Page 108 of Experiments in Offline Dating

I finished buttoning up the rhinestone buttons on my pajama top. “I mean, I love your dad, and you should totally—”

When I turned around, my jaw dropped. He was radiating such pure, unfettered anger that I could feel the heat of it zapping me from across the bed we were about to share.

“No. Don’t stop now.” He sounded as if he’d like to choke me. “Go ahead, Maya. Please continue to tell me how I should speak to my own father.” He stood at the edge of the bed, looked down at me, and drank a swig of champagne violently, which I did not know, until that moment, was a thing that it was possible to do.

“Well, I . . .” I blinked. “You know what? Maybe this isn’t the best time.”

“Oh, it’s absolutely the best time for you to put your nose into my business. Because this is exactly what I need to end this perfect day with. Maybe afterward I’ll go take a cold plunge in the composting toilet, just to really round it off.”

“All right. I hear you. You’re right.” I stopped. It was a good time to stop. It was a good time to close my mouth and shut the hell entirely up. Forever. “It’s just that your dad is such a sweet man. He’s like a little sugar-lump person. It just seems like—”

“My dad? You want to talk about my dad?” He scoffed. “You only just met the man a few days ago, and now you’re going to tell me all about him, are you?”

“But I’ve never heard you say a nice word to him ever. Or even just a calm, regular, venom-free word. He’s so tenderhearted. I know he must feel it. I have a really close relationship with my dad. I guess I can’t help but want the same for you two.”

“So you think I’m an arsehole for no reason? There couldn’t possibly be any reason at all that I might have to be angry with him?”

I crossed my arms and rubbed my hands against my sleeves, trying to warm up. “Like?”

“Like he meddles with everyone he loves. We’re just puppets to him. We’re fucking sleeping in a tent with fucking rose petals, Maya. Dammit! This is what he does. He doesn’t listen to what we want, he doesn’t ask permission, he just does whatever he thinks is best.”

I walked over and grabbed the champagne off the bedside table.

“You . . . want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m not the type that likes to whine about his feelings, in case you hadn’t noticed, Maya.” He was getting angrier, but I felt like I was picking at a scab, and I couldn’t stop. I wanted it off. I wanted to see what was underneath.

“Come on.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. And you wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“I would want to hear it. I want to understand.”

“No!” I passed him the bottle, and he took a long pull from it. “Fuck. You just think he’s all adorable and harmless.”

“But how much harm can there really be in wanting your loved ones to be happy?”

“I’ll tell you how much. Because I fell for his shit before, because the great, world-renowned matchmaker couldn’t possibly ever be wrong, could he? I listened to his nonsense and ended up marrying a girl who wasn’t a good match for me. And we tried to build a life together, and I took the rough, rocky bit of useless land that she had, and I built my dreams on that farm, on us. Sweat and blood, every day for six fucking years. And when she left, she took the farm with her. And now I’m left with nothing. No wife. No farm. No sheep. Just my dog, who has no sheep to herd, and the never-ending humiliation of being the subject of the hottest gossip for a bored little village who has nothing better to talk about. If he’d just left me alone to make up my own fucking mind about my life, maybe things would have turned out differently. But he pushed me. He convinced me it was the right thing. You don’t do that to people you’re supposed to love. You don’t mess with their lives. But that’s who my dad is. Every day. And if it’s not love and marriage, it’s something else. What kind of soap you should be washing your dishes with, what fucking socks you should be wearing. Everything! Always meddling. Always giving you advice you didn’t ask for.” He stopped and drank again.

“Okay. I didn’t know that.”

“No, of course you didn’t. Because it’s none of your damn business.”

“Well, yeah, all right. That’s true. But also, he didn’t exactly force you to get married, right? That was your decision. And it sounds like he was doing it out of love.”

“How do I even know what are my decisions or his decisions anymore? He’s been doing this since the day I was born. He changed the course of my life! How can you not get that?”

“But your divorce was years ago. Surely you can’t just be mad at him forever. Maybe it’s time to forgive him.”

“Forgive him for something he’ll never stop doing? Look around you, Maya! There’s a fucking rose-petal heart on the bed! That he had the fucking balls to say was a nice touch!”

“I mean. I’m not sure this is meddling. You know he loves a discount. He bought three party-sized bags of toffee popcorn while I was there just because they were on sale.”

He sneered. He needed sleep. He didn’t need this. “Don’t pretend to be stupid, Maya.”

I softened my voice. “Either way, all I’m saying is that whatever he is or isn’t, he’s your dad. And he loves you. And in the long run, that’s what’s important. When he’s gone, are you going to be proud that you treated him like crap all these years?”

I had tried to stop myself, but it just tumbled out. His eyes flashed, and he put his hand on the headboard and leaned across it, narrowing the space between us. Crap. Wrong move.