Page 94 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“With . . . your ass.”

“Well, this is the damn stupidest!” I laughed. Mental note: He likes my ass!

“Yeah. It’s a problem. So, I think Finn has to sit in the back from now on. Effective immediately.” Finn, who had somehow threaded herself under the legs of Tadhg’s stool, looked up at the sound of her name.

“Really? Did I just get promoted?”

“Absolutely not. Your ass got demoted.”

“I just got promoted. Because you ‘don’t hate me as much as you thought you did’! I’m on top of the world!”

“As if you’d deserve a promotion. You’ve been nothing but a pain in my hole since day one! Stop laughing, Davis. That is not a compliment!”

Chapter 25 An Experiment in Still Life with Sandwiches

The sun hurt.

I pulled the duvet over my face and wrote out a text.

Are you alive over there?

Barely. Finn woke me for a walk at six, then we went back to bed.

Lazy. I’ve been up sightseeing since seven. I’ve seen it all now.

Really?

No.

It’s too early for your mischief, Davis.

Never. I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.

Lobby in 15?

Yep.

I arrived looking like something a cat had coughed up, because of course I had gotten into the shower drunk the night before and washed my hair and then gone to sleep with it wet, because I have my most excellent ideas when I’m drunk.

Tadhg arrived looking so aggressively beautiful that I almost hissed and made a cross with my fingers. This is what he looks like hungover? I wanted to rail at him about it, but then I remembered the rules, and even with a headache so bad that I could taste it in my back teeth, I could guess that telling this man he looked so goddamn gorgeous that the golden rays of his perfection might burn my clothes right off was probably bending the rules a bit. Keep it in your pants, Maya.

“Hey.” His voice was even deeper and more gravelly than usual, and a thick, glossy wave of chestnut hair fell into his eyes. Bastard. How dare you!

“You look awful,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “Did you sleep in a wind tunnel last night?” I caught sight of my hair in the mirror, choked back a laugh, then scrunched it up into a bun-like mess and jabbed some pins into it. “All right, you unnatural abomination. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“No idea. Let’s just walk until someone hands us pastries.”

“Done.”

We threw our suitcases in the car, put the furry little beast on a leash, and walked until we found a cute café where we ordered fancy breakfast sandwiches and sat outside among the potted plants. I was surprised to see that, instead of taking the table and chair on the other side, as I expected, Tadhg slid down the bench next to me so we were both people-watching from the same side of the table, close enough for our elbows to jostle over our sandwiches.

He nodded down at the book that I had on the table. “You wanting some peace and quiet?”

“Yep!” Rude, Maya. “I mean . . . it might be nice to read a bit with a coffee after I finish gorging myself on this delicious thing. Would that be . . . Would you mind? My head is killing me. I’ll probably need a day or two to recover from yesterday’s sensory overload. Doesn’t mean you have to move, though. You’re a man of few words.” I smirked. “And even fewer of them, interesting.”