Page 24 of Unhitched
She shakes her head. “No. But I don’t even want to touch it. I’m pretty sure it’ll melt right through my gloves like lava. You do it.” She leans forward, opening her mouth and sticking her tongue out like a plate for me to serve.
This fucking girl. Not wanting to touch the nut myself, I rip open the bag, and pinching one nut between the plastic and my fingers, I shake the other one onto her tongue.
Before she even closes her mouth, she stands, leaning against the counter with her palms. “Oh my god. Oh my god,” she says between chews and sucked-in breaths.
I chew my own nut, not realizing why she’s freaking out.
It’s not that– FUCK ME . I move to run my hands through my hair, wanting to tug until the pain overrides the fire in my mouth, but my common sense makes an appearance just in time.
Instead, I grip the edge of the counter.
Fuck. Tears spring to my eyes. Sweat soaks my hair to the point that I can feel it without touching it, and a bead trickles down my jaw .
“I hate you,” Mya curses, and I glance at her long enough to notice she looks like she’s going to pass out. For the smallest flicker of time, I hate those words coming from her lips, but then I’m right back to being hyper aware of every sensation my body is feeling.
She rips the gloves off her hands, pulling them inside out as they slide from her fingers, and she drops them on the counter.
Reaching toward where my palms are pressed into the granite, Mya pinches the band at the top of my gloves and tugs to remove them for me.
I release pressure enough for her to pull them off and into a ball next to hers.
“My entire body is tingly.” She laughs, despite the tears now streaming down her face and sweat matting her hair to her head. “Is this normal?”
“According to the reviews.” I manage a weak chuckle through the pain in my mouth that is now being shared with my stomach. Fuck. I read all these reviews online and thought they were exaggerating. One person claimed the peanuts “stole their soul.” Why would I take that seriously?
“We need like water, or milk, or I don’t know. What do we do?” She bares her teeth, looking at me like I have every answer.
“Milk.” I remember reading a review. “But we’re just supposed to swish it around and spit it out.”
“Do I even want to know why?” She glances over her shoulder as she makes her way slowly to the fridge, stumbling around the breakfast bar like the heat has intoxicated her brain.
“No.” She glances back at me, but I don’t elaborate. The milk protein breaks down capsaicin–the chemical in peppers that gives it heat–in your mouth, but in your stomach, it could stimulate the acid and make everything worse.
She trusts me blindly, pulling the milk from the fridge and gulping it straight from the jug. Handing it over to me, she moves to the sink while swishing the liquid in her mouth .
Oh fuck. I love cereal. I love the way milk makes it twice as good.
But it does not compare to the way I fucking love this milk right now.
The coolness bites through the burn in my mouth.
I swish it around, feeling it transition from refrigerator cold to room temperature as it absorbs the heat in my mouth. I already feel a million times better.
Mya spits into the kitchen sink before standing and backing out of the space. I follow her lead, then take a deep breath and stand to face her.
She bursts into laughter so loud, happy and contagious that I can’t help but chuckle. “What?”
“You wanted to do that?” She manages between laughs, now hunched over in her fit. “You were worried I was a secret psycho, but you’ve just given me cold hard proof that it’s you .”
“We did complete the challenge. You have to admit it’s satisfying.” I lean my back against the counter.
She stands, gaining some composure. “Technically not because we didn’t wait five minutes.” She reaches out and touches my arm. I follow the movement, my gaze locked on where our skin touches. When I refocus on her, she’s looking at me. “But we’re going to pretend we did, then never do that again.”
I’m tempted to redo the challenge without “cheating,” but in a situation like this, I can let the rules slide. “One and done. It’s not like I’ll ever find someone willing to do it with me. At least not without a bribe or a bet.”
“True again. God, please tell me that whatever comes next is less rough.”
I weigh the answers for a moment, knowing the next part might fuck me up more mentally than this challenge did physically. And with Mya refusing to confront her feelings and just pushing them to the side, it might not go well for her either. “We’ll see.”
She shakes her head amused, and the fact that she’s not concerned about what could be next after that is extremely unsettling. “Can I at least shower first?”
“Yeah. We have to leave in half an hour.”
“Got it, Cap'n Crunch.” She salutes me and walks merrily toward the bathroom, leaving me standing there like the idiot I feel like when I’m around her.
The feeling is overruled by anxiety thrumming through my body at the thought of what comes next, already regretting my plan and wishing I had another bag of nuts instead.