Page 82 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“We’ll have a stop at that vista there, and then we can chat. Your driver said you’d be having lunch already, but I’ve packed us a little dessert for stop four.”

“Oh, okay. Nice. You’re in charge,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. And then I looked at his crotch.

He grinned smarmily. “I usually am.”

Nope. Don’t like that.

There were . . . as one might have expected in Ireland . . . hills. Hills that made my thighs burn and reminded me mercilessly with each pedal that I was still sore from yesterday’s sextravaganza. I had to stand on the pedals to make it up the hill.

I’m way too tired for this, I said with one struggling push of the pedal.

I didn’t get enough sleep, I said with another.

If I must ride, I said with another painful push of the pedal.

Then why can’t it be a ten-foot-something angry Irish farmer?

But then we crested a hill, and the scene opened up in front of us, and my breath caught. The road ran coyly away in a little winding ribbon that looped back and forth against the heather-covered rock, squeezing itself through the valley dotted with fluffy white sheep and past what looked like a pale blue lake in the distance. It was much too perfect to be real.

We pulled our bikes over for our previously scheduled stop one. I enjoyed a quiet moment of wonder, probably also scheduled. It was gorgeous. I was desperate to know where the road led, and delighted that, despite all the work, I would soon get to find out. I snapped some photos. Denis happily joined me for the selfie without being asked.

Sixty seconds of reverence completed, I was unceremoniously launched into date mode. He sat on the stone wall and gestured for me to do the same.

“So, what do you do for work, Maya?”

“Oh. Well, actually, I have a podcast.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” He smiled. “Me? I’m a solicitor. Or at least I used to be. Early retirement, you know how it is.”

“Oh. That’s nice. Lucky you.”

“Ah, well. A bit of luck, perhaps, but mostly hard work. Nose to the grindstone and all that.”

“Sure. Okay.”

“But seventeen years of long nights at the office paid for themselves, if you catch my drift.”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

“Cool seven figures.”

“Uh-huh. I got it.”

“And you’d be surprised what you can get outside of Dublin for your money. When I sold my two-bed flat in Ranelagh, I bought a damn manor out here in sheep country.”

“I see.” I allowed my eyes to drift to the scenery and wondered whether he would even notice if I stopped listening or, say, fell off the wall and was eaten alive by bloodthirsty weresheep.

Thank God for the sheep. I watched them pull up grass, mowing the valley one baby step at a time, bleating occasionally for no good reason.

“Eight and a half thousand square feet and change left over, that’s what it gets you.”

“Nice.”

“First thing I did was put in a sauna . . .”

Damn. You know what? I really love sheep. Just look at them over there. So majestic. I wonder what it would feel like to squeeze one around the middle in a bear hug.

“Well, you really have to employ a gardener at that point. Anything else would be mad . . .”