Page 73 of Experiments in Offline Dating

I sighed. “Yeah, well. You told me to give him a chance, and now look what you’ve done.”

“Well? How was it?”

“Oh . . . you know. Just the best orgasm of my life, that’s all.”

“Holy crap! What are you going to do?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I? That’s obviously what I’m calling you for. You got me into this mess, now you have to get me out!”

“I think you should ask him on a date. You know, get to know each other better with your clothes on.”

“What the fuck, Simone? A date? Are you trying to kill me? We tried that already, remember? I mean, honestly, what do you think are the chances that alllll these years of dates were just a fluke, and that this is the one time I’m not going to get inside of my head, overanalyze everything, and end up acting like an off-the-charts weirdo?”

“Yeah, I know, but I had to try. Then why not, instead of dating him, just casually sleep with each other and, you know, see how it goes? Like, what is he doing now? Thinking of you naked? Go knock on his door and find out.”

“No way! We’re stuck together. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be trapped in a nonstop cringe-inducing purgatory for the remainder of this hell trip!”

“Yeah, but—”

“And then what am I supposed to do? Go out on dates with Jackie’s men every day and then go to bed with Tadhg every night? That just sounds confusing for both of us! And also kinda gross. I don’t want to lead anybody on. No, this was just a onetime thing.”

“But you said it was the best orgasm of your life! You’re going to let that slip through your fingers?”

“It was. But it was probably just the adrenaline from almost dying.”

“WHAT?”

“We almost died. That’s not important right now. Can you focus, please? This was just a onetime thing, that’s already been decided. What I need is to figure out how to handle this situation.”

“Well, what I would do is—”

“Don’t you dare tell me to have sex with him again right now.”

“Dammit!” She sighed into the phone. “Fine. But you’re crushing my spirit. Well, are you at least going to talk to him about it like an adult?”

“That’s my usual protocol. But if we do have a talk and it goes terribly, then we have nowhere to hide—we still have like nineteen solid days to fester in the awkward fallout. Now we’re back to the hell-trip scenario. No, I think the very best possible outcome is that we both completely ignore it like it never happened.”

“But what if he thinks you’re going to continue to sleep together, or to, you know, date?”

“I guess the safest procedure would be to let his behavior indicate what would need to happen next. If he acts like nothing has changed between us, then nothing would have to, and we could go on as before without the risk of an awkward conversation. If he acts like something has changed, his behavior would need to be analyzed, and the course of action reassessed accordingly, which may result in discussing our feelings or setting expectations and/or ground rules for future conduct.”

“Oh God, Maya. You’ve gone full instruction-manual mode. I’m not going to sway you on this, am I?”

“No.”

“Then why the hell did you even ask for my advice if you already knew you weren’t going to listen to a damn thing I said?”

“Well. You always give the worst advice, so I just wanted to confirm that I was doing the exact opposite.”

“You are the literal bane of my existence.”

“I know. But you’d be so bored without me.”

THE NEXT MORNING came far too soon.

“Glad you could finally join us,” Tadhg Kelly deadpanned, in the middle of beautiful Killarney, holding the Jeep door open with a stance that said I’ve been here for hours.

That was normal, at least—no change there. “Caffeine” was all I could think to safely say.