Chapter 30 An Experiment in Learning to Hate Your Favorite Romance Trope
“What in the holy hell is this?”
We both stared at it in silence for a moment, not daring to step any closer.
“Hold on, there’s a note here.” I stepped forward and grabbed it from where it rested against the ice bucket.
“‘Dear Maya and Tadhg, thank you so much for booking a special night at our Lovebirds Glamping Yurt. Please find a composting toilet and sink in a separate building around the back. The space heater is broken, we’re afraid, but we’ve left extra blankets in the trunk.
We hope you make magical memories here. Your hosts, Tim and Martha. ’”
“Oh, he’s going to pay for this,” Tadhg growled.
Now, I’d thought I had seen a wide variety of Tadhg’s grump, but apparently not the full spectrum, because this was something new. His eyes flashed dangerously. It was, if I’m honest, both terrifying and knee-meltingly hot.
“He’s going to suffer.”
“Okayyy. Hold on, let’s just have a look inside. Maybe it’s bigger than it looks. Like the magic tents the spark mages use. With . . . you know . . . two beds. And a divider down the middle.”
I walked onto the little wooden platform that kept the tent out of the mud, and I unzipped the flap.
I’d been unfair calling it a tent, because it was a yurt.
A fancy one. There was a beautiful lantern strung up and glowing in the center, little glittering lights along the frame, and lots of those little fake candle things that looked real but wouldn’t burn us to a crisp in the night.
And there, underneath the colorful Moroccan lantern, was a bed.
Just the one.
Queen-size.
With a heart made out of red rose petals across the duvet.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Tadhg rubbed a big hand over his angry face, and then he was clawing at his jeans to get his phone out of his pocket. He smashed some buttons and then Jackie’s voice was on speaker, echoing around the woods.
“Hello, my heart,” he all but sang out of the phone.
“Da. Are you out of your fucking mind? What is this?”
“Oh, did you make it in safely? Thanks so much for letting me know. You know how I worry.”
“It’s a fucking tent, Da!”
“But in such a beautiful setting, isn’t it?”
“It’s the middle of the fecking woods!”
“Well, okay, I know. But on such short notice, everything was booked up. I spent all afternoon calling around, I can tell you. Ringing every single place. ’Twas exhausting.”
“I bet you did! There’s only one fucking bed in this tent! We can’t stay here, so you’ll just have to get back on the phone and exhaust yourself some more.”
“I’d really love to, Tadhg, but I’m out at the festival, of course.
I’m just about to be interviewed for the news in Germany.
And all the local girls are here for the story.
They look like movie stars.” Noisy accordion music crackled over the speaker.
“Say hello to Tadhg, girls.” In a chorus of sloppy drunken noise, we could make out “Huullo, Tadhg!” “Still single?” one said, and there were giggles.
In the little glittering light that glowed from the tent, I could just about make out Tadhg’s face changing colors.
“Da. You’re not listening! We’re not staying here. How could you do this to us?”
“It’s not a big deal. Happens all the time.”
Sure, all the time . . . in romance novels.
“You’re on speaker right now, so why don’t you go ahead and explain to Maya—who is on a work trip—that you booked us one bed to sleep in.”
“Oh, hello, Maya! How was the drive, my dear? I do love the North, especially—”
“Da! This isn’t a social call. Do you have any idea how fucking cold it is up here? In a fucking tent? And why is there champagne and fucking rose petals on the bed? Goddammit, Da!”
“Oh, rose petals? That’s such a nice touch—”
“Da!”
“Well, ye see, they had a special on, for a romantic night for couples. Twenty percent off! It was a steal. You know how I can’t resist a bargain—”
“You are going to fix this! We’re getting back in the goddamn Jeep, where we have been all fucking day because you changed plans last-minute and sent us out into the goddamn most northerly point in Ireland.
If you’re meddling in my life again . . .
” He started speaking Irish, and it sounded even angrier and got faster.
And then in English. “Do you hear me, Da? Now!”
“What’s that? Can’t hear you, my love.”
Now, if Jackie had designed a phrase specifically to push Tadhg straight over the edge, it would have been that one.
“Right. Fucking. Now!”
“What’s that? I’m sorry, you’re breaking up. The music is too loud here. I’ll call tomorrow. Sleep well—”
And then Jackie hung up. Which, I was starting to learn, was one of his tricks.
Tadhg growled out a cry like a wounded wolf, cursed in Irish, and tried to strangle his phone. “I will murder that man! All right, get back in the Jeep. I’ll drive us back to town while you make some calls, and then we can start knocking on doors.”
I sighed and softened my voice. “Tadhg, you’re exhausted, you’ve been driving all day, town is over an hour away, and your dad said everything was booked up.”
“He’s obviously full of shite, Maya.”
Was he? I mean, I knew Jackie wasn’t above a little bit of good-natured trickery now and again.
But I found it hard to believe that he would be trying to set me up with Tadhg after I’d flat-out told him that I couldn’t fall in love, not to mention live, in another country, and there was the fact that Tadhg didn’t want to be in a relationship and, for all Jackie knew, at least, still hated me.
It was impossible to believe he would want that for his son.
Jackie was a smart man, and the match would be totally irrational. I’d think more about it later.
Right now Tadhg was so upset, I wanted to help.
I wasn’t sure how, but deescalation seemed like the first step.
“Shite or no shite, we’re both completely exhausted.
I really don’t want to get back in that car and drive around for hours and possibly come up empty-handed.
There’s a bed here, and it’s only a few feet away.
Is it ideal? No. But it’s going to be fine.
And let’s be honest, it would be a bit rich if we were too modest to just sleep in the same bed after what happened the other day. ”
“But that’s exactly why we shouldn’t be sharing a bed now, don’t you see that? We talked about this. We agreed. This is . . . It’s going to be . . .”
“We have our rules napkin. All we have to do is follow them.” I gave him a little half grin. “I promise to keep my hair to myself.”
He inhaled a long steady breath until his big chest was even bigger, his shirt straining at the buttons. “If we start breaking the rules two days after we’ve made them, then we’re opening ourselves up to all the things that we’re trying to avoid.”
“Yeah, but . . .” I wrestled my face back into seriousness.
“Look, we need sleep. And we’re here already.
We’re both so tired that we’re going to sleep straight through the night.
No funny business. No jokes. No innuendos.
I promise. It’ll be fine. It’ll be over before we know it. It’s no big deal.”
But it wasn’t “no big deal.” I realized, as he appeared to be softening to my logic, that I wasn’t just expecting him to fight me on this, I was hoping he would.
I was hoping he would get even angrier and refuse.
I’d been a freshman in college the last time I’d slept next to a man.
The men I had sex with didn’t want to play sleepover afterward, and neither did I.
I didn’t like it. I needed my space. It was too much.
Too close. Too intimate. Sex was mechanical—you pressed each other’s buttons, it felt good, you went home. Staying was far more personal.
Now here I was, holding my breath, waiting for the verdict. Willing him to refuse. Suddenly hating myself for trying to keep the peace without thinking it through first.
He let out a breath. I guessed he’d been holding his too. Then he closed his eyes, threw his head back, and cursed—at me, at his dad, at whoever had made up the term “glamping,” I couldn’t say.
Then he ground out the word I didn’t want to hear.
“Fine.”