. is holding court in one corner, and she recognizes a handful of minor celebrities milling around too: a girl who makes a living doing sponsored content on her Flash; a guy who turned his YouTube channel’s hyper-physical pranks into a career in action blockbusters.

There’s something slippery in the air tonight. It’s unnerving to watch a place that was a private hideaway become just another part of the adult world, a place you can transact your way into.

Lulu wishes she didn’t feel so weird about it. Isn’t she supposed to want to belong here? Shouldn’t she feel special and sophisticated, to be drinking expensive champagne among all of these glittery, wealthy, well-known people?

She doesn’t, though. She misses the raw quality that The Hotel had before it was finished, when it was still a secret. When it was just her and her friends, and no one could see them, or find them, or make them behave.

This place used to be so uncivilized.

She wonders how Cass is handling the end of her secret garden. She can’t find her right away. Instead, Lulu spots Ryan talking to the girl from Flash. He’s wearing a black button-down and skinny black jeans. He looks remote, slightly, like he’s one layer removed from everyone else in the room.

Cass is, predictably, trying to hide in a corner. She can’t camouflage herself tonight, though, because she looks too beautiful: She’s wearing a deep crimson dress cut low down the pale expanse of her back, revealing the line of her spine, the wings of her shoulder blades.

She looks like cream and blood, a breathing swirl of beauty and danger.

Lulu walks across the room to her. Cass has a champagne flute of her own. When Lulu kisses her, their mouths are made of sharpness and air. Cass smiles into the kiss. It only lasts a second. It sets Lulu’s blood on fire.

“You excited for this?” Cass asks quietly.

“What, the new year? Of course I am. I like a fresh start.”

“No,” Cass says. “Didn’t Ryan—he didn’t tell you about the surprise?”

“There’s another surprise? Is it going to be as cold as the pool was?”

Cass frowns. “He said he was gonna tell you,” she repeats. “But I guess he’s been busy. He probably forgot.” She looks around for him. “I guess it’s okay if I— So Ry printed a bunch of the pictures he took from the process, and he says the upstairs is all decorated in them. It’s like an art show.”

“Oh, cool!”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“I don’t like looking at pictures of myself.”

“No one does, Cass.”

“Says the princess of Flash.”

“Those aren’t of me,” Lulu says. “Well, not always. And I thought these weren’t of you, mostly. Wasn’t that his whole thing? That he didn’t like taking pictures of hot girls?”

“Are you saying I’m hot?”

Lulu dips in and kisses Cass’s neck, just because she can. Cass looks pink and pleased when Lulu pulls away.

“Yeah, no, I’m just being weird and paranoid,” Cass continues. “When he took them, I sort of thought he’d let me look at them before he put them up. But I’m probably stressing over nothing. I’d bet he decided to scrap those, and it’s just gonna be pictures of walls and wires and construction equipment.”

“Dude stuff.”

“Dude stuff.”

Cass lifts her glass, and she and Lulu do a little toast.

“Heyyyyy!” Kiley slides over to them. The sequins on her dress rub against one another, and give off a low, soft murmur when she moves.

“Hey,” Lulu says.

“Happy New Year! You look great, Cass,” Kiley reports. “You and Lulu both, duh. You guys want a picture together?”

“No phones at The Hotel,” Lulu says automatically.

Cass shakes her head. “He