A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(62)

Well, I can’t lie about that.

“But it can’t be me,” she says. “This book says she’s supposed to be a virgin, and I’m not.”

Becket, Rebecca, and Auden clearly know something Saint and I don’t, because there’s an explosion of angry protests at this, protests so heated and fast that I can’t make out what any individual person is saying before she flaps her hands at them to get them to shut up.

“I know, I know. But there’s more to it than that. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about the whole ‘bride’ thing anyway.”

She says this last part lightly, but after she finishes speaking, her eyes drop briefly to her engagement ring. I can’t help but glance over to Auden, who’s also looking at Delphine’s hand, and there’s so much grief in his face that I hate myself for every moment I ever wished the two of them apart.

He loves her. Whatever else is true about Auden, he loves Delphine Dansey.

My sadness at that comes with a wave of exhaustion so severe that I make myself stand up and pace so I won’t fall asleep at the table.

“So,” I say, swallowing down the knot in my throat—a knot for Auden and Delphine—and for me too. “You’re saying we should do this, but you don’t want to be the bride.”

“Exactly,” Delphine says, all beams and bounces once again. “Now, who in here hasn’t had sex?”

Rebecca makes an impatient noise. “Virginity is a construct. A meaningless, destructive construct that I think we can all agree to ignore in this conversation.”

I think about all the years I’ve waited, of my conclusion earlier this month that sex was merely a step and not a gateway. I think of how I feel with every person here in this room, how I feel more hunger and more rightness with any one of them than with anyone else I’ve ever been with—as if it was always meant to be here, always meant to be them.

Can something be meaningless and meaningful at the same time?

“I agree that it’s a construct, but—” I stop my pacing to face everyone. I start over. “We’re right to say that a first time doesn’t have to mean everything, and it doesn’t even have to mean anything. But it can mean something if we want it to.”

“Spoken like a virgin,” she replies, but her eyes are friendly.

“So Poe’s a candidate,” Delphine wraps up for us, taking a drink and looking over her mug at us like we’re giving her gossip. “And . . . Becket?”

Becket blushes. Actually blushes, looking down at the fingers laced in his lap. “Ah . . . no. I’m not a candidate.”

“Becket,” Delphine gasps.

“I didn’t always know I was going to a priest,” Becket mutters.

“I’m not a virgin either,” Rebecca says. “Not that it matters.”

We all look at Saint.

He crosses his arms even more tightly across his chest and looks at us all defiantly. “Define virgin,” he drawls.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Delphine says. “Have you had prolonged contact with someone’s cock, cunt, or arse?”

That wipes the sullenness right off his face. He looks speechless at Delphine’s crass language, and I know how he feels, given that she could barely say pussy to me the other night.

“What?” she says, noticing all of our expressions. “If we’re going to do this, we need to get over being embarrassed about these things.”

Maybe so, but it seems to me like Delphine’s changed more in the last week than I would have thought possible.

“Fine,” Saint bites off. “I haven’t had prolonged contact with anyone’s genitals, and they haven’t had contact with mine.”

“Did any of the brief contact result in someone having an orgasm?”

Is it me, or do Saint’s eyes flicker in Auden’s direction?

“No,” Saint says. “No orgasms were the result.”

“This is ridiculous,” Rebecca cuts in. “Orgasms can’t be the metric—”

“Orgasms or contact,” Delphine clarifies defensively.

“I think,” Becket says, “this just proves how flawed the notion of virginity is to begin with.”

“That is what I’ve been trying to say this whole time,” grumbles Rebecca.

“But,” Becket says, shooting a look over at his friend, “that doesn’t mean we can’t break it down and re-appropriate the parts we find appealing or useful. If we choose the elements we like, with open eyes, with intention, I see no problem with it.”

Silence lays heavy in the room, Becket’s assured, priestly voice ringing through our thoughts as we think this through, each of us shifting a little as the silence stretches on.

Eventually Rebecca realizes we’ve all started staring at her for her answer, and she heaves a giant sigh. A Delphine Sigh. “Ugh,” she says. “Fine.”

“So that settles it,” Delphine declares. “Poe and Saint are our virgins—”

“I’m a virgin too,” Auden says quietly.

The room goes still.

“What?” Delphine exclaims, her expression one of horror.

She can’t be any more stunned than I am, because she and Auden are engaged, and if he’s a virgin, then that means they’ve never . . .