Suckers - J.A. Konrath

"No?" Dennis asked.
Roger shook his head and stepped in front of me. "No. I’m not scared of you. You’re a lousy
actor. In fact, you suck."
I couldn’t believe it! Roger, who I’d met for the very first time that same day, was placing
himself between me and a madman with a butcher knife!
I was in awe.
This was somebody I could imagine sharing a friendship with until the end of my years.
I mean, what a brilliant freakin’ end to the whole joke!
Dennis let out a well-acted scream of primal rage and ran toward us. He shoved Roger out of
the way, knocking him into the refrigerator so hard that—
—that it couldn’t have been faked.
He swung the knife at me.
Holy shit!
I moved out of the way and the blade sliced across my chest. It hurt about as much as I
would’ve expected a butcher knife cutting my chest to hurt. My feet slipped out from under me
and I landed on my butt. As Dennis raised the knife, I wished that I’d never seen any amusement
value in clumsy baby dropping.
I kicked Dennis in the shin, hard.
He shouted something obscene, loud.
And then Roger tackled him. As the two of them engaged in a fierce struggle, I kicked
Dennis in the opposite shin. He cried out, lost his balance, dropped the knife, struck his head on
the counter, and fell to the floor, unconscious.
Roger took a moment to catch his breath. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"Eeep," I said, gaping at the butcher knife that now protruded from my leg.
Roger crouched down next to me. "Is it deep?"
"Eeep."
Roger yanked the knife out. It had only gone in about half an inch, but it still really hurt.
"We need to make a pact," Roger told me. He pressed his finger to the wound on my leg. "A
blood pact, that no matter what, we will never, ever, ever tell anybody in the entire world that we
wet our pants."
"Agreed," I said, shaking his bloody hand.
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