Page 112 of Experiments in Offline Dating

Was he asleep? I wondered every second that melted past. Or was he awake, thinking of all the things we could be doing in this bed, just like I was?

He was so warm. His skin smelled so fucking delicious. I couldn’t help wondering over and over and over again what would happen if I just let gravity and that shitty mattress do their thing, and rolled over on top of him, put a hand over his mouth, and rode him until we were both so destroyed that we had no choice but to fall asleep or die.

But no.

No.

Eventually, when I had begun to wonder how many hours or minutes we had until the sun would start glowing through the white fabric, Tadhg turned toward me, in his half sleep or in surrender, I didn’t know or ask. He curled himself against me, put one massive arm around my ribs, and pulled me in close, pushing the back of my top leg with his, bending them together, my ass against him, his leg framing mine. He pulled me tighter.

So close that we breathed together. So close that every inch of us fit together like we were designed for it. And then he buried his face in my hair, breathed in, and fell asleep.

I WOKE UP with hair in my mouth. Hair that was far too silky to be my own.

But it smelled . . . not quite . . . Wait! Whose hair is this?

I opened my eyes and it was black. And white. Finn.

She was curled up in front of me, her head on my pillow, making me the meat of this grumpy Irish sandwich. I pulled a strand out of my mouth very slowly, wondering if what they said about sleeping dogs was true. If she decided to bite, my face would be the nearest thing.

Instead, I heard a thumping. And realized it was her tail. I moved a very tentative hand across her ears, and she let out a long sigh.

Then I noticed something else. Something . . . pressing along the curve of my ass. Oh, hello, old friend.

There was a change in Tadhg’s breathing, and I decided to play dead. Then we could just pretend not to know what had woken us both up.

He moved. Stretched a little. And for a punishingly long few minutes, he shifted but didn’t quite let me go. My breath stopped. I could do it. I could grind back against him. I was sure if I did, we would forget everything else. It would only take a few seconds for him to give in, and then—

So soft I wasn’t sure I felt it, he ran a thumb gently back and forth over my side. And then he moved to get up, careful not to wake me.

That was when I realized that the bed had deflated to half the size and enveloped us in its squashy innards. It felt like being slowly digested by a carnivorous marshmallow. Tadhg took an eternity to get out, cursing quietly, knocking us all around. I knew I couldn’t keep pretending—no one could sleep through a grizzly bouncing on a banana boat.

When he was finally up, I stretched and sighed but didn’t turn around, because I knew I would see him trying to stuff himself uncomfortably back into a pair of jeans, and this was as much privacy as I could afford him.

I heard the zipper, and Finn jumped up, and I was jostled again. Then peace was restored. My body was only a few inches from the ground now. The bed was trying to draw me in and smother me, but if that was the case, I was here for it, so I drifted off anyway.

Sometime later that might have been minutes or hours, I woke with a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey. I’m sorry. I would have let you sleep, but we’ve got to get going soon if we’re going to make it to Glenveagh. But I brought you some coffee as a consolation prize.”

“You did?” I reached my hand out. It smelled delicious.

“No, no. If I give it to you while you’re on that death trap, you’ll end up with third-degree burns.”

“So this is just a temptation, then. Not a prize at all.”

“Yeah. I’m trying to lure you outside. I want to show you something.”

Getting up was hard, and getting changed was cold, but it was worth it. Orange light was striking the side of the tent, lighting it up like a lantern, and when I finally stepped outside, it took my breath away.

The yurt was next to an incredible lake that had been too dark to see the night before. It stretched out like a lake of fire, hemmed in at the waist by rocky green mountains at either side, mirroring the beauty of the sunrise and doubling its hold over us, creating a horizon where it was impossible to see where water met sky. And in front of this were a crackling fire and two canvas camping chairs and a beautiful man, holding out a mug of hot coffee.

We sat for a time and said nothing. And it was perfect.

Then Tadhg cleared his throat. “Well, we’d better be getting on. But there’s something I need to say first.”

My stomach twisted. His voice sounded pained. He wouldn’t look at me. Is he going to cancel the rest of the trip? Was last night too much? I turned in my chair, but he kept staring at the lake.