Page 55 of My Fearless Fake Fling

“The best.” Yeah, okay. So my giddy cheese factor (i.e. How emotionally cheesy I felt at the moment) might have been hitting critical mass, but this was monumental for me. When we reached the lockers, I could hear my phone pinging with notifications before I got the door open.

He’d posted the jump already.

Holy cow, Kami.

That was amazing.

You go, girl!

On and on the messages funneled in. I didn’t realize so many people paid attention to me. The irrefutable proof lay on my phone screen.

Thanx, I responded back to one.It was fun.

Len’s a beast. Best boyfriend in the world. My response to another.

That last I threw in for Brian’s sake. Since I knew he’d been keeping track of my adventures. Not that I wanted to make him jealous anymore—because I didn’t care if he was. The Brian ship done sailed.

No, I just wanted him to know, in case there was any doubt, that I knew what he’d done, and how Len treated me was how you treated a girlfriend.

“Got another surprise for you,” said Len.

“Lead on,” I offered.

We drove to an Amazonian restaurant. I didn’t know they had a specific cuisine until we walked inside.

“You’ve got to be joking, right? Please, Len,” I begged. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Sorry, baby. Not sorry, and not joking. You can’t eat regular food after hitting a milestone like bungee jumping. We go big or we go home.”

“Then let’s go home.”

“No can do.” He took my hand, I think more to keep me from escaping than anything, and led me to a table in the center of the small dining room.

It wasn’t fancy at all. No table coverings. The black vinyl on the chairs cracked and peeled. A napkin dispenser and salt and pepper shakers sat on each table. When our waitress approached, she spoke to us in Spanish. Lennon answered her as if he spoke Spanish every day of his life.

“Sí,” she said, then walked over to the kitchen to put in our order.

That word I knew.Yes. Score one for Kami.

“What are we getting?” I asked. “How is Amazonian food different?”

“This cuisine comes from a special part of the Amazon. You’ll just have to wait.”

It wasn’t five minutes later the waitress came back with a soda for me and a soda for Len. They used red-and-white striped, wax-covered paper straws. Ten minutes after our drinks, the entrees began to appear. Fried bananas or plantains. Some sort of greens sautéed in oil and garlic. An unleavened bread. And…

I literally had to bite my lip so as to not offend our hosts by screaming. She set a bowl of ants down next. Cooked ants, along with a large serving spoon. Next to the bowl of ants, white grubs. Lastly—I covered my mouth with my hand and swallowed back the bile—a platter of tarantulas. Of the spider variety. The hair had been singed off and they smelled like they’d been sautéed in bacon fat, like the grubs. But there was no way—a spider? Really?

Len thanked her, as did I.

But once she was gone, I laid it out. “I’m not eating that.”

“You’ll offend them. You have to.”

“No, if you’d have told me that you planned to feed me spiders and grubs, I’d have turned you down flat. This is on you, buddy.”

“Please, Kam. Just try it. They taste different than you imagine. We’re here. Do this”—he wobbled his lip—“for me?”

Fearful Kami would tell him to go to heck. But I wasn’t fearful Kami any longer. Crap, I did not want to do this. But I sucked up my reserves. “You first,” I ordered.

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