The Reluctant Vampire - Lynsay Sands [12]
Drina frowned, pretty sure she wasn’t trying to talk into her head.
“So why don’t they?” Stephanie asked suddenly, a frown tugging at her lips.
“Why don’t who what?” Drina asked, confused again.
“Why don’t nanos repair the hymen when it’s broken?” she explained. “I thought their job was to keep us perfect and all.”
“Not perfect. No one is perfect,” Drina assured her. “They’re programmed to keep us at our peak, the best we each can be as individuals.”
Stephanie waved that away impatiently. “Right, but if you break a bone, they fix it. Why wouldn’t they fix the hymen if it was broke?”
“Well—” Drina paused, her brain blank, and then shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe the nanos don’t think the hymen is something that needs fixing. Or maybe the scientists didn’t think to include the hymen as part of the anatomy when they programmed them,” she suggested, and then grimaced, and added dryly, “I’m just glad as heck that they don’t repair it.”
“I know,” Stephanie groaned. “That would be vile.”
“Hmm.” Drina nodded and gave a little shudder at the thought, but then glanced at her sharply. “Have you had sex?”
“No, of course, not.” Stephanie flushed with embarrassment.
“Then why so horrified at the thought of the nanos replacing the hymen?” she asked, eyeing her narrowly.
Stephanie snorted. “I read. It’s not supposed to be fun to lose your virginity.”
Drina relaxed and shrugged. “It’s different for different people. For some it’s painful, for others not so much, for some there’s blood and others not. It may be all right for you,” she said reassuringly, and then frowned and added, “But . . . you know . . . you shouldn’t rush out there to find out which it will be in your case. You have plenty of time to try stuff like that. Plenty of time,” she stressed.
“Now you sound like my mother,” Stephanie said with amusement.
Drina grimaced. She kind of felt like her parent in that moment. Certainly, she suddenly had a lot more sympathy for parents having to give the sex talk. Dear God, she couldn’t even imagine that conversation.
“Fortunately for you, my mother already gave me that talk,” Stephanie said with a grin.
“You’re reading me again,” Drina complained.
“I told you, I’m not reading you. You’re kind of pushing your thoughts at me.”
Drina frowned and turned to ask her to explain what she meant, but paused to glance toward the garage as one of the doors began to whir upward.
“Harper must be ready to go,” Stephanie commented. “You should let me take the front seat.”
“I should, should I?” Drina asked with amusement.
“Definitely,” Stephanie assured her. “We don’t want him to think you like him or start worrying about life mates and stuff. Wave me that way as we approach the car. That way Harper will think you didn’t care to sit in the front with him.”
Drina smiled faintly but just nodded. It couldn’t hurt, and she didn’t care if she was in the front or not anyway.
“And you should sit right behind him, not behind the passenger seat,” Stephanie whispered as the garage door finished opening, and they saw Harper waving to them from the driver’s seat of a silver BMW.
“Why?” Drina whispered back, using the excuse of closing the still-open door of the SUV to delay approaching the car.
“That way, every time he looks in the rearview mirror, he’ll see you,” she pointed out.
Drina peered at her with surprise. The kid was smart, she thought, and knew by the way that Stephanie smiled widely that she’d heard the compliment. Chuckling, she slid her arm around the girl and used it to steer her toward the car.
“You can sit in the front if you like,” she said with amusement, steering her that way, and then breaking off to move up the driver’s side of the car herself.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Stephanie asked with feigned concern, pausing beside the passenger door.
“Not at all,” Drina said dryly and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when the girl grinned at her over the roof of the car, out of Harper’s view. Shaking her head, Drina opened the back door and slid in behind