Page 50 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“Mia?” he called again, then turned to head inside.

“Hey.” I stood up and waved. He then—in this order—started walking toward me, caught my eye, flinched back (flinched!), slowed his pace, and visibly forced himself to close the distance. He arrived at my table but did not sit. “You Mia?”

I smiled up into the face of . . . an infant. I mean, not a real-life infant but a man who was barely legal. He did not smile back. “Yeah, sorry. It’s Maya, actually. Hi.” I decided not to reach my whole body across the table to offer him my hand and instead motioned to the seat across from me.

The toddler didn’t move. “Oh, come on!” he said. “I told Jackie to stop setting me up with older women.”

I shot out a laugh, utterly shocked. “Yeah. I get it! I do. My last date was with a gentleman who has a statistically significant chance of being your literal grandfather.”

“Christ.” He rubbed his face. “Twenty euro I paid Jackie.”

Twenty? I had paid a lot more! “Here, have a seat, let me get you a drink to ease the sting. It doesn’t have to be a date, we can just grab some lunch.”

“Naa. You’re all right. When Jackie said you looked like that girl offa the Dune movie, I didn’t think he meant the one from 1970.”

I spat out a sip of wine and coughed out spluttering laughs. “It was 1984,” I corrected, still laughing.

Somewhere darkening my peripheral vision was a burly storm cloud, who I couldn’t help but notice was watching with an uncomfortable intensity.

“Yeah, you see. Only a boomer would know that.”

Then, without so much as a “sorry,” he turned and started to walk away. I couldn’t stop laughing. I guessed this whole thing went both ways. I was thrilled. It was hilarious!

“Wait!” I called, and he turned around. “Can I talk about this on my podcast?”

“Sure. Who gives a fuck?”

That just made me laugh all the harder. I choked out a “Thanks!” to his disappearing back and never saw Kevin again.

Conclusion: date unsuccessful.

Uncontrollable variable: Zendaya’s incomparable hotness.

IT WAS AN effort to smooth down my giggles. I chuckled, had a sip of wine, breathed out a long breath, and then chuckled some more. I honestly could have happily bought Kevin a thank-you meal for that comedy gold, and I would have done so had he not run from my hideous crone face as if I had been grabbing at him with a pair of curled, arthritic, liver-spotted hands. “Kevin and the Cantankerous Crone of Ivy Cottage” was going to be a segment, albeit a short segment, a highlight nonetheless. That Dune line! Simone was going to piss herself!

I was still grinning when a shadow passed overhead and darkened my book. “You all right?” it grumbled.

I looked up with a pursed little frown that was trying very hard not to laugh again. “All right? I couldn’t be better.” I smiled and sipped my wine.

He scanned my face for a moment, seemed to decide that I probably was all right, made a grumble, and then sat down, not across from me, heaven forbid, but at the empty table next to mine.

A few minutes later, the waitress brought the crab claws. After asking if I needed anything else, she made to leave but stopped short and did a little double take of Tadhg. As she passed another waitress on her way to the cottage, I saw her bite her lip and fling her hand as if she’d just burned it, in the universal sign for This guy is fucking hot!

I glanced at Tadhg to see if he’d noticed, but he appeared to have missed or ignored the whole thing. Instead he was, without my permission, leaning over and tearing a chunk off my delicious-looking bread. Then he buttered it and gave it to the dog, of all things!

“Hey!”

“Let’s split this and get something to take up the hill. We’ll eat on the go.”

“But it’s nice here. I want to eat here. Hell, I want to move in.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh, as if fed up with having to explain why he was eating my food. “You’ll like the next thing more.”

“What next thing?”

He ignored me, slid the extra plate from under my bowl, spooned out some of the crab claws and sauce, and ripped himself half of the remaining bread.

I could have fought it—told him that I wanted to stay and that he should keep his grubby little bread-stealing mitts to himself. Part of me really wanted to. Part of me was already picturing the scowl on his face. But I hadn’t figured out where Tadhg’s lines were yet. What if I fought hard enough that he actually caved? I realized I didn’t want that. I wanted to see the thing he wanted to show me. So I changed tack and attacked his character instead.