“You hear that?” Jake said, turning to the other person next to him with a sly side-eye. “She just said she wants to eat me.” His smile spread into a grin. Jake winked and made a click noise between his back teeth. “Think her fiance knows?” The old man next to them just shrugged and took another bite out of his BLT.
With Abbie's particular tastes, Jake would have liked to somehow get in a dig about frog legs, snails, or fish eggs, or any of the other stuff people with particular tastes ate that wasn't unlike what carrion-eaters would enjoy, but once the topic turned to the pie contest, he almost forgot their previous exchange.
Jake nodded. “Three hours. Total slavery,” he confirmed. Even though he had no idea what he'd do with Abbie if he won. Get her to do his finances maybe? ...Nah. Too evil. He'd figure something out. It wasn't like they'd set a collect day. If he won, Jake could think about this as long as he wanted.
“Smart,” Jake said to Poppy. He nodded with approval. “You'll be a good judge then.” What she'd said about not wanting to eat the pie because it would make her ill almost sounded like wisdom. Jake didn't get why this chick was hanging out with the two of them.
He understood it even less when his fork stabbed down into the pie, and Jake realized what a horrible idea this whole thing was. Jake really should have gotten a satin type thing like the pie Abbie had been eaten, but he'd been too distracted by Abbie to specify what kind of pie, and now he was stuck with an apple. Unless it was a Shepherd's pie, or a pot pie, or a pizza pie, Jake didn't like pie. The crust was okay when it wasn't too salty, but Jake didn't like the sticky stuff around the fruit. He also didn't like the fruit. Or the fruit with the sticky stuff and the crust.
Jake also really didn't like it when people watched him eat. When he was eating while he was doing something else and the eating wasn't the focus, it was fine, but the whole sit-down dinner thing...?
This was a million times worse than a sit-down dinner thing.
His fork hovered after Jake lifted it out of the pie, and Jake looked at Abbie. After a pause, the fork touched the pie again, and Jake started slowly cutting it into pieces. If they were going for endurance, Jake wasn't in any rush.