He certainly did have a nice chest, Drina thought, and she’d been hard-pressed not to simply throw herself on top of it and drool all the way down to the top of his jeans when she’d seen it. But she’d restrained herself, and now merely shrugged, asking, “You noticed his chest, did you?”
“Not really. Mostly I noticed that you noticed,” Stephanie responded with amusement.
Drina rolled her eyes with disgust. This being easily read business was going to become a serious pain in the arse at this rate, she decided.
“You played it cool, though,” Stephanie praised her. “He didn’t even have an inkling you were drooling inside.”
“I wasn’t drooling,” Drina assured her dryly.
“Oh, yeah. You were,” Stephanie said on a laugh.
Drina sighed. “All right, maybe a little inside.” She shrugged. “What can I say? It’s been half a millenniun since I’ve even noticed a man’s chest.”
Actually, it had been longer than that, she realized and hoped to God her hymen hadn’t grown back in the intervening years.
“Oh my God! That doesn’t happen, right?”
Drina blinked at that horrified exclamation and glanced at Stephanie with confusion. “What?”
“The nanos don’t. . like. . fix your hymen after it’s been broken so that every time you have sex it’s like the first time?” she asked with a bone-deep horror that left Drina gaping.
“Good Lord, no!” she assured her. “Where on earth would you get an idea like that?”
Stephanie sagged with relief, and then explained, “You were just thinking you hoped yours hadn’t grown back.”
“Oh, I-That was-I was just having a sarcastic, self-deprecating minute in my head. Gees.” She closed her eyes briefly, opened them again, and said solemnly, “Girl, you have to stay out of my head.”
“I’m not in your head,” Stephanie said wearily. “You’re talking into mine.”
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 him.
“Thank you, Harper. This is really sweet of you,” Stephanie said as she slid into the front seat. “Isn’t it sweet, Drina?”
“Very,” she agreed mildly.
“It’s no problem,” Harper assured them, smiling at Stephanie, and then meeting Drina’s gaze in the rearview mirror and smiling at her as well. “Just tell me where you want to go, and we’re there.”
“Well, Drina insisted we had to stay in town because she doesn’t know her way around, so we were just going to go to Wal-Mart. But with you driving, maybe we could go into London,” Stephanie said in a rush.
“I don’t think so, Stephanie,” Drina said firmly when Harper hesitated. “It isn’t just that I don’t know the area. I think it’s better that we stay in town until we’re sure no one trailed you guys from New York. Here we at least have the house relatively close and can call Teddy Brunswick if we need help.”
“But there are so many cool stores in London,” Stephanie protested. “We could go to Garage or the Gap or-”
“I’ll tell you what,” Harper interrupted. “How about we try Wal-Mart today for the necessities, and then maybe later in the week we can venture out to London if you don’t find everything you need here in town?”
Stephanie heaved out a sigh. “Oh, all right.”
“Good. So, do up your seat belts, and we’ll be on our way.”
Drina smiled wryly at Harper’s relieved tones and did up her seat belt, then sat silently in the backseat as he maneuvered the car out of the garage and past the SUV.