I shook my head and smiled, scrunching up my feet to make room for her to sit at the foot of my bed.

“Coach would kill me.”

“You could come cheer with me?”

“I’ll bring my pompoms,” I said with a smile. “When’s Jon getting in?”

She beamed at the mention of her boyfriend. “Tomorrow afternoon. He’ll be here for dinner. I’m so glad I get to spend some time with him before he has to go back to Arizona; this long-distance thing is killing me.”

“I bet. So no Turkey Bowl for him either, huh?”

Penny made a face and shook her head. “He would take it too seriously anyway. He’s so competitive.”

This squared with my experience of him. Jon was shorter than me by several inches and, perhaps because of this, seemed doubly intent on broadcasting his masculinity whenever I saw him. He was the sort of man who went to the gym every day and got too invested in the outcome of sporting events he wasn’t participating in. His shoulders were broad and his chin square, his countenance that of a grouchy bulldog.

“Hey,” I said, “can I ask you something?”

“Of course!” She leaned back on her hand. Penny was pretty in that all-American kind of way, with her green eyes and the smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Men had always liked her, and she’d always returned the favor. She would never have been so nervous her first time, which I assumed had gone down with a high school boyfriend, though she hadn’t confided in me about it.

“So Luke . . .”

“Ye-es? How goes it with the new boyfriend?”

“It’s fine. But we haven’t slept together yet.”

Penny shrugged. “Well that’s fine, no reason to rush things.”

“It’s just . . .”

She looked at me expectantly.

“It’s my first time so . . .”

Penny smiled. “I know, honey.”

“How do you know?” I asked indignantly. Was it that obvious?

“Relax,” she said with a little laugh. “I just guessed. You’ve never had a boyfriend before, and I didn’t really think you would have just given it up to some random. It’s a good thing. It should be someone you love.”

“Right.” I was suddenly mortified; my sister and I didn’t talk about sex. I wondered suddenly if Blair and Luke did, or if they had ever appealed to Kristina for her advice on women.

“So do you love Luke? Is he the one?”

“The one what? You mean like the one?”