Page 11 of My Fearless Fake Fling

“Well?” he asked, using his eye roll to tell me toget moving.

His comment snapped me out of my dazed, incredibly ridiculous thoughts, but also accounted for the blush spreading over three-quarters of my body. I turned away quickly and scanned the room to avoid having to speak to him directly.

On the far wall opposite the restrooms I spied an empty table and made my way over to it. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed another person heading for the table too, but as I never looked his way, I could claim complete deniability if he chose to confront me about the table I reached first. And since Len’s job in this scenario meant playing my boyfriend, fake or not, I was fairly certain he’d stick up for me in the event I needed to be sticked up—stuck up—for.

As it turned out, probably because dude got a look at Viking-thunder-god Len, he veered past our table trying for another about four spots down. Len curiously pulled the chair kitty-corner from mine instead of across from me and sat, his manspreading knee brushing the side of mine.

Was that heart palpitations or gas?Please be gas… Please be gas…His knee brushed mine again.Shoot!Not gas. Most definitelynot gas. I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself before we both heard my voice quivers. “So?” Okay, good. Zero quivers. I had this. “Are you going to tell me the challenge?”

“Give it a sec.”

The order girl, in her oversized yellow T-shirt with the sleeves rolled a couple of times so the short sleeves didn’t hang too far down her arms and the wordsCoop’s Wingsprinted on the front in large black lettering—walked over with a paper and pen in hand. She set the paper down in front of me and held the pen out waiting for me to take it.

I read the paper:This is a challenge you have volunteered to partake in. The establishment holds no responsibility…

At ‘holds no responsibility,’ I realized I held a waver they wanted me to sign. A waver? For?

That was when a group of guys from another table stood to circle ours, shouting taunts of “no way” and “it’s a lost cause,” to single out a few.

What the ever-loving heck? They didn’t know me. I still didn’t know what I was signing for, but I scribbled my name across the bottom line, sealing my fate because the moment I set the pen down, the cook from the back placed a red, paper-lined plastic basket on the bar top and shouted, “Order up.”

The waitress took the waver and pen with her when she left to retrieve the basket. I watched her open the fridge to pull out a gallon of milk. She poured a tall glass and set it on the tray next to the basket. Next came the celery sticks piled in a second paper-lined basket set on the tray, too.

Then she walked the whole tray over to our table.

In the first basket, chicken wings. No, not just chicken wings—the most vibrant red-sauced chicken wings probably in the history of sauced chicken wings. And I knew the challenge in an instant. More likesmelledthe challenge in an instant. The caustic, unforgettable aroma of capsaicin burned my eyes, singeing the fine hairs in my nose.

“Len, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

He smiled his devilish smile and laughed not a faint chuckle, but a full-bodied robust, throw-your-head-back belly laugh.

All the while the waitress configured the milk, celery, and wings in a semi-circle on the table around me, along with several packets of Wet-Naps.

I saw a guy on television do this once.How hard could it be to—Those backward-ballcap-wearing-frat-guys kept up the taunting making it hard for me to concentrate. I still had no idea if I’d actually go through with this idiocy. That sauce could burn a hole through my esophagus. Although, if I died, it would be with my clotheson.

Declining the challenge almost became a reality when I heard it, the words that triggered a desire to show up those jerkfaces in the biggest way possible:She won’t do it, she’s just a girl.

Just a girl?

Maybe I was a chicken, but that hadnothingto do with me being a girl.

Choice made, I’d show them what girls were made of.

It took a minute of surveying the tablescape to figure out how I was going to go about this. Fast was the key. It would be my only chance to win this mother-trucker of a challenge. Once I had an idea in place, I went for it.

My stage one strategy: Open all six Wet-Naps packets, pull several regular napkins from a container on the table, and place them ergonomically as well.

“Okay.” The waitress held her hand in the air, silencing the small crowd. “You have twenty minutes to finish these six wings. No getting up from the table. We provide you milk and celery to cool your mouth. If you need more, raise one hand. If you quit, gesture ‘out’ like an umpire. When you finish, raise both hands in the air. Do you understand the rules?”

I sucked in a big breath. “Yes.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Kami,” Len answered, and I’d swear he sounded proud.

The frat boys surrounding our table began to chant, “Kami…Kami…”

Well that certainly was a change from a minute ago.

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