Chapter 14 Experiments in Getting Wet #2
We stood there for a moment and just listened to the water. I’d never been in a cave other than show caves like Carlsbad Caverns. This was different. This was private. This was a fantasy.
“I guess that’s the rock they sat on over there, right? Seems pretty dry.”
“Probably.”
“So, should I enjoy this delicious picnic all on my own, or are you going to tell me that this was a great idea?”
He scoffed. “I’d sooner starve to death.”
I looked him up and down, assessing. “You’re a very small man on the inside, aren’t you?” He shot me a look that I wanted a photo of.
The hike had heated me up, so I unzipped my raincoat and took it off.
It hadn’t been much use against the Irish rain—my top was wet in patches, and so was my hair.
Not that it mattered much, because my sports leggings and hiking boots were completely drenched and spattered in mud.
I scrambled my hair out to dry. This earned me a look too, but I couldn’t tell what I’d done wrong.
Maybe Tadhg didn’t need a reason to be disappointed in you.
I unfolded my travel towel and spread it across the stone, then I pulled out the sandwiches, crisps, and drinks, and finally, I took the lid off an old plastic ice cream tub that held two huge slices of chocolate cake.
They’d been tossed around a little, and the icing was a mess, but the smell was divine.
I pulled out my phone and snapped some shots.
“See? It’s just like the picnic Bill and Orla had! Well, without the flowers and the life-altering sex, of course.”
“Christ, Maya.” Tadhg bristled and walked away. “You don’t have to say everything that pops into that head of yours.”
That tone—that total annoyance, the anger. Screw asshole protocol, I wasn’t doing this to hold my own anymore. I was doing it for the dopamine hit.
He took his raincoat off as well and flung it over a rock, then slipped his sweater over his head—the one I had borrowed the day before.
His back was to me, but I noticed him pause and bring the collar up to his face and inhale.
Did it smell like my perfume? Maybe he didn’t like his clothes smelling like other people either.
He made to throw it on the rock on top of his coat, then changed his mind and slipped it back on and smoothed it out, much to my dismay.
I always preferred to dine with a view—of forearms.
“Hurry up. We shouldn’t stay long,” he said, just in case I was enjoying myself. I handed him a sandwich and he sat down next to me. I opened the bag of sea-salt-and-black-pepper kettle chips and put them between us.
“So, tell me about yourself, Tadhg.”
He glowered at me. “No.” We both bit into our sandwiches.
“Interesting. I didn’t know it was physically possible to chew and clench your jaw at the same time.” He rolled his eyes but gave me nothing. “Come on. We’re going to be stuck together for the next three weeks. I’m entitled to know something about you.”
“Only twenty days left. I’m marking it off on my diary.”
I grinned as I took another bite. “Tell me about farming.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yep.” His tone was clipped, but this wasn’t my first rodeo. I could tell I’d get something out of him if I pushed the right way.
“I’m genuinely interested. I’ve never met a farmer before. What do you like about it?”
“This isn’t one of your damn podcast interviews, Maya.”
“Please?”
He was quiet for a minute, and then his shoulders dropped and he let out a huff of surrender or annoyance—probably both.
“Fine. I like that it’s quiet.” He gave me a dirty look to imply that I, on the other hand, was not nearly quiet enough, but then he went on.
“I get to be outside every day. I can just focus on my work and ignore everything else. Don’t have to deal with people or run decisions past anyone.
I don’t even look at my phone. I just . . . disconnect.”
I honestly hadn’t thought Tadhg and I had anything at all in common, so I was surprised to find that resonated with me.
It sounded really nice, actually, like something I would want for myself.
One day I’d retire and probably become a very happy hermit who only had to be around other people when she chose to be—people whom I loved and understood, and who understood me.
People I didn’t have to second-guess every word around.
He took a bite and chewed, a little more relaxed. Then he said pretty much what I was thinking. “The sheep don’t care if I’m in a bad mood. I don’t have to watch what I say.”
“So that’s why you love sheep so much. They’re the only ones who don’t care if you’re an asshole.” I grinned at his scowl and bumped his shoulder with mine.
I felt my smile fade as I looked from his eyes to his mouth.
If my mind went to visions of having sex in this cave and the way the sounds of pleasure would echo back, then I ignored it resolutely.
I did not think that I might get trapped in there with Tadhg and that we might be forced to have a lot of vigorous sex to keep each other from freezing to death.
I didn’t even think about thinking that!
“I love sheep so much because they don’t ask me stupid questions. Now get that cake down you so that we can get the hell out of here.” He was snapping, but I smiled softly at him—he had just shared something with me, and perhaps he regretted it now, but I felt like I’d won it.
Through the ceiling, the rain had begun to make its way in with more force, joining the gush of the waterfall.
The cave had grown a little darker and decidedly wetter while we ate.
My eyes had adjusted gradually, so I hadn’t noticed that the sun wasn’t washing the cave in a golden glow anymore.
Now it looked pretty gray and stormy. Zero magical rainbows.
“Yeah, okay, fun sponge. The rain will clear up while we eat cake, and then we can have a nice, dry walk back.”
“Bollocks it will.”
I grinned and handed him a fork, and we took turns passing the box back and forth. It was so gooey and chocolatey that I actually moaned. “Yeah, I would accept any proposal if it came with a side of this chocolate cake.”
“I’ll be sure to get Ned the recipe in that case.”
I chewed and looked at him for a moment. “What’s it like being the son of a famous matchmaker?”
His whole body went rigid. He tossed his fork back in the cake box and stood up, brushing his jeans off. “It’s just peachy. Come on, let’s go.”
I considered forcing it—saying I wouldn’t leave until he answered my question. I did desperately want to know. But he had opened up a little bit before, and I didn’t want to spoil that by being too pushy and shutting him down to any future conversations.
Instead, I dug in my bag and pulled out the selfie stick Simone had bought me before I left, and snapped some pictures while I ate the last of the cake.
“Would now be a good time to tell you that you have chocolate all over your nose?” Tadhg offered only after I had packed the stick away and put the phone in a Ziploc bag.
I wiped my nose. He was right. Damn. I licked the frosting off my hand like an animal and smiled. “Oh well. Bonus frosting.”
“Gross.”
“You’re welcome.” I winked.
“All right, you’ve had enough. Pick up all this crap and let’s get out of here. That rain’s not getting any better. It’s worse, and we’ve lost time.”
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?”