Page 12 of My Fearless Fake Fling

I locked eyes with the waitress, raised my eyebrows, and nodded.

She produced a phone from her pocket, pulled up a timer app, and dialed the numbers to twenty minutes. “Ready?” she asked. And without waiting for another verbal response, she shouted, “Time starts…now.” Then she hit thestartbutton.

My second stage strategy: Pick up the first wing, pop the whole thing in my mouth, and scrape the meat off in one go. I gave a couple chews, then swallowed. Delayed reaction.

Oh heck, delayed reaction. This might almost be worth a swear.

My mouth ignited in pain. Unbelievable, burning pain. Snot ran down my nose, the tears in my eyes practically blinding me as I fumbled for the glass of milk, drinking the entire thing down without coming up for air. I threw one hand up to signal more milk.

Forget my mouth, my whole body burned from the hellfire (that’s not a swear, it’s a thing) as I picked up the second wing, this time, knowing what to expect, I hesitated, not wanting to put myself through that unimaginable torture again. But knowing I had to.

The second wing went down with steel determination. After a second glass of milk and two celery sticks, I picked up the third. It went down not from my steely will, but my sheer hatred of Lennon in that moment. Perspiration soaked my T-shirt and rolled down my brow. Even the best deodorant couldn’t mask the capsaicin sweat stink.

I’d kill him if I made it out alive. Lennon had to die. Slow and painful. Like dig-a-hole-in-the-ground, shove-him-in, bury-him-up-to-his-neck-and-slather-his-head-with-honey-next-to-a-fireanthill painful.

In the background the frat boys still chanted, “Kami… Kami…”

Three left to go. Three. Could I do it? I couldn’t do it. But I had to do it because of Brian and New Zealand Kiki. Because of Harrison and my brother. Because of me. I’d lost me. I knew the day, the place, the time I’d lost me. Now I needed to get me back.

Wing four went down with the aid of more celery. Wing five, my tears blinded my eyes to the point I couldn’t see to grab the milk, almost knocking it over. Len grabbed it in time, wrapping my fingers around the glass. By the sixth wing, I thought I was going to puke. If I puked, I lost. Iwould notpuke.

Last bite chewed and swallowed, I threw my hands in the air Rocky style and the waitress hitstopon the timer.

“You finished with six minutes left on the clock,” she said.

I couldn’t speak, but I smiled. The cook came out front with a Polaroid camera to take my picture, then handed me a T-shirt. Black with yellow lettering,I Conquered Coop’swritten on the back, Coop’s small logo on the front. I held it for all of fifteen seconds, long enough to shove it at Len and run to the bathroom, pushing women out of my way to get there.

Let me just say, it burned every bit as bad coming back up.

Strong, gentle hands held my hair back until I finished. Len scooped me up into his arms to carry me out to the sink. He set me on the basin, washed my face and hands with soapy, wet paper towel and helped me change into my non-pukey new tee. We had to throw the other one out. There was no saving it. No saving it.

Dear lord, I shook from the force of my regurgitation. Lennon never left my side, although I had to walk out on my own or I’d never forgive myself, but he kept a hand around my waist.

“You did great, fearless,” he whispered in my ear. A whisper that felt intimate and made me shiver, so I supposed it was good I’d been shaking to begin with or he’d know how he affected me. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

Wholeheartedly, I agreed with that offer. I needed to go home, put on my comfies, snuggle on the couch with a thick blanket (I kept the air conditioner set to frostbite), and watch a movie until I passed out.

He helped me inside the truck, running—not walking—around to climb in on the driver’s side.

The ride home stayed pretty uneventful, but the first problem occurred when he drove us in the opposite direction of my house. Having gone through this area earlier today, I knew without a shadow of doubt Len was taking me tohis home.

What about my comfies? My blanket? My movie until I passed out? I mean, I hadn’t actually expressed my desires yet—I could hardly speak. But how could he not pick up from my haggard appearance that I needed to rest? Not more of his silly challenges.

So on the heels of the first swooped in the second problem. That being I had not one ounce of gumption left in me to argue. The scoring heat from the wings and subsequent retching had done me in. Plus, he stopped at the grocery store just down the block from his condo, kissed my cheek before he ran in and less than fifteen minutes came back with two bags of ice cream—including the ice cream condiments—and a toothbrush, because he was just that sweet. Five minutes after that, he had us back at his condo.

This time, he helped me from the truck and wouldn’t let me take even one bag.

If this was his pretend boyfriend, imagine him as a real boyfriend.He’s going to make some girl very lucky someday.

The very first thing he did when we got inside was to set the groceries down on the bar and jack up the air the way I do it at my place.

He led me into his room, where he pulled a pair of drawstring pajama pants—black and yellow plaid to match my T-shirt—from an old maybe pine dresser that looked like he’d gotten it secondhand and handed them off to me before he dragged the comforter and both pillows from the bed as he left.

“Come out when you’re done,” he said.

Once the door closed on his phenomenally fine backside, I dropped trou and changed into the drawstring sleep pants, pulling the drawstring tight to cinch at my waist or those puppies risked falling around my feet otherwise. Len had even left the new toothbrush setting on the bedside table for me to see. With a heart full of gratefulness, I picked it up and walked into his bathroom.

My whole mouth got the scrub down; teeth, tongue, cheeks walls, gums. Lennon even used minty, whitening toothpaste—which meantIused minty, whitening toothpaste. Once my trash dump of a mouth tasted clean enough, and I felt confident I wouldn’t kill Len with my toxic halitosis, I rejoined him in the living room.

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