Page 48 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“Perfect,” Wouter says, fingertips skimming up my spine. “Now you’re really becoming Dutch.”

Thirteen

I wake to an apartmentcovered in Post-it notes.

Koelkastis scribbled on a yellow square stuck to the refrigerator.Wasbakon the sink.Hondon George Costanza’s collar, along with dozens of others, tiny neon scraps of paper looking like it rained confetti.

All in Wouter’s handwriting—small, precise letters.

“Wouter,” I say, and then I can’t think of any other words. Not in English, and not in Dutch. It’s incredibly sweet, the fact that he did all of this for me, and he’s leaning expectantly against the kitchen counter like he’s worried I may not like it—when nothing could be further from the truth.

“I’m not quite done.” He jots something on the pad of Post-its, peels it off, and sticks it right on the tip of my nose.

He lingers in front of me for a moment longer than he should, his citrus scent much too powerful for eight o’clock in the morning. That soap company really ought to change their recipe. I imagine him waking up early, getting the idea in the shower, tapping theSharpie on his chin while he decided which words to include in my vocabulary lesson.

Once he steps back, I reach to pull off the Post-it with a slightly shaky hand.

Vrouw, it says.

Wife.

“Ha,” I say, trying to ignore the strange tug in my chest. “Believe it or not, that was one of the first ones I learned.”

What happened in Culemborg threw my mind into chaos. Wouter coaching me through that asthma attack only made him more attractive, like learning the hot jock has a secret heart of gold. I need to see him doing something entirely unappealing. Kicking a baby lamb. Winning a hot-dog-eating contest. Losing a hot-dog-eating contest.

We haven’t talked about the kiss, and the simple explanation is that it didn’t mean anything. It was chaste. Brief. Just for show. Unfortunately, my lizard brain can’t stop replaying those few seconds his lips were on mine.

We are a ping-pong game of off-limits—my house, and now his. And it isn’t that I want him to beon-limits…it’s that I can’t figure out why I devote so much time to thinking about it.He hurt you, I always remind myself, begging that lizard brain to listen to logic, because our only-on-paper marriage has no room for complication.

I thought the heartbreak had healed, a wound scarred over by force and then by time. Now I realize all those years were just a temporary salve, because being in his presence, knowing how he makes his tea and where he stores his toothbrush, replaces all the mystery with a fierce ache—not of wanting him now but of wanting what we could have had.

Quiet weekend mornings like this: something I didn’t even have the range to dream about.

Then, as Wouter warned, there’s the fact that the apartment needs a bit of work. I set my mug on the counter and open up one of the kitchen cabinets—and the handle comes off in my hand.

“Ah, shit,” Wouter says when I hold it up. “Fixed that a few months ago. I’ll try to take care of it after work next week.”

“I could do it, if you want.”

He waves this off, passes me a mug of tea. “Nah, I don’t want you to have to worry about it.”

What I don’t say: that I like this place, and I want to put the same kind of care into it that he does.

Then again, it isn’t going to be mine forever.

I take a seat at the table and add sugar to my tea. Today I planned a surprise, wholly platonic outing for us, and later we’re meeting up with his friends. He asked me a dozen times if I was comfortable with it—they’ve been badgering him, but he hasn’t wanted to throw me to the wolves. The thrill of finally getting to know the people he spends his free time with was almost immediately canceled out by the fact that they don’t want to meet the real version of me.

They want to meet Danika Dorfman, Wouter’s wife. His long-lost love.

“You want some hagelslag?” Wouter asks, still rummaging around in the kitchen.

“Are those the little sprinkles?”

With his hair shower-damp and face unshaven again, he looks so soft, this side of him that isn’t ready to face the world just yet. There’s even a smudge of Sharpie on the side of one palm. “I haven’t had them in years, but I was inspired at the market yesterday.” He holds up a box and gives it a shake, mouth tilting into a smile. “I figured you wouldn’t say no to sprinkles for breakfast. There’s a lot of debate on the proper way to make it,” he continues, pulling out two pieces of wheat bread Post-it-notedvolkorenand spreading butter onto them with the utmost concentration. “But don’t listen toanyone else. The butter is nonnegotiable—that’s how the sprinkles stay put. And you shouldn’t fold the bread, either, or it’ll get everywhere.”

He upends the box of hagelslag, raining chocolate sprinkles over the two slices. Then he passes one to me.

“Twelve out of ten,” I say after biting into it. “Absolutely inspired. What will the Dutch think of next?”

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