Page 66 of Experiments in Offline Dating

His words were harsh, as usual, but he bent down, all that way, and helped me pick stuff up, and took my heavy glass water bottle and the bulkier items and zipped them up in his pack without a word. Then he grabbed a wrist and pulled me up.

“Well. This was really cool,” I said honestly.

He shrugged. “It wasn’t horrible—present company excepted, of course.”

“Thanks for making it even more whimsical with all your sparkling personality.”

“I have plenty of personality. I just reserve it for the people who deserve it.”

“Oh, crap!” I’d walked straight into a puddle, and the icy water had gone right into my shoes.

Tadhg turned his flashlight back on. And shone it out. But the sloping cave didn’t lead to a dry path a short hop away. It led, as far as the light reached, into ever-deepening water.

“Fuuuuck,” I said.

The tide was coming in faster than I’d thought the water could move, the ripples of waves lapping into the cave. The howling of the wind that I’d thought so ethereal before seemed like a portent of danger now.

“Double-fuck Oreos.”

“I bloody told you, didn’t I?”

“Really? I don’t remember you saying anything.”

“This was so goddamn stupid.” The wind blew harder then and spat on my face like it was on stupid Tadhg’s side. Then it blew so hard and so loud that I had to squeeze my eyes closed. He went on, “You’re so bloody-minded. Why do you never listen?”

“I did listen. I listened to Orla and Bill when they told us not three hours ago that we’d be perfectly safe and that the tide was moving out.”

“Well, they were obviously lying, weren’t they, Maya?”

“That’s ridiculous! Why would they lie?”

“You know damn well why!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Look. I’m not going to sit here and explain this to you. We have to go through that fucking storm. And get ready, because you’re about to get really fucking wet.”

I laughed. “Oh, I will, will I?”

“I’m not playing a stupid fucking game, Maya.” He stepped in to me threateningly, but the space of the cave was so close that he was nearly pressed against me. “This is going to get deeper as we walk out. Do you remember the bit where we had to walk through the water? And the bit where we had to scramble down the rocks? Because that path is going to be dangerous now. We could get seriously hurt. Do ye get that?”

“If it’s going to be so dangerous, why don’t we just wait it out in here? It can’t last more than an hour or two, right? Why does everything have to be so damn serious with you?” I put my chin up and moved a half step into him, looking him dead in the eyes. “You don’t have to yell. Just because you’re as big as a fucking bear doesn’t mean you have to behave like one, Tadhg.”

He gave me a searing look. I was too close. An image flashed of him pressing me against a rock while I fumbled with his zipper and bit down on his lip in the dark. I almost took a step back, but I refused to lose face. He was breathing hard. It was anger, I knew, but the sound of it scorched the skin along my collarbone and sent a lick of fire straight down my rib cage to pool between my thighs.

“We cannot stay here and wait it out.” His voice was quieter, slower. “If the weather gets worse and the waves pick up, we could be trapped in here, and we’ve got water coming in through the ceiling and more down the mountain every minute that we’re stood here talking.”

“All the more reason that we’re safer in here.”

“Listen to me.” He grabbed my wrist, but it wasn’t tight or painful; it was gentle, if anything. “Maya, people die like this every year. Just a couple of months ago a man was stuck in a sea cave for four days, and they had to lift him out with a helicopter and rush him to hospital, he’d been so beaten up. The year before that, a young couple drowned. It was all over the news. That’s not going to be us. It’s too dangerous to let ourselves get trapped in here when we don’t know what the weather’s doing. So we’re going, and we’re going now, before that storm has a chance to get any worse. Not only that, but Finn is up there alone, and I can’t leave her there for days while I face down death with you.”

I took a minute, then nodded. “That makes sense.” I had just needed him to explain it to me rather than shout commands. “And I hadn’t thought of Finn.”

He nodded like he’d heard me, and his face cleared as he let out a breath that brushed across my wet skin. “Good. Some of it might be hard. It wasn’t the easiest path when the weather was fair. But just stay close. And trust me.”

“Okay.”

I did, though. I trusted him.