That was her saliva, wasn't it? I thought as I looked down at the straw. Straw, strawberry, what a funny coincidence.

I quickly glanced at Deen and looked away before she noticed me; she was hesitantly picking at the gravy-coated fries with her fork.

Whatever I sucked out of the straw sure didn't taste like a strawberry milkshake...or anything at all. Just bland, slimy nothingness that felt like saliva but also somehow tasted odd because it wasn't my own. I took another sip to make sure it wasn't some gross liquid in the diner kitchen that got inadvertently mixed into our drink.

Deen looked at me. Could she be checking my reaction to her trick...if it was a trick?

I raised a brow at her as intensely sweet strawberry filled my mouth; the weird taste from earlier was no longer present. The mysterious liquid was in the straw, not in the drink. Only Deen could have placed it there. I was right that she didn't drink the milkshake earlier; I was about ninety-five percent sure I didn't see anything pink go up the straw.

She shook her head, telling me she had nothing to say, before looking to the side as she took a bite out of her half of the grilled cheese sandwich.

I mimicked her, but munching only the crust off mine; it tasted greasy and great. I was still unsure whether she intentionally spat into the straw or not. What was the correct term for it? 'Spat' didn't sound right, nor did 'insert'. Could the word 'insert' be used for liquids?

Maybe Deen pretended to drink to show she appreciated it even if she didn't like it, and she accidentally 'reverse-sipped' her saliva inside the straw. Reverse sip? Yeah, I was overthinking about something likely not intentional. It would be fucking disgusting if—

"Um, Erind," Deen suddenly said, interrupting my thoughts and breaking the silence between us. "Let me have another sip."

"Of what?" I warily asked.

"Sip of the apple pie," Deen sarcastically replied. "The milkshake. That's the only thing I can sip...unless you have something else there?"

"Something else?" I repeated as my brows furrowed. The saliva thing might not be as unintended as I assumed. This seemed to be the next stage of our little competition. And what a disgusting stage it was.

She reached for the milkshake glass. I transferred it to my left, out of her reach. She frowned at me as she leaned over the table to get it. I pulled it away from her. "I thought we were going to share that?" she said with a pout as she continued reaching for it.

"I changed my mind," I said, leaning out of our booth, extending my arm, and holding the glass as far from her hands as I could. "Seems suspicious that you want to drink this now."

Her hands grabbed nothing. Then she winked at me. She didn't go for the glass again. With an impish face, she leaned forward, coming closer to me, and suddenly attempted to claw at my chest.

"Deen!" I protested, parrying her hands away. "None of that!" You fucking bitch, I added in my head. "You're going to make me spill the shake. Oops, I think I did."

"Just kidding," she said in a singsong voice. She sat back in her seat while trying to control fits of laughter. "I should've taken a video of your reaction. It's rare to see you with that expression."

"Because you were going to grab my boobs," I said as I set the glass back on the table. However, it's not like she’s going to grab anything.

"I was just joking around,” Deen said with an annoying chuckle of supremacy. She knew she won, whatever our contest was supposed to be. “What's wrong with it? We're both girls...best friends at that, aren't we?”

"Yeah, we're best friends," I answered. "But that doesn't mean you can just grope me out of the blue."

"Sooo...I can do it if it's not out of the blue," she said. I rolled my eyes. She stuck out her tongue and gave me a playful wink. "It's a joke. I'm not going to grope you, silly. Just a bit of teasing, maybe a hint of touchy-feeliness too. Are you conscious about your boobs? Sorry if you—"

"I'm not," I said, rolling my eyes in exasperation. "I'm really not thinking about that." Breast size sure was helpful if I planned to manipulate men using my body.

But I had accepted a long time ago that I didn't have a body like...like Deen, for example. I had recognized that such a path wasn't recommended for me. I had plenty of other manipulation tools; I didn't need a hot body to control a guy. Besides manipulation, I honestly didn't have any use for big boobs. Good on me for avoiding potential back pain.

"Oh, I thought I offended you," Deen said. "I'm awfully sorry if I did; I didn't mean to."

"I'm not offended," I said, "but also don't do it." I formed an 'X' mark with my arms over my chest. "How about we just eat in peace and enjoy the good food?" As a demonstration, I sliced a piece of the apple pie crust with my fork and shoved it into my mouth. It was extremely flaky. I couldn't wait to taste the apple filling.

"Okay, we'll go back to peacefully eating if that's what you want," she said. "As part of the, um, eating process—"

"Eating process?" I snorted. Deen was up to something again. No way she was going to give up teasing me with that. Fuck! I should've pretended I was sensitive about my small boobs. What a huge fucking waste of opportunity to pretend I was emotionally hurt!

"Yeah, eating process, diner experience, whatever. To make it complete, I want...need to have a drink of the milkshake." She nudged her head at the glass. Part of the liquid had spilled down its side during our earlier scramble.

"Here," I warily said, pushing it across the table towards her. "Don't do anything weird with it." It must've just been my imagination that I tasted something different. Or Deen just sucked in sucking—what a weird phrase.

"Anything weird?" she said as she brought the straw to her lips. "I'm just drinking here." This time, the pink liquid did go up the transparent straw.

"Yummy," she said, her voice wavering a bit.  It was satisfying to see beads of tears form in the corners of her eyes as she forced herself to swallow the milkshake.

"You know, you don't have to force yourself to drink it if you don't want to," I said. And if you reject it, I'm going to tease you.

"I-I'm not fo...forcing my-myself," she said, her sentence punctuated by small coughs. She grabbed the glass of water the waitress had given us along with our food to cleanse her mouth. "I'm not forcing myself," she clearly repeated with conviction. "There you go." She pushed the glass back to my side.

I wondered whether I should drink straight from the glass or sip from the straw.

Deen was staring at me again. And as before, I raised a brow at her. She gave me a huge grin. She knew that I knew something was up, daring me to meet her challenge.

I can't back down from this one, I thought as I wrapped my lips around the straw.

She said, "I'm going to have to exercise a ton later to burn off all these calories. I bet there are like five hundred calories in that glass of milkshake alone. Maybe more? It's really super-duper sweet."

"Hmmm..." I sort of gargled the milkshake as I tasted it. Yep, the weird taste was there. Deen did it again.

"Hmm....what?" she innocently said.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You know what. Stop doing that."

"Stop doing what? I'm not playing footsie with you anymore. Unless you want to—"

"Again, that wasn't a footsie," I exasperatedly said, kicking away her leg that I instinctively knew was inching closer to me. "More like a thighsie. And I didn't mean that." I placed the glass of milkshake between us. She shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head questioningly at it. I tapped the straw and glared at her.

"Huh? I don't understand." Her innocent blinking told me she was faking it.

"That was your saliva, wasn't it?"

"Saliva? On the straw? Like you saw me drink from it, right?"

"Ugh, that's not what I mean," I said. "You intentionally...placed your saliva inside this thing." I wanted to use the word 'insert', but Deen would bring up the insert thing when I poked her navel. And she'd laugh if I said, 'reverse sip.' "It wasn't just normal amounts."

"Normal amounts? Of saliva?" She nonchalantly continued eating as if I was rambling nonsense. "This is a pretty weird conversation."

"Stop dodging the question."

"It was probably just foam or something," she said. "You haven't tasted my saliva before, have you?"

"No, but I do know what milkshake tastes like, and it wasn't that."

"Accusations without evidence," Deen said as she drank from the straw again. "The only way to prove your claim is if you independently taste my saliva and then compare—"

"I'm not going to do that! Now, you're the one making the conversation weird."

"If you're not going to do it, then your accusations must fall," she firmly said. "You can't accuse me with only speculation." She pushed the milkshake back to me with an evil glint in her eye. "Your turn to drink."