Page 54 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“That was fun, with your friends.” I place my glass on the counter opposite him, a little steadier now that I have some nonalcoholic liquid in me. “I really like them.”

“Theylovedyou. Evi already texted asking when they can see you again.” He grins, rakes a hand through his hair. Somehow this only musses it more. “You know what I remembered the other day? That game we used to play. ‘One day, when we have our own apartment…’ ”

“Ah, yes. Our domesticity kink.”

One day, when we have our own apartment, one of us would say, and the other would finish the sentence with something we couldn’t do at the time but desperately wanted.

We’ll play music as loud as we want.

Kiss in every room.

Fall asleep next to each other every night.

“Is it everything you dreamed of?” he wants to know. “Our own apartment?”

Of course, nothing could live up to the fantasy. I mean, we wanted a Jacuzzi in the bedroom and one cabinet entirely devoted to chocolate. “Sure,” I say. “At least for the next ten months.”

This makes his giddiness falter. I watch his throat as he swallows down another sip of water. So fucking hydrated, this man. From what I can tell, he drinks at least four whole glasses when we’re at home, probably that many or more at work. Then there’s all the tea. And sure, maybe that’s the amount you’re supposed to drink, but I’ve never actually seen someone execute it, and it’s a testament to my current mental state that I find this deeply fascinating.

“I know it was different back then,” he says. “But what we had when we were seventeen—it was good, wasn’t it? Even though it had to be a secret?”

This surprises me. Maybe he turns self-reflective when hedrinks. Back then, I’d been so certain we were on the same page. Those firstI love yous—ik van hou jous—seemed entirely without anguish on both our parts, and maybe it was teenage recklessness, but I never once stopped to question my feelings. I knew in my bones that I loved him, so I said it.

“No. It wasgreat.You were so kind. No one had ever made me feel interesting before you,” I say. “I never wanted to tell you this because I didn’t want you to think I wastooobsessed with you, but I could have watched you draw for hours.”

“I quite like the idea of you being obsessed with me.”

“You’re a very honest drunk.”

He tilts his head, as though looking at me through some new lens. “You know I was obsessed with you, too. Completely smitten. This gorgeous American girl, with her slang and her driver’s license. You were so glamorous to me.”

This makes me bark out a laugh. “I was not!”

“You were,” he insists, laughing too. He takes a step closer, and he must be warm, because he’s rolling his sleeves up past his forearms, exposing those muscles that knew exactly what to do with me when I was face down in his office. “Now I have to know. You wore those little shorts just to get me to notice you, didn’t you?”

I take an innocent sip of water. Press my lips shut. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You didn’t have to do it.” A final roll of his left sleeve to get the two of them even. “I’d already noticed you. I felt so tortured, having this crush on my host parents’ daughter, who was such a fucking knockout.”

“I hope I didn’t peak back then.” Sober Dani pretends she doesn’t need compliments. Drunk Dani craves them.

“No. She’s even more beautiful now,” he says. “I’d get so riled up, knowing you were sleeping right across the hall.”

“And I was feeling just as riled up.”

God, I love this honest version of him. Now that we’ve broken the seal on our history, it’s suddenly all I want to talk about.

I need to be eye level with him, so I plant my hands on the counter and hop up onto it, pushing scattered Post-its out of the way,aanrechtandfruitmandandfornuis.

“We were so innocent, though. Back then,” he says. I lift my eyebrows at him, and he laughs. “Okay, maybe not always. Soyoungis maybe what I meant.”

“We were,” I agree. But maybeinnocentwasn’t wrong, either, because there was a wholesomeness to experiencing all those firsts with him. Every touch felt like it opened up a brand-new universe, every one of his sighs like we were discovering a new star.

He changed his mind about you once, logic reminds me.What’s to stop him from doing that again?

“If it’s my turn to be honest…” I continue, because I left logic behind half an hour ago and the tipsiness makes me bold. “You set the bar way too high for my future relationships.” All those bad hookups—men who were too aggressive, but I pretended I didn’t mind because I loved feeling desired. Men who thoughtcasualmeant a complete lack of common decency. It was always rushed, rarely tender. “No one has ever touched me like you did.”

The blush that spreads across his cheeks is an almost indecent shade of pink. “Oh?” he says, and there’s a hint of pride in that single syllable. “How did I touch you?”

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