Page 16 of Experiments in Offline Dating

Everyone was laughing. Some people clapped him on the back, and even I got a few shoulder pats. Several people offered to buy us drinks. It seemed like good-natured ribbing to me, but his jaw tightened like he was trying to grind down gravel with his teeth.

“Right.” He kept his eyes firmly on the barman. “Do you want to go to the tavern, or shall I give you the gift certificate and we can forget this whole thing?”

I had to assume he was talking to me and not asking Calvin the barman on a date. “Oh. Um. I’d . . . Well. I don’t know. It kinda sounds like fun. And maybe . . . we should? Everyone will know if we don’t, right?”

Seconds ticked by in no hurry at all.

“Fine.”

Wow.

“Um. Okay. So, um. How do we, um?” Oh my God, you idiot, stop saying “um”! “Um. So uh. How do we? You know. Do we just walk? Or do we need a ride?”

“Yeah, Tadhg! The lady wants to know if you’re going to give her a ride!”

Mass hysteria broke out.

Suddenly, Jackie was there by my side, glass in hand, beaming from ear to ear. “There you go, Maya! A few hours in Ireland, and you already have a date with a gorgeous hunk. There’s magic in the air!”

My furious new date whirled on Jackie, his eyes narrowed to knife slits, slicing the air down to Jackie’s good-natured smile nearly two full feet below. “Keep out of it, old man.”

It was a vicious growl. Before I could think, I butted in. “Hey! Come on. He didn’t do anything to you.”

He scoffed. “He’s done plenty.”

Then, before I knew what was happening, the growling beast of a man grabbed my hand in his giant bear claw, pushed through the crowd, and dragged me out of there behind him.

Holy shit on a stick! What is happening?

My hand skin was touching his hand skin.

I did not love unnecessary touching. It was not my thing. But this was all happening so quickly that I didn’t have time to overthink it. I could have pulled away. But I didn’t. His hand was warm and so large, wrapped around mine.

And there were calluses involved.

Big, burly, rough, work-outside, man calluses.

The thought of it melted through my veins like lava.

Good God, what have I done?

We plowed down the road in complete silence. Which, as it turned out, I was grateful for, because it gave me time to think and review my protocol for going on a date with Adonis.

A protocol? Are you kidding me? There is no protocol for this! AHHHH!

I should have turned him down at the bar and spared my dignity. This was going to be the absolute most awkward date of my entire life. Worse even than Episode Twenty-Seven, “Pottery Class with Hard-On Harry!”

It was bad enough when it was just a regular date. Normally, all it took was the mere whiff of a date to turn me into a complete weirdo. But this was a date with the most beautiful man alive. What was I doing? We shouldn’t be going on a date! I should be building a shrine out of his hair!

Not to mention that this guy did not seem like he wanted to go on a date with me. How on earth was I going to get through this without collapsing the entire pub into an imploding black hole of awkward embarrassment?

Finally, a whole two blocks and a million lifetimes later, he let go of my hand. But even this was done with what felt like the ghost of an annoyed shove. Like he’d only just realized that we were angrily marching hand in hand through the streets of Lisdoonvarna during matchmaking season.

We turned the corner, walked down the hill another few minutes, and just like that, with not nearly enough time for me to get a hold of myself, we were outside the Roadside Tavern, and he was shoving the door open while my eyes drifted to his incredible ass without permission. I followed him in dumbly and tried to keep from drooling down my front.

The pub was low-lit and low-ceilinged, and there was a beam so low that my oversize date had to duck to make it through. As if we’d just walked into a Hallmark movie, there was a little group of musicians playing the lovely traditional Irish music that I had been expecting earlier. It smelled of food, delicious food, and my stomach, even squirming with nerves, rumbled in response. I had no idea what time it was here, or what time it was in San Francisco, but I realized that I was starving.

By the time I caught up with angry-brick-wall-bear-man, whose name I did not remember, he was sitting in a little nook set into the wall, somewhat out of sight of half the room. Probably embarrassed to be seen with me. Too late for that, buddy. The whole village just saw us hand-hugging!