Kimmie was shocked, having assumed that Lolly and Steven had been having sex regularly for a year now. Unable to stop her meanness, Kimmie thought: Why else would a catch like Steven still be with her if she wasn’t putting out?

As if reading her sister’s mind, Lolly said, “I know it’s weird, but it was just easier to let people think we were boning. I would have told you the truth but you never asked.”

“Is it too late to ask now?” Kimmie quietly questioned.

Lolly told her she had been waiting to “do the deed” until she knew she was emotionally ready. She had wanted to be certain she was madly in love with the guy before she went all the way. Basically, she wanted it to be special, since it was a one-shot-once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. She watched Kimmie’s face as she told her all these things and was secretly satisfied to see her sister’s eyes grow wider and wider in surprise, but once Kimmie got over the shock of it all, it sunk in that her own experience was as far from Lolly’s as one could possibly get. And if Lolly’s first time having sex was all about love, then what did that mean about her own first time?

XV

The Greenwich Academy library was the last place Vronsky expected to find his cousin Beatrice after school on a Monday, but when he rounded the magazine racks, he saw her sitting at a table against the wall, clacking away on her gold MacBook.

Sensing she was no longer alone, Beatrice looked up from the essay she was plagiarizing from her stepbrother’s theology paper. “Of all the libraries, in all the towns, in all the world, he had to walk into mine,” she said to her cousin. “What up, cuz? Nice helmet head.”

Vronsky ran his fingers through his hair and flipped her off in jest, then sat down across from her, placing his motorcycle helmet on the table between them. “Naughty girl not answering your favorite cousin’s texts after posting a Close Friends InstaStory about sneaking out at two A.M. last night. I had to ride out here to make sure you weren’t floating facedown in some drug dealer’s hot tub.”

“Please, I could snort the whole school under the mirror-topped table,” Beatrice quipped. “And you only texted me, like, a few hours ago. I’m a busy bee, V, you know that.”

Vronsky reached across the table, flipped Beatrice’s laptop around in one quick motion, and stared at the screen. “Impressive. I was positive you’d be on some gossip site checking out Kendall’s latest lip gloss release.”

“Kylie’s the makeup mogul, you numchuck. Kendall’s the model!” Though as she was saying this she realized her cousin was purposefully teasing her.