You Suck: A Love Story

for me to get in his car. And then I see that the old vampyre is charred like Wile E. Coyote after a bad rocket shoes test. And so are the limo guys, and they’re smoking and limping away from the Honda, which is shining like a star or something.
    And Manga is all, “Now!”
    And I’m all, “Shut up, you’re not the boss of me.” But I got in the Honda and we totally drifted around the corner, and when we’re a block or two away Steve (that’s his name, Steve) kills the ginormous floodlights in the backseat and I can sort of see again.
    And he’s all, “High-intensity ultraviolet.”
    And I’m, “You, too.”
    And he’s like, “What are you talking about?”
    I’m like, “I thought it was a compliment.”
    Then he smiled, like the cutest smile, although he was still driving muy intense and totally badass, and he goes, “No, that light back there was high-intensity ultraviolet. It burns them.”
    And I was all, “I knew that.”
    And he was like, “You know that those three guys were vampyres, too, right?”
    And I’m all, “Duh.” But I didn’t know. So I’m like, “How did you know?”
    Then he takes off his shades and puts on these binocular robot-glasses things, like they wear in Siphon Assassin Six for Xbox, which I am against because it glorifies violence in the minds of adolescent boys and because it’s totally impossible to get a decent head shot when your squad mates are bumping into you, which needs to be fixed in the next version if I’m going to be able to do the “gray spray” on the sentry tower glass.
    So Steve is all, “Yeah, they’re infrared. You can see heat with them, and there was no heat coming off anyone back there but you.”
    And I’m like, “Who the fuck are you?”
    And he’s like, “My name’s Steve. I’m working on my biochem masters at S.F. State.”
    “Stop,” I said. “Please do not further endorken youself to me. You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills, so do not sully your heroic hottie image in my mind by further reciting your nerdy scholastic agenda. Don’t tell me what you’re studying, Steve, tell me what’s in your soul. What haunts you?”
    And he was like, “Dude, you need to cut back on the caffeine.”
    Which was fair, and I know that he was only saying it out of concern for my welfare and whatnot, because I think he knew even then that we were destined to be together, soul mates.
    So while he drives, Steve tells me that he was doing some experiments on some bodies for his master’s thingy, and he found that the cells of the victims were regenerating when you added blood to them, and he thinks he can turn them back to normal human cells by using some gene therapy or something. And he’s been talking to the Countess and Lord Flood about turning them back, but the Countess is all, “No way, hot Manga-haired science guy.”
    So I was all, “Why would she want to give up immortality and superpowers and whatnot?”
    And he was all, “I don’t know.”
    And I was all, “We should discuss it over coffee.”
    And he was like, “I would love to do that, but I’m already late for work.”
    And I was like, “I thought you were a mad scientist.”
    And he was all, “I work at Stereo City.”
    And I was like, “Dude, you should get a job at Metreon selling the big-screens, because they have like the best test couches.”
    And he was like, “Okay.” Just like that, “Okay.”
    So he wanted to give me a ride home, so I would be safe, which is so sweet, but I needed double-soy Mochaccino to calm my nerves, so here I am at Tulley’s, totally brooding.
    But before I got out of the car, I was like, “Steve, do you have a girlfriend?”
    And he was like, “No, I put a lot of time into my studies, and I sort of always have.”
    And I was like, “So would you be in the market for a Gaijin princess?”
    And he was like, “That’s Japanese. I’m Chinese.”
    And I’m like, “Don’t change the subject, Kung Pao, what I want to know is if you’re ready to spend some up-close and personal time with ninety pounds of barbarian woman-flesh! Sorry, I don’t know how much that is in kilos.”
    I don’t know what came over me. I was just fizzing over with adrenaline and passion and whatnot, I guess. I usually don’t throw myself at guys, but he was so mysterious and smart and hot.
    So he got this big grin and he was like, “My parents would freak out if they saw