Page 42 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“One last thing,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket and producing a small velvet box. “They’re nothing special, I’m afraid. I didn’t know your size, so I borrowed one of the rings you left by the sink. I hope that was okay?”

I’ve never been someone to fawn over a piece of jewelry. Even during a brief jewelry-making phase right before I was hospitalized—when I thought my exhaustion was because I needed a new creative outlet and figured I could open an Etsy shop and work for myself, and wouldn’t that be the dream?—my heart was never really in it. I only wound up making one bracelet, which I gave to Phoebe.

Even though these rings are fake, even though they don’t actually mean anything, they steal my words for a moment. They’re simple gold bands, nothing fancy, but they manage to gleam even in the dim lighting of city hall.

“They’re beautiful,” I say, meaning it, my lungs still tight. “You didn’t have to.”

His face is so earnest, as though he’s genuinely relieved I like them. “We have to look the part, right?”

And with that, he lifts an eyebrow, motioning for me to take his ring.

“Many Dutch people wear it on their right hand,” he says. “But we can do whichever you want.”

I go first, sliding the band onto the ring finger of his right hand, wanting this to be as authentic as possible. When we did this with the straw wrapper, he was the nervous one. We’d barely touched at that point, and now he’s familiar with all the tightest muscles along my back. It should be less awkward, this kind of physical contact—and maybe it is for him. Because this time, when it’s his turn to slide the ring onto my finger, he grasps my hand to steady it, and it’s only then that I realize I’m still shaking.

“There.” He extends his hand so we can admire both rings. “How does it feel?”

I turn my hand over a few times, getting used to the new weight of it. “Just like the real thing.”

—

The nerves only intensify aswe get closer to meeting his family, a sense of breathlessness that follows me around the next week, enough to keep my inhaler closer than usual.

Culemborg is about an hour southeast of Amsterdam, and since Wouter doesn’t own a car, it’s my first time on a train. As we pass each platform at the station, dodging frantic travelers, I’m shocked to discover this is the same place you can board a train to Paris, London, Berlin, Zurich. All these cities suddenly at my fingertips, itching at a wanderlust that’s been dormant for too many years.

The train ride is a pastoral postcard, the familiar quickly giving way to great swaths of green, farms dotted with cows and sheep, powerful old windmills in the distance.

“Welkom in Culemborg,” Wouter says when we get off the train. “The city that feels like a village.”

I slot my transit pass back into my wallet. “A city? Not a town?”

“Actually, yes. They may only have a population of thirty thousand, but they’re very proud to have city rights.”

His mom’s house is only a ten-minute walk from the station, mostly through farmland. More animals graze behind low fences on either side of us. The roads are single-lane and unmarked, cyclists and drivers sharing them without effort. I wonder what would count as a traffic jam. I’m not used to this kind of quiet, but I can see the appeal, how peaceful it might be with all this space to hear yourself think.

Wouter’s in jeans and a black jacket, his face newly shaven, andwhile I prefer the stubble, the clean-cut look isn’t a bad one, either. I fear the man doesn’t have a bad look.

Lately I’ve caught my gaze traveling to his hands when I’m not paying attention, imagining the way they pressed and stroked and worked out knots I didn’t know I had. My libido was out of control, I deduced after the massage. The next day when he was at work, I locked myself in my room and held the vibrator between my legs until I was sweaty and spent. Yet each orgasm had felt unfinished somehow, grit-your-teeth just barely there—good, but not enough of a relief to fully take me over the edge. Almost more of a frustration than if I hadn’t touched myself at all.

Wouter—innocent, clean-shaven Wouter, who knows nothing of what I do when he’s not at home—leads me through a small neighborhood of modest homes with actualyards, which don’t exist much in Amsterdam.

“I feel like I might need to say thank you a few more times, so really: thank you.” He’s stopped in front of a single-story home with tall hedges and a couple of trees in the front yard. A garden that looks like someone has lovingly tended to it. “Maybe I’m too sentimental, but I can’t imagine ever selling that house, and if all of this means I never have to…it’s going to save me a lot of sleepless nights.”

A lump forms in my throat. “Now ifIsay thank you, we’re going to be saying it back and forth forever.” I square my shoulders, worrying my ring. That’s one additional benefit: it’s essentially become a fidget toy. “Any final words of wisdom? Faux pas I should avoid?”

“I didn’t want to say this earlier, but they don’t really like Americans.” He’s completely straight-faced. “Can you do any other accents? That might help.”

And I just gape at him until he finally breaks into laughter.

“You asshole,” I say, biting back my own smile as I give him a gentle whack with my purse.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. But you’re relaxed now, aren’t you?”

“A little,” I say begrudgingly.

One more deep breath past the tightness in my chest, and then I’m ready to meet my in-laws.

The girl who opens the door is in her mid-twenties, with strawberry blond hair tumbling past her shoulders and huge blue eyes, wearing a linen blazer paired with wide-legged jeans. Though she’s not quite as tall as Wouter, there’s an undeniable resemblance in the angles of their features.

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