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“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re about to.”

She smirked. “We could do that, you know.”

“We’re already halfway through dinner.”

“That was just a warm-up.”

I looked at the sign again. At the bottom was a photo of the platter. It appeared to include egg rolls, dumplings, chicken skewers, crab rangoon, fried shrimp, chicken wings, spring rolls, and several piles of noodles and rice.

Sloane leaned closer. “You said you can eat much more than a latent shifter.”

“I can.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So prove it.”

“This is our first date. You don’t want to be disgusted by my ability to pound food.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Opposite. We need a memorable activity for our first date.” She smiled in a way that made refusal significantly harder.

“Don’t you want to obtain eternal glory?” she asked.

I stared at her. She took another bite and waited.

“Fine.”

Her face lit up. “Seriously?”

“We’re not attempting the record, though.”

“Coward.”

“We’re attempting completion.”

She pursed her lips as she considered that. “Acceptable.”

I waved down our server before good judgment returned. The server’s name tag read LUCY. She looked from me to Sloane, then toward our half-finished plates. “You want to do the challenge now?”

Sloane nodded. “We’ve been preparing ourselves mentally for it.”

Lucy studied the table. “For how long?”

“Two minutes,” Sloane said.

Lucy laughed. “I’ll get the manager.”

The manager arrived with paperwork and rules. The expression of tired patience on his face said he’d watched many adults misunderstand their own digestive limits.

We signed waivers acknowledging that Golden Wok wasn’t responsible for discomfort, nausea, embarrassment, or “unwise competitive conduct.”

Sloane tapped the final phrase. “They’ve seen some things.”

I pointed toward the ground. “The carpet tried to warn us.”

Lucy removed our plates. A nearby table overheard what was happening and began watching. Then another table noticed. By the time the challenge platter arrived, half the restaurant knew.

It was much larger than the photograph suggested.