You Suck: A Love Story

floss?”
    “Yeah,” Jody said, through a mouthful of pinkish foam, “you should just go lie in the sun and get it over with, rather than suffer the torture of flossing.”
    “Don’t be sarcastic. I didn’t think we could get sick at all, but your hangover proved that to be wrong.”
    Jody nodded and spit. “Don’t swallow any when you rinse. The water will come right back up.”
    “How come your foam is pink? My foam isn’t pink. And I went last.”
    “My gums might be bleeding,” Jody said.
    Jody wasn’t ready to tell him that she’d taken someone to night. She would tell him, just not now. So, to change the subject, she summoned her superhuman strength and pantsed him.
    “Hey!”
    “When did you get skull-and-crossbones boxers?”
    “I bought them to night, when you were getting Christmas presents. I thought they would seem dangerous.”
    “You bet,” Jody said, nodding furiously to keep from laughing. “And you’ll blend in-in case you’re ever caught with your pants down in the pirate locker room.”
    “Yeah, there’s that,” Tommy said, a little toothpaste foam dribbling down his chest as he looked at his boxers. “I have the whitest legs in the universe. My legs are like great white carrion worms.”
    “Stop, you’re making me horny.”
    “I’ve got to use that tanning lotion we bought. Where is it?”
    Jody moved with catlike speed out to the kitchen, snatched the lotion off the counter, and was back sitting on the edge of the bed in only a couple of seconds. If she could just keep Tommy from asking any questions until sunup, she was sure she’d figure out a way to tell him about the old man. “Come over here, worm legs, let me put some lotion on you.” To emphasize her commitment to lotionization, she stood, pulled the straps of her dress off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor at her feet. She stepped out of her dress and stood there, in just her pumps and a silver necklace with a tiny heart that he had given her.
    Tommy hopped out of the bathroom-his pants still around his ankles-one long hop, and he stood in front of her. Jody smiled. Give a geek supernatural agility and speed, and what you get is a superagile, speedy geek.
    “You went out commando, in that dress?”
    “Never again,” Jody said, grabbing the waistband of his boxers and pulling him toward her. “These are mine, now. I want to be dangerous.”
    “That’s so, so slutty,” he said, lisping a little, his fangs coming out now.
    “Yep. Where do you want to start with the lotion?”
    He pulled her close and kissed her neck. “We have to be careful not to break the furniture this time.”
    “Fuck it, less to move,” she said, her own fangs coming out now. She raked them down his chest. “If we figure out a way to get a place before someone kills us.”
    “Oh, yeah, I found us a minion,” he said as she bit into his side and tore his boxers off in a single swift pull.
    “What?”
    But Tommy was finished talking for a while.
    B lue watched as the Butterball rocketed by her and slammed into a triangle of two-liter soft-drink bottles-the front bottle burst, sending a cola-brown eruption of foam across the floor by the meat case.
    “Strike!” Barry shouted. He danced in a tight circle among the Animals, pointing and chanting, “I own you, and you, and you,” to each as he passed.
    Blue looked to Lash, and raised a cobalt eyebrow.
    Lash shrugged. “It happens. That’s why we use diet soda. It’s not as sticky.” He had decided that they all needed to sober up some more before they started stocking the shelves; thus the turkey bowling.
    “Can someone bring a mop?” Clint said. Because he would not gamble, he was the designated pin setter. He was scrambling around trying to retrieve soda bottles even as Jeff Murray was warming up at the other end of the aisle, swinging a Foster’s Fresh Frozen Homestyle in each hand. He believed that he got better pin action off the Foster’s because of the savory gravy packet stuffed in its center. He claimed that Foster’s had mastered superior poultry technology, and was, in fact, working on an oversized titanium turkey. The other Animals were forced to point out to him that he was completely full of shit as they sprayed root beer on him.
    “So you guys hunted vampires?” Blue asked Lash. She had come back to the front with coffee for everyone just in time to hear Lash lay out the scenario for the Animals. She’d held off asking any questions until