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She shook her head, her hair bouncing around her shoulders, like she was shaking me off. “I can do this all night, buddy.”
“Do you want to give me your next of kin’s number before you go down this path?”
“Hardy har. Let’s go.”
She ate the first wing like a pro. Pinched both ends and twisted it so that the meat fell apart. Popped the whole thing in her mouth.
“Delicious,” she said.
The next wing went down the same way. Again, she didn’t flinch.
On the third wing she breathed through her nose, but other than that she was showing no signs of slowing down.
The fourth wing made her blink. That was it. A single slow blink. She took a sip of beer and looked down at the fifth wing. The five-alarm habanero sauce.
Not only was it hot, but it also didn’t taste great. Neil had rushed to the bathroom after trying it. And he hadn’t looked right since. Suddenly, I didn’t want Liv to get sick. This wasn’t fun if she had to go home. I found myself doing something I never did – flinching in the face of a competitor.
“You don’t have to do it,” I said, tugging the edge of the basket away from her. “I’ll give you all the wings you want. Don’t punish yourself just to prove something to me.”
Her lips twisted into a smirk. “Uh, that’s the whole point of competition. Hand it over, Heart.”
She’d drawn some attention from a few of the locals hanging out at the bar.
“Yeah, let her try it, Heart. She’s already finished four and she’s not flinching,” shouted Frank, a gruff old lobsterman, whose beard and ear hair had grown into one magnificent pelt.
“Stuff it, Frank,” I barked back. “She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.”
Too late.
She picked up the wing, twisted the ends to break it up, and cleaned the meat off each side of the wing with her teeth. She dropped the bones in the basket and then licked the sauce off her fingers.
Holy shit.
“Man, she did it!” Frank shouted, gathering everyone’s attention to Liv at the bar. “She beat the Five Levels of Hell. Hey everyone, we have a new Queen of Heat in the house!”
The bar erupted in applause, but I said nothing. I just watched her face, like waiting for a volcano to blow. Her cheeks turned red and her eyes teared up. There was absolutely no mistaking the signs that the heat was getting to her.
But she only smiled at me.
“You okay?” I asked, breaking first.
“Do you have one of those wet wipes?” she asked, with a wiggle of her fingers, like she was ordering another beer.
Maybe she really was impervious? Was it possible the heat didn’t impact her even a little bit?
“You’re a beast,” I acknowledged, conceding the win. “A hot wing beast.”
I ducked down toward the other end of the bar to grab some packets of wet wipes, but as soon as I turned back around I could see Liv chugging the glass of milk Wendy had given her. She emptied it, slammed the glass on the bar and a laughing Wendy already had another glass in front of her.
“Ha!” I shouted. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?” Liv gasped, and then chased the milk she’d been given with some water. Tears streamed down her face.
“Impervious to heat, my ass,” I laughed.
“There was a contest. I won. That’s all that matters.”
“You’re insane, you know that?”
