Chapter 20 A Brief Experiment in Caution
They got the jaunting cart driver to take them right back to the parking lot so that Peggy could drive them “all that way back home for nothing.”
I couldn’t help but giggle to myself as I started the walk up to the waterfall alone.
I texted Tadhg:
Managed to destroy date in all-new record time! Come when ready. Walking to the falls.
The response was quick.
Even quicker than ours?
Much!
Shame. You three looked cute together.
Throuple made in heaven!
The falls were crowded with tourists, but they were beautiful just the same.
I had a little hike farther up the mountain, to where lush trees shaded the trail in green, and found a spot to look out over the incredible vista with the lake across the way.
The weather was gorgeous, all cloudless blue topaz and no sign of wind or rain, trying to pretend like yesterday’s storm never happened. It wasn’t the only one.
Like a crack of lightning, the memory that I’d been trying to suppress all morning burst free—his hands on my hips, the cold rain on my skin, tight nipples, the curse on his breath.
My stomach swooped. I could try to forget all I wanted, but I remembered everything.
My lady bits remembered every damn second of it, and they were suddenly reminding me that they would like a replay, thank you very much.
And maybe again just after that for good measure.
Sweet holy crap. What Pandora’s box had I opened?
It isn’t Pandora’s box that’s the problem. I had to get a hold of myself.
I had a long trip in front of me, and a whole lot of time alone with Tadhg. There was no coming back from the sex we’d had. It was going to haunt my every waking moment for the next three weeks, at least, and probably many a sleeping moment as well, come to think of it.
I had already had a very confusing morning.
Lust only made it worse. I gave myself a sound scolding as I walked back down the trail.
My thighs ached in a deliciously lascivious sort of way, sore from having a broad man’s hips between them.
I tried to shut the tingles down. This only made me focus in on the tingles more, which, as it turned out, was a disaster, because it meant that when said mound of muscle and animal attraction arrived to pick me up from a date with another man, my mouth literally watered at the sight of him.
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.
Uncontrollable variable: my frugal logic could not abide the purchase of a sleep apnea machine “just in case.”
Tadhg smirked. “Wow. My dad really knows your type.”
The lulling monotony of the lunch conversation had calmed me right down, and I didn’t overthink my inclination to joke back.
“You think so? I tend to like them a little older. You know, someone who takes his dentures out nice and slow, for sexy foreplay. But this one really got my heart racing when he leaned in close and whispered sweet nothings over his soup.”
Tadhg grinned. His eyes crinkled. My rib cage was suddenly too tight. “Yeah? Cheeky old sod. What did he say?”
“He said: ‘Shingles lives in all of us. Make sure you get vaccinated.’”
“He didn’t!”
“Sure did.”
He actually laughed at that. It was a low, chesty rumble that made my toes curl.
Danger! my mind screamed. Danger! What was this?
Who was this? This man, who had done little else than glower like it was his literal full-time job and he was never on break, was laughing. With me. This was uncharted territory.
My body grew hot. Was this flirting? What the hell was even happening anymore?
My hands got clammy and sweaty. Animosity I could handle.
Flirting I could not. Especially when I couldn’t fucking tell if it even was flirting or not!
Especially when the man in question looked like he’d walked straight out of a Hot Farmers calendar.
Especially when all I could think about was the look he’d given me when his mouth was between my legs and he’d moaned into me.
He nodded. “Should we go have a look at the view?”
“Together?” I asked like a complete freaking idiot.
He looked at me sideways like I was a complete freaking idiot. Dammit! “Yep. Together. If you think you can control yourself, Davis.”
My eyes went wide. Holy fuck-a-thon! Can he read my mind? One corner of his mouth ticked up. I needed air. I couldn’t breathe.
“Ha! You mean? Like I would . . . How would I? Nope! That was a onetime . . . Ha ha! You’re so funny.”
He squinted at me again in another look I couldn’t quite read.
“Come on, you.” He started out, and I followed him without another word.
We didn’t go far. Right near the road, several massive boulders jutted out over the valley, which fell away in dramatic shades of green velvet and gorgeous blue water.
Birds and insects called, and the breeze blew up from below to toss my hair.
I stared out and was grateful for an excuse to shut up.
“So, we can sit on this rock in the middle here, or we can go down and sit on the edge there. It’s not as scary as the cliffs, and the slope is gradual, so it’s not dangerous. What do you think?”
“Um. Sure. Okay.”
I started walking toward the edge of the boulder, but as I looked out over the valley, my heart kicked up. Tadhg was watching me closely. “You all right?”
“Yep.” My voice was a little too sharp.
“Want to sit?”
“Yep.” But I hadn’t really thought it through.
Because next, Tadhg grabbed my hand, in that way he seemed to do as if it were nothing at all, and my soft hand met his callused one, and my heart started thudding all the faster.
I lowered down onto the boulder as he held my hand tight, and then he sat down next to me.
We swung our feet off the edge, but he was right, it wasn’t like the cliffs. While the valley was far below, from here the mountain sloped away in a rocky incline, and if we’d fallen, it would have been only a few feet.
Goddammit, this is romantic! I noticed that my hand was still in his. The wind blew and ran its fingers through our hair, the view was a painting, and I was sitting there holding his hand like a damn teen at prom.
I pulled my hand back. Crap! Make it normal! I sneezed an obviously fake sneeze into my stolen hand, then dug around for my water bottle.
“How are you feeling?”
“Very confused. A bit turned on,” I blurted.
He barked out a laugh. It was a new laugh, this one, to add to his repertoire of two. “I meant about the heights.”
“Oh, that. Yeah! God, stupid answer. Heights. You know, it’s. A little nervous, I guess, but not bad. Feels kinda nice, actually. Like anxious little champagne bubbles.”
His eyebrows lifted, the opposite of what they were wont to do, and he smiled down at me for such a long moment that I had to look away.
“You . . . all right?” he asked.
“Umm. Clearly not. I think we should probably . . .” Kiss? Say “kiss”! No! Definitely don’t say “kiss”! “. . . talk.”
Tadhg’s entire body went rigid. Then he ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, sucking a long breath between his teeth. “Any chance we could just”—he looked like he was in physical pain—“move on? And skip this part?”
“It would be easier if we clear the air, right?”
“You’re right. I know. I know. I just—” He sucked in a breath. “I’m not any good at, you know, serious talks. I’m really bad at it, in fact. I usually just fuck things up.”
“Well. Maybe right now isn’t the best time, anyway. I’ve just had three very peculiar dates in one day, I’m a little shaky, and my social battery is really low. How about we reschedule for later?”
“’Course. Later. Later’s good.” His shoulders relaxed.
So we just sat there and gazed out into the beauty for a quiet stretch, and I tried not to think too hard about later.
I wondered what my cats were doing at home, and I reminded myself that I needed to call my parents, and I thought about how to parcel out these dates into podcast episodes, and I thought about how my hand was on the stone so close to his hand that I could feel the heat from it, and I sort of wished that his hand would grab mine, but I also hoped that it wouldn’t, and I decided, resolutely, not to think about that too hard either.