Chapter 16 An Experiment in Fucking . . . Fucking It All Up, That Is
We had a few hours’ drive, and I was grateful they were mostly silent, because what in the fucking world did I just do?
It felt like sensory overload. The storm, the danger, the unbelievable sex, all of it was so very much, and I felt exhausted and overwhelmed.
I needed to think carefully about how I should behave in the wake of all this.
Needless to say, sex did not adhere to my travel-Ireland-with-a-furious-stranger protocol.
It was clearly not an intelligent choice to have anything the least bit romantic with this man who openly hated me and with whom I would have to travel, contained in a tin can with a rabid honey badger, for the next several eons of my life.
For someone who never even spent the night at people’s houses after sex because I dreaded the cuddling and the excruciating awkwardness of drinking coffee together in the morning—this was . . . not ideal. It was basically a three-week morning after.
Whatever happened next was going to take some grace and careful navigation.
Neither of which came naturally to me. I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know how I wanted to go about dealing with this.
All I knew was that I was utterly exhausted.
The evening was gathering in. Turned out we had lost a lot of time by nearly drowning and then humping the life out of each other.
Tadhg had had to cancel the date for me.
But soon there would be food and bed, and that, at least, was some comfort.
Perhaps after some sleep, I would have the mental faculties to think this through.
“I think I’m gonna lie down and take a nap back here.”
“I’m not surprised.” His eyes flashed in the rearview, but I couldn’t tell what sort of look it was.
“Wake me if you need anything,” I said lamely. There wasn’t anything he could possibly need that I could help with. I just didn’t know what else to say.
Finn, who had been elated to see us and had run around wildly in the rain for five solid minutes after we’d returned in one piece, slept in the coveted front seat under a blanket. For a change, I didn’t begrudge her this, as I was relieved to have the backseat to myself.
The rain tapped hard against the windows, looking for ways to get in, and the winding single-track roads rocked me in a gentle sway. I lay down, put on my audiobook, set Libby’s sleep timer for thirty minutes, and was asleep in five. Decadent oblivion.
That is—until Jackie called, and the ringer was a bucket of ice water to the face!
I was sure it was one of my elderly gentleman callers, and grimaced in pain as I looked down, but when I realized it was Jackie, quick joy was soon replaced by trepidation.
This was Tadhg’s father. And Tadhg’s father was a lifelong matchmaker with antennae finely tuned to all things romantic in nature.
What would he ask? What should I say? Would he know? Could he hear sex in my voice?
“Hello,” I croaked.
“Well, there ye are, Maya! And how lovely it is to hear your voice.”
“Oh! Um. Hi, Jackie. How are you?” Just act natural and it’ll be fine.
“I’m just grand. But more to the point, how are you?”
Mildly apprehensive yet still floating around in a delirious postcoital glow, thanks for asking.
“Um. So good!” Too much! Don’t be suspicious. “I mean, pretty good. Normal good, you know.” Crap in a suitcase! Why can’t I remember what natural sounds like?
“Are you all right, my dear? I’ve been calling you all day.”
“Oh no. Really?” I’d heard it. It had been ringing while we’d walked up the hill in the rain.
But I hadn’t answered. And why hadn’t I answered, you ask?
Because I couldn’t talk after two wild bone-shattering orgasms with this man’s son.
That’s why. “I’m so sorry. I was . . .” What were you doing?
THINK, MAYA. “Busy.” Getting busy! “Busy with . . . doing stuff.” Doing stuff on your son!
My eyes squeezed closed, and I had to take a deep breath in reverent awe of my own unmitigated stupidity.
“Ah, well. That sounds good, then. I’m glad Tadhg is keeping you busy.”
“Oh, he’s been keeping me busy, all right.”
“What does that mean?”
Holy fucking shit! You just said that out loud, you moron!
“Oh, you know. He’s strict about his schedules, you know.” Good save.
“Is that so? And what was on the schedule today, then?” Oh, God, he knows. Does he know? He knows! Quick, fix it!
“Oh, well, you know, we were at Orla and Bill’s, and they did an interview last night, and that was amazing, and have you ever had Orla’s mashed potatoes?
I mean, I think I saw God, Jackie, they are really something else.
Do you like mashed potatoes, because I do!
And did you know they also like dogs? They gave Finn a sausage.
Two sausages, I think! And she was the happiest I’ve ever seen—” My words were pouring out.
I couldn’t stop them. This is normal, right?
I wasn’t even listening to the word diarrhea dribbling out of me anymore.
Tadhg took his eyes off the road then, in the middle of a storm, and turned his head all the way around like in The Exorcist to look at me acting like a clown. I gulped and stopped.
“Right. But that was yesterday, though, was it not?”
“Oh. Yeah. It was. Today we . . .” Fucked each other into the next dimension. “We did . . .” Each other. Say each other. NO! Don’t say that! “Got into a storm.”
“A storm, you say? Did you get wet?”
Oh.
My.
God.
I choked out the laugh of textbook hysteria and then started coughing. Don’t be such a damn pervert! What’s the damn matter with you?
“We did! We did get wet from the water rain!”
“Hm.” Oh, God. That was a bad sound. A knowing sound.
“It’s true! What? You don’t believe me? We even got trapped in a cave.” I laughed nervously.
Jackie got very quiet for a minute or so, and I swallowed so loudly that people could hear it in the next county.
“What cave would that be, Maya?” His voice. It was different. I couldn’t tell you how it was different. But I heard something.
“Oh, you know. Just some . . . some old cave. Why don’t I pass you to Tiger?
He’s. I mean! Tadhg. Your son Tadhg. Pfft—I don’t usually call him Tiger or anything weird.
Because that would be weird. Weird alert!
Ha ha ha. That was just a slip of the tongue.
” He’s pretty great at slipping his tongue right across my .
. . “Here!” I literally shouted. “He really wants to talk to you!”
“Maya. I’m driving.” Tadhg sounded annoyed.
“Oh. He’s driving right now. We’re in the car. Or Jeep or whatever. I mean, you know what your son drives. It’s. He’s driving that now. Here—I’ll put you on speakerphone.”
I leaned up from the back and held the phone out between the two front seats.
If this didn’t work, I was going to make the static noise over the phone with my mouth and then hang up.
And then light my phone on fire and throw it off a cliff.
And then at the bottom of that cliff there would be a wood chipper.
And that wood chipper would grind up my phone into tiny little—
“Hi, Da.” Tadhg shot a glance at me. It did not, I’m sure the whole world will be surprised to hear, look like a happy one.
“Ah, now, there’s my beautiful boy.”
To this, Tadhg said nothing.
“How’s the trip going, then?”
“Fine.”
I swallowed again, and it was like choking down a mouthful of hot sand. My mouth was dry. My whole body was in panic mode.
“Tomorrow is a big day, now, remember. You’ve got four dates to get to and the entire Ring of Kerry to see. Doesn’t that sound nice for you, Maya?”
“Oh! Wow. Sounds. So good. Lot of . . . dates.”
With my free hand, I saw my water bottle sticking out of Tadhg’s backpack and leaned forward to grab it for dear life.
That was something, at least. A few sips and a few minutes to let Tadhg talk while I collected myself were going to leave me right as rain, don’t think about rain, and then I could talk to Jackie again like a normal human.
“Leon said that you texted to cancel his date tonight. Why was that, then, Tadhg? Is Maya too tired? Have you been running her ragged all over the countryside?”
I spat the water out. And it flew in a great spitting geyser in every direction. And one of those directions was Tadhg’s face, which, because I was holding the phone out to him, was only about six inches from my sprinkler mouth.
“What are you doing?” Tadhg wiped his face with his shirt and we swerved a little, but there was, I could tell from the extremely close proximity, what looked like a slight grin tugging the corner of his mouth. “Would you be careful, you mad cow?”
“Hey now. You be good to that lovely girl, do you hear me?” Oh, he’s been good to me twice already.
“Behave yourself.” Or don’t. “Now, I made her a promise that you were going to take care of her every need.” My eyes rolled to the back of my head, and I was in literal pain from holding my stupid mouth shut.
“She’s in charge now, so you do as she says, isn’t that right, Maya? ”
“Oh, don’t worry, he’s been taking care of my every need, all right.”
Tadhg’s eyes shot to mine, and they were wide with what looked like genuine terror.
What’s wrong with me? I’ve lost my actual mind. Maybe all that vigorous sex-making shook some wires loose.
He shook his head. He. Will. Know, he silently mouthed to me.
“Well, now, that’s a very interesting tone, Maya. What do you mean, he—”
“Bye, Da. Driving. Shouldn’t be on the phone.” Tadhg snatched the phone from me and hung up with one hand still on the wheel. All of this was dangerous driving. “That was not funny.”
“I’m sorry. It was an accident! I’m no good at keeping secrets! I warned you. I just blurt shit out. My brain short-circuited.” I started to laugh. “It actually was pretty funny.” That look on his face!
“You think this is funny, do ye?” That made me laugh harder. “You don’t know that man like I do. If a drunk lad at a bar so much as bats an eye at a woman, anywhere in the world, Jackie Kelly feels it in his waters.”
By the end of this speech, I was laughing so hard I had doubled over. “His waters?” I wheezed. Finn started barking.
“Oh yeah. Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying this so much, you complete nutter, because you’ll be the one dealing with the consequences.”
I couldn’t breathe to respond.
“Just go back to sleep, for Christ’s sake! You were a lot less trouble then.”