Raven:long live… what do we call it?
Calliope:The name must be iconic. Etched in legend. Sparkle included.
Sierra:…what about The Inner Circle?
Jett:Say less.
Sierra: Making it now. Hold please.
A new notification slid down a moment later.
? The Inner Circle ?
Sierra added Lauren to the chat.
Sierra:Everyone, this is Lauren
Calliope:Welcome to The Inner Circle, Lauren. No takesies backsies.
Raven:welcome.
Jett:New chat. Who dis? Upgrade unlocked.
Lauren:oh. this is… a lot
Calliope:you’ll get used to it :)
Calliope:also for the record I have my own plot brewing
Sierra:oh
Calliope:actor named Margot, three weeks in, very dramatic, will report
Raven:god speed
I pocketed my phone.The Chaos Covenstill pinned at the top of my feed, alive and weird as ever. Just one more chat below it now. Some thingsnamed themselves.
Lauren answered the door.
They stood in one of Sierra’s oversized flannels, camera strap still around their neck, lipstick on the side of two fingers and a streak of foundation along the inside of their wrist. Behind them, the apartment smelled like coffee and the particular cedar-and-dark-room smell that meant Sierra had been printing all afternoon.
“Jett!”
“Hey, Lauren.”
They stepped back, and I saw the apartment. Really saw it. New prints on the drying wire above the radiator. Not the architecture shots Sierra had been working on for months. These were portraits. Lauren at the window. Lauren on the fire escape, half-turned, caught. Lauren mid-laugh with their hand raised like they were trying to block the camera and losing. All of them lit the way Sierra lit everything she loved like it was worth taking seriously.
Sierra came out of the kitchen with two mugs and stopped when she saw me.
“Lens cap.” I held it up.
“God, I’ve been looking everywhere.” She set the mugs on the coffee table, took it from me, and looked between me and Lauren like she was deciding whether to be embarrassed by the prints still drying on the wire. She wasn’t. That was the thing about Sierra when she was happy. She stopped hiding what mattered.
“She took about forty pictures before she let me look at any of them.”Lauren sat cross-legged on the couch, entirely at home, picking up one of the mugs. “I was not consulted.”
“You said yes to all of them.”
“After the fact. That’s not consent, Sierra. That’s retroactive appreciation.”
