Page 68 of Experiments in Offline Dating

I nodded again, but I had no idea how I was going to manage it.

He grabbed my hand, and we marched on through the sheets of rain in silence. When we got to the part where we had to climb, it felt like all the blood drained out of me and into the sand. The arch of the rock looked impossible to climb back up. I didn’t see any handholds.

“Tadhg. I don’t . . . I don’t know how I’m going to do this.”

“I do. I’ve gotcha, Maya.”

“I’ll never reach.”

“You’ll be on my shoulders, that’s how.”

“Oh my God, Tadhg. This is too much. Crap. I didn’t know. Orla and Bill said this was a shortcut. They didn’t say we’d be climbing. I’m sorry.”

A ghost of a wry smile crossed his face. “Hop on, then.” He tossed his head like having a grown woman climb on his back was just an average Tuesday, unzipped his slick raincoat, and got down to his T-shirt, then squatted close to the stone. I didn’t even think to protest. I couldn’t see any other way.

I braced one hand against the rock, but even squatting, he was tall. I put one knee up on his shoulder, held on, and had to jump to get the second one. It was an inelegant squirm to get situated properly, where I wouldn’t fall off. He grabbed my knees and I grabbed his head.

There was a lot more rubbing than there should have been. It was not done on purpose. But with his fingers digging into my thighs, and his thick neck and warm head heating through the wet crotch of my leggings, I couldn’t help but be very aware of every tiny centimeter where my body touched his.

He stood, and I instinctively tightened my thighs around his neck.

“Careful, you could kill a man that way.”

“Oh, shit! Sorry.” I loosened a bit.

I thought I heard him say something like “Worse ways to go,” but then he was at full height and I was wavering.

“Fuck fuck fuck!”

“You’re okay.” His voice was calm and smooth. “Lean in toward the rock. Good. Now grab that bit that’s jutting out right in front of you. Good. Both hands. All right. Now, slowly, whenever you’re ready, I want you to pull yourself up and put one foot on that ledge there, and then another.”

It wasn’t that high—seven feet, maybe. But my fear of heights did not help. Nor did the rain. I pictured myself slipping and cracking my spine on the sharp rocks below.

Stop. Don’t think about falling. Don’t think about his head in your crotch. Don’t think about what your parents will think when you die and they have to read about it in The Irish Times. Just breathe. Once. Twice. Good. Now reach out, grab on, and listen to every fucking word he says.

My head swam, but he reached up and guided my feet, and I did exactly as I was told, and before I could faint, I pulled myself up and was up the rock. And everything was totally fine. I breathed.

“Wait. How do you get up?” I shouted down. “Can I help?”

“Nope.”

He slung our packs up, and then his muscles made a mockery of me, and I watched with very rapt attention as he climbed up one hand after another, one muscle-bound forearm and then another—one bunched wet shoulder under a wet shirt and then another—all in slow motion.

And then he was there. And I was sort of dizzy and breathing hard, but a laugh broke free. I couldn’t stop, and it was the best damn thing I’d felt since I could remember.

“Holy shit, Tadhg.”

“Holy shit, Maya.” He gave me a wry, intense look that made me remember that my knees were still shaking from the fear and the cold and the climb.

“I’m shaking,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Come on. Let’s go sit for a second.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I followed him, and we sat on a low, flat stretch of stone with no shelter in the pouring rain.

I turned to him and let the water slosh over my face, pulling my hair into my eyes and mouth. “Why didn’t anyone say it was supposed to rain today?”

“Don’t you start.”