Read You Suck: A Love Story for Free Online Page A

but they seemed to move as she reached for them, and when she corrected, she missed, and fell forward, catching herself so that she was on all fours with her ass in the air.
    “Yeah, that worked,” Tommy said. “How about you take Chet and I’ll carry the huge cat guy?”
    “Whadever, Mr. Wussyman,” Jody said. Maybe she was a little tipsy. In the old days, prevampire days, she’d tried to stay away from alcohol, because it turned out that she was sort of an obnoxious drunk. Or that’s what her ex-friends had told her.
    Tommy picked up Chet the huge cat, who squirmed as he held him out to Jody. “Take him.”
    “You are not the head vampire here,” Jody said.
    “Fine,” Tommy said. He slung Chet under his arm and, in a single movement, scooped up the huge cat guy and threw him over his shoulder with the other arm. “Careful crossing the street,” Tommy called back to her as he crossed.
    “Ha!” Jody said. “I am a finely tuned predator. I am a superbeing. I-” And at that point she bounced her forehead off a light pole with a dull twang and was suddenly lying on her back looking at the streetlights above her, which kept going out of focus, the bastards.
    “I’ll be back to get you,” Tommy called.
    He’s so sweet, Jody thought.

6 – Do Animals Get the Blues?
    Clint was the only one of the Animals still left at the Marina Safeway. He was tall, with a wild mop of dark hair and thick, horn-rimmed glasses that were held together with medical tape, and he had a look of deep panic on his face. He’d been trying to keep the store together for nearly a week with only a couple of stock boys from the day crew, and a porter from a temp service (even Gustavo, the Mexican porter with five kids, had taken off with the Animals), but now a huge order had come in on the truck and he knew he needed professionals. He dialed Tommy’s number for the fifth time that night. It was four in the morning, but Tommy was their leader-and perhaps the best frozen-turkey bowler the world had ever known. He knew what it meant to be an Animal; he would be awake.
    The machine beeped. Clint said, “Dude, they’re all gone. I need your help. It’s just me, some temps, and the Lord tonight.” Clint had been recently reborn after five years in a drug-induced haze. He swore that the Lord would forever be on his night crew. “The guys took off for Vegas. Call me. No, just bring your box cutter and come to work. I’m buried.”
    Once they had been nine strong, the Animals. Nine men, all under the age of twenty-five, left alone in a grocery store for eight hours with only Tommy to supervise them. They’d been given their name by the day manager, who had come in one morning to find them drunk, hanging from the giant Safeway letters on the front of store, pelting one another with marshmallows. Tommy had recruited them to fight the old vampire. They’d found the vampire, sleeping inside a vault on his yacht, and they had also found his art collection. After selling it for ten cents on the dollar, each of them had netted a hundred thousand dollars.
    Tommy went home with Jody, Clint went home to pray for the vampire’s soul. Simon had been killed.
    The rest of the Animals headed for Vegas.
    Clint hung up the phone, then sat down hard in the manager’s chair. It was too much responsibility. The weight of it would drive him over the edge. Even now he could hear dogs barking in his head.
    “Front door,” the temp night porter called over the half wall of the office.
    Clint stood up to see the Emperor and his dogs at the double electric doors. He grabbed the keys, disarmed the alarm, and opened the door. The Boston terrier shot by him, heading for the beef-jerky display.
    “Your Majesty,” Clint said. “You’re out of breath.”
    The big man held his chest as he panted. “Gather the troops, young man. C. Thomas Flood has been turned to a bloodsucking fiend. Gather your weapons, we must charge again into the breach.”
    “It’s just