“Fine—don’t tell me. But shit, dude, I’m seventeen,” I protested, as if Adrian was the one that needed to be convinced that impregnating me was a bad idea. “Wouldn’t he want someone older to seduce? Like a—woman. Or something?”
“Mariana’s mother was fourteen when she got pregnant,” he said, which made me feel zero percent better. “When you’re immortal, the current cultural attitudes about motherhood don’t really mean a whole lot. The younger the hosts are, the stronger and healthier they tend to be.”
He shut off the engine and we got out, walking awkwardly to the front door of the ranch.
“I’d like to take you to meet my family tomorrow,” he said as I dug my keys out. “Would that be all right with you?”
Did it matter, really, if it was or not? But all I said was, “Sure.” Maybe they’d have more answers for me. Ones that Adrian apparently didn’t have permission to reveal.
We stared at each other for a moment before I opened the door to the house and let myself in, locking both the handle and the deadbolt behind me.
Everything was exactly the same, really. Nothing had visibly changed about my life, but I was now mulling over ways to ward off demon seducers and avoid showing up on the supernatural edition of Teen Mom. And I was pretending to date my stalker’s vampire son. And I still had a shit-ton of algebra homework to do.
8
MEETING THE FAMILY
“So, dumb question. If you’re ‘thirsty’ and have to drink from a live person, how do they not turn into a vampire when you’re done?”
Adrian snort-laughed, suddenly, like I’d made a joke. And then he realized I was serious. “We can’t just bite people and they turn into one of us,” he explained. “That’s—that’s not a thing. We’re born, not made.”
“Oh.”
I felt kind of stupid. Although who can blame me? All the vampire lore I was aware of was pretty consistent on bitten humans turning into bloodsucking sociopaths.
It was the next morning and we were in his truck, going to school. I’d warned my aunt and uncle at breakfast that I would be popping over to meet his family before I came home for dinner. They hadn’t said a whole lot, but I got the impression it seemed like I was getting engaged to Adrian rather than just dating him. Which was funny because I wasn’t even really dating him.
Though by the looks of things, you couldn’t tell it was all fake. I was sitting tucked under his right arm, one leg stretched out over the bench seat and the other resting on the floor. The snuggling-on-the-way-to-school thing was his suggestion—he said we needed to be comfortable with each other and act, convincingly, like a couple. I wasn’t gonna argue. He was always ten degrees warmer than me, and in the middle of winter I would take practice-cuddling in exchange for additional body heat any day.
I played absently with the sleeve of his sweater. “So then how do you not just straight up kill people when you’re snacking on them?”
“By not snacking on them as often as possible. Blood bags have been a modern blessing.”
“Okay—dumb question number two: Why do you even need blood?”
“Because our bodies can’t produce it correctly. It’s kind of difficult to go about your day when your heart’s not beating.”
I absently traced his knuckles with my finger as I stared out the window. “I thought vampires didn’t have heartbeats—I mean, you’re one of the undead, right?”
I could feel his eyes roll even if I couldn’t see it. “Quite alive, thank you. And any operational body needs a power source. Humans have the cardiovascular system. I’m more or less human, so I have a heartbeat. However,” he conceded, “it’s more efficient. My resting heart rate is about ten beats per minute.”
“And mine would be?”
“Seventy-five.” He paused. “Ish.”
I looked up and gave him a dazzling smile. “I feel totally inadequate right now.”
He smiled back, just as sarcastically. “At least you don’t have to ingest other people’s blood to stay alive.”
I nodded. Good point.
“We drink blood,” he continued, “because our bone marrow produces red blood cells that interfere with the hemoglobic process—”
“Whoa, whoa,” I interrupted. “Just, hold on. In case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m an art person. Your fancy science words mean nothing to me.”
“Sorry,” he apologized, looking sheepish. “I—I’m used to reading about all this in lab reports and case studies. I’ll try to make it more—visual?”
I settled back into his arm. “If you produce a flannel graph out of somewhere, you will be well rewarded.”
He smiled. He was smiling a lot these days. “No flannel graph. I do a mean shadow puppet, though.”
I snort-laughed. “This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had.”
“You’re telling me. Anyway, listen up—there’s a quiz on this later.”