Page 53 of What Happens in Amsterdam

With more space in the booth, I expect Wouter to relax his grip. The alcohol is already messing with me, amplifying some of my senses while muting others. So when he leans in close to my ear and brushes aside my hair, I feel his whisper in every part of my body. “You smell so good,” he says, his breath tickling the small hairs on the back of my neck.

My eyes fall shut, my imagination running wild, and I let my muscles go for the first time all evening. If he can sense that I’m giving him my full weight now, he only reacts by sliding me slightly backward, as though to rebalance us.

If we were alone right now, I might test our limits, press myself harder against his lap. Tease him, lift my hips for a moment before sinking back down. I wonder if his hand around my waist would tighten. What other things he might whisper in my ear.

His mouth is so close to my neck, close enough to imagine the slick heat of it against my skin.

“You a lightweight?” I ask. “Because you’re, like, eight feet tall, which I think is about five hundred centimeters. Give or take a hundred.”

“Maybe.” His nose grazes the top of my ear. “Or I’m just very, very stupid.” Then, before I can process that: “Finally!” he says as Bilal returns to the table triumphantly holding up another chair. The outburst startles me to my feet, and Wouter practically leapsout of the booth with me. “I mean—Danika’s probably eager to have her own seat.”

“I was actually having a great time.” I give him a suggestive look that might be just for his friends. As I hoped, they let out a whoop as his cheeks redden.

This isn’t real, I remind myself. Whatever I’m feeling for him is warped by proximity and lies, nothing more.

To drown out any lingering doubts, I reach for the pitcher.

At the end of the night, after more drinks than I can count, I wave a wobbly hand around the group. “This has been…gezellig.” I overpronounce it, giving each syllable far too much emphasis.

Still, all of them light up at the word, and Sanne mimes applauding. “Let’s do this again soon,” she says, giving me a hug. Then she whispers in my ear, “You two are so cute together. He seems absolutelyobsessedwith you.”

All the way home, I marvel at how he must be a much better actor than I am to be able to communicate something like that when I’m not even looking.

Fourteen

“How—do you stairs—drunk?” I slur,my head spinning and the hall seeming to grow tinier and tinier until it’s almost the size of a pinprick. My shoes are impossibly heavy. I let out a long sigh as I cling to the railing. “How many more flights?”

Wouter places a hand on my shoulder to keep me from backsliding. “Just one. Can you make it?”

“No,” I say honestly, and before I can even register what’s happening, he’s bending down, slipping one arm beneath my knees, the other supporting my back, and it’s with a ridiculous amount of ease that he’s able to lift me.

And then my husband is carrying me up the stairs.

I wrap my arms around his neck, hugging myself closer than I probably need to. His tea-and-citrus scent. The thudding of his heart. I’m not sure if he had more to drink than I did, but he seems a hell of a lot steadier.

The rhythmic sound of his exhales as he carries me up, up, up might be enough to lull me to sleep if every one of my other senses weren’t dramatically heightened.

“Thank you,” I say when he places me down on solid ground, feeling somehow wobblier than I did before.

He gives me a goofy little salute, a gesture I’ve never seen him do sober. “Door-to-door service.”

As usual, George Costanza acts as though we’ve been gone for four months instead of four hours, his tail a blur as he leaps to me and then to Wouter, letting out a garbled little cry of joy. Both of us bend down to give him the love he deserves, and Wouter even gets on the floor to have him roll over for some belly scratches—his favorite. The way they interact is always so pure. Give any man a small dog and he instantly becomes ten times more attractive.

“I know, I know, your parents made some bad decisions tonight,” I tell him. “Nightcap?” I ask Wouter as we breeze into the kitchen.

He shakes his head. “No, no, no. We are getting you some water.”

“Water. Wouter.” In my inebriated state, this is hilarious to me. I repeat it a few more times just to make sure, and yep, still funny. “What does your name mean anyway?”

“It’s the Dutch form of the English name Walter. ‘Ruler of the army.’ And my last name means…‘from Leeuwen,’ ” he says, passing me a glass of water. “Or ‘of the lions,’ whichever you prefer.”

I take a long sip and then wave my glass, pointing it at his chest. “Ruler of the army of lions.” God, he’s tall. So very tall.

He gazes down at me, hazel eyes bright. “That’s me.”

George scampers into the living room, where he curls up on the blanket on the couch, despite the presence of his bed in the corner, and I notice a familiar sock tucked underneath the blanket. A few pairs of mine have gone missing, but he’s too cute for me to steal them back.

It’s late, much later than I’ve been out in a long time, and yet zero part of me wants to go to sleep. Given the way Wouter lingers in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water and leaning back against the counter, I imagine he feels the same.

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