Page 54 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

“But, what if one of us ate the cow eye and the peppers, and the other one ate the cake?”

I narrow my eyes. “Is this some kind of misguided attempt to spare me from eating the peppers and the eye? Because I could do both of those right now without breaking a sweat.”

Daniel taps the plate of cake. “We should minimize our risks. Your plan splits the load evenly, which would be great if every dish had the same challenges. But the peppers and cow eye test your spice tolerance and gag reflex, while the chocolate cake is a simple matter of volume. If we both ate the peppers and cow eye and started feeling a bit off, eating the chocolate cake would be that much more difficult.”

Right. Battling nausea from eating something raw that we don’t eat every day, or indigestion from something spicy without any drinks to wash it down, could make finishing off the cake tricky, and we can’t afford that.

“I can handle the peppers and the cow’s eye. Can you handle the cake?” he asks.

“I told you, I can handle anything. I could do this entire challenge myself.”

“Okay, then handle the cake,” he tells me, then grabs the peppers and downs them like it’s nothing.

“Youhandle the cake,” I snap at him. Screw the strategy. I snatch up the cow’s eye before Daniel can react and swallow it whole. It’s slimy, raw, and extremely gross, but I’m able to choke it down with a few deep breaths. Years of chugging horribly bitter Chinese herbal medicine has trained me for this, and when I’m sure I’ve kept the eyeball down, I flash Daniel a peace sign.

He gives me an exasperated look, and then we both turn to the cake.

I realize that production has very intentionally not given us any utensils. I use one of my hands to scoop up a handful of moist chocolate cake. Daniel follows my lead. The cake is so over-the-top sweet that I almost gag, but at least it’s masking the taste of the cow’s eye.

“Chase is taking that cakedown,” Dawn Taylor observes as a camera zooms in on Chase wolfing down handful after handful.

Beside him, Selena is almost finished with her peppers, but she offersthe last bite to Chase. “Babe, this is delicious. You have to try it.”

Chase doesn’t hesitate before he takes a bite—and I know exactly what will happen next, because Chase can barely handle my mom’s mildest chili sauce. Almost immediately, Chase’s face goes red and his eyes bulge. “That’s fire,” he chokes out.

Dawn Taylor swoops in. “Selena, you might want to help him out there. Get that cow eye, girl!”

Selena looks like she had absolutely no intention of eating the cow eye, but now that the camera is focused on her, she delicately picks up the eyeball. She plugs her nose and pops it in her mouth.

“Get it down! Get it down!” Dawn Taylor chants. Selena chews and shimmies to the beat of the chant. For a moment it looks like she’s going to spit the whole thing out, but then she swallows and opens her mouth for Dawn Taylor to inspect.

“You’re good! You got it,” she tells Selena.

As I shovel another handful of cake into my mouth, I try to distract myself by looking around at the rest of our competition.

Brittany and Jaxon, once again wearing matching cowboy looks, have clearly started with the peppers. While Jaxon seems fine, tears are streaming down Brittany’s face.

“I don’t think those peppers wanted to be eaten,” she croaks.

“Meanwhile, Daniel isflyingthrough the dessert!” Dawn Taylor cheers.

The cameraman swivels over to Daniel, who’s digging in with both hands. I take another bite, upping my pace. No way am I going to let it look like Daniel carried the team on this one.

“No, no, no,” Tarun moans to my left. “This cumin is killing my palate! I’m not going to have any taste buds left after this.”

“You still there, Slayer?”

The name jolts me back to my own partner. I look at Daniel, who’s licking some frosting off of his fingers.

“Yes. Doing great. Fantastic,” I say, but with my mouth full, it comes out more like “Mmmphfgh.”

He tilts his head at me. “You’ve got a little—” He gestures at me, which is hilarious because I’m literally covered in chocolate cake. What’s less hilarious is when he reaches up and uses his thumb to wipe away a bit of chocolate from the corner of my mouth, brushing my lip again for the second time in twenty-four hours. The brief touch is enough to send a bolt of heat skittering through me.

“There,” he says, like he’s actually done me a favor.

What the hell was that?

I glare at him as I take another bite. I’m definitely regretting the burrito I ate this morning. Now I’m fighting for every fraction of an inch of space in my stomach.

---