Page 79 of Experiments in Offline Dating

Heat crawled across my skin. I tried to look away, tried to swallow it back down. This whole trip was going to be impossible now. Torturous! Had I known that this was what it would be like, I never would have done it.

No. That’s just a shameless lie. If we were stuck in a Groundhog Day loop, I’d do it again. Every. Damn. Time.

“You feeling all right there, Maya?” Holy fuck, that Irish accent. Nope! I’m the opposite of all right. His brows drew together. “Did something happen?” Yeah! I can’t stop thinking about your enormous—

I took a deep breath and schooled my face into something that I hoped looked a little bit less like I’d just audiobooked Chapter Fifty-Five of A Court of Mist and Fury on repeat.

“Oh yeah. I’m fine, thanks. Nothing.”

He squinted at me a bit. “Was he a dick? Do I need to make a phone call?”

Ugggh. What the hell? Is he being protective? That just makes it worse!

I tried to sound normal—as if I ever knew what normal sounded like. “No, no. I’m. It was fine. It was really funny, actually.” I pulled out my phone, thinking to take the focus off the stupid bumbling my mouth was doing, and swiped my way to the photo. “Look.”

But I hadn’t thought ahead, of course, because Tadhg had to step in close to me to see it. And he smelled like sun-warmed something delicious, and I didn’t know if it came in a bottle or it was natural, but it made me want to run my tongue across his skin.

He had a deep, quiet laugh at the photo. I took a big step back and stuffed the phone in my back pocket.

“So, yeah. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about my date with Peggy.” I wanted to tell him all about it in detail, like I would have with Simone; I wanted to tell him about the interview questions and the poop parade, but I couldn’t. I was tripping over my words. I was nervous. Sex was clouding my brain.

All of this was murky. I knew where I stood before, he sort of hated me, I thought he was needlessly grumpy and way too much work—but we were in it together, quietly hating our way across Ireland one stop at a time.

But then I had thrown myself on top of him and ridden him like a cowgirl on an electric bull. And he had liked it. And now . . .? And now what?

“The next stop is lunch.”

“Thank crap! I’m starving.”

I was hungry, but more than that, a meal would distract me from Tadhg and take the edge off of this longing-spiral I was free-falling down.

We drove to meet Wilfred the Worrier at the Ladies View café. While the café was a simple one, the view took my breath away.

The gentleman, on the other hand, didn’t quite manage to do the same.

Wilfred, it turned out, was swiftly approaching seventy. I ordered a fairly boring sandwich, and he ordered soup and let me pay for my half, and then he asked the guy at the counter to bring his soup to the table so that he didn’t spill it, though I would have been happy to carry it. We did not sit on the balcony with the miraculous view because he was prone to taking a chill.

“That’s when I put up some of those home security systems with the cameras. Now I can see everything that’s going on ’round the house. If someone comes to the window in the night, I’m going to know about it.”

“That’s. Okay, that sounds good. Is crime a big problem in your area?”

“Oh, no. No one ’round for miles.”

“Ah. Well. Really? Hmm.”

“Last year I bought me two of those big Alsatians to protect the house, you know, but they knocked me down while I was carrying my TV tray and ate my supper right off the floor as I called out for help.”

“Oh my goodness! That’s terrible! Were you hurt?”

“No, but that was my favorite ready meal, and it was the last one. Brought them back to the breeder the very next day.”

I frowned a little bit and took another bite of my sandwich. At least I bought these cheese-and-onion chips. Or is it crisps here? Or is that just Britain? Mmm. So crunchy!

Mostly, I zoned out. He didn’t ask me any questions anyway, like any, not even one, so he didn’t notice. I tried a few times to steer the conversation, but these interjections were ignored. I couldn’t tell if he couldn’t hear me well or he just didn’t care. I think, rather than a date, he just wanted to have another human nod occasionally and witness his meal and be ready to spring into action with the Heimlich if any choking occurred.

A half hour later, the man walked me back to Tadhg and gave us some warnings about driving at night and all the “crazy drivers” who were “out on the road these days.” Then we said a perfunctory goodbye, and his car rolled off with all the speed of a snail on muscle relaxers.

Conclusion: date unsuccessful.