Page 43 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“No, Jackie. Don’t—”

“I’ll call soon. Have a wonderful trip!”

And then. He hung up. Just like that. As if he hadn’t handed me a hand grenade with a cheerful smile.

“He’s so full of shite, that man. He’ll just say anything.”

“He said that she’d sell if he helped her daughter.”

“Melba?”

“Yeah.”

He scowled and looked down, thinking as he rubbed his beard. “Aye. I can see that.” He walked around a few paces. Then he let out a huge sigh. Forcefully—the way he did everything. “Damn! Right. Fine. Okay. Yeah.” He was shaking his head like he was convincing himself. “All right, I’ll take you. Get in.”

“Wait. No. I haven’t agreed to this. Doesn’t my opinion matter?”

He looked shocked. “I don’t see how it would.”

I frowned. “Yeah, that’s no surprise. From a guy who tried to order food for me like it was 1892.”

“I was trying to be nice! So that you could experience the local delicacies on your first time in Ireland. But I see now that I was just wasting my time.”

“Don’t mansplain your heroic selflessness to me.”

He let out a pained moan of a sound from deep in his throat, and I got a little hot flash.

“Look—you want to go on this trip, right? Well, I don’t see anyone else here offering to take you. I’m the only idiot stupid enough to agree to this. And my dad certainly isn’t coming to rescue you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Here I am.” He gestured to himself, as if I could have missed him. “And if you want to go, we need to leave now or we’ll be late.”

“Look, good luck with your sheep and all, but I don’t really want to go on a trip across Ireland with you. No offense.”

He frowned at that.

“Okay, some offense. But you get it.”

“Fine. But he said he’s set up a coffee date for you in about an hour at the Perfumery, and then lunch in Doolin, and then we’re to drive all the way to Sligo for an interview with the Neilsons.”

“An interview? Tonight? Like for my podcast?”

“Yeah. So you can come or you can stay, but it does look like he’s made some real plans for you. Up to you.”

Was this reverse psychology? Worse than that, was it working? I thought about it. Checked the time. Can I call Simone and beg her to tell me what to do? Who was I kidding? I knew what stupid Simone would say, the witch!

His mouth tightened. “Look. Can you make a decision before we all grow old and die in the road? Finn is hungry.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, I got that when it tried to eat my face off.”

“She’s protective.” I ignored this veiled insult, as it seemed to pale in comparison to the other very unveiled insults of the morning. He put his hand out and gestured to the road and said, none too patiently, “Well?”

“But this is . . . Maybe you haven’t thought this through. Jackie and I planned a three-week trip. Three weeks. Three of them. Three weeks that . . . you and I”—I pointed to us both, in case he was slow on the uptake—“would have to . . . be in each other’s company. Together. For twenty one days. Each one of them, no doubt, slow and torturous.”

Not everyone liked me. Sometimes I said the wrong thing or rubbed people the wrong way. That was fine. I was okay with it. But when someone so obviously hated me, I moved on. That was the smart thing to do. The literal definition of the dumb thing to do would be to agree to travel with that person across Ireland, just the two of you, locked in a vehicle together for three weeks.

“Three,” I repeated, in case he’d missed it. “Weeks.”

He shrugged, looking like he was too busy for this conversation. Then he let out a breath. “I need that ram.”

I turned away from him so that I could think without having to look at his face.