Page 60 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“My pleasure,” she says. “This is the awkward part where I ask you to leave us a five-star review and mention my name.”

Roos swipes around on her phone before holding it up triumphantly. “Already done. My list will be up next week, and you’re definitely going to be at the top.”

Now Iulia blushes before returning her attention to the water, the first moment she hasn’t seemed fully in control. “I always like to end my tours with this,” she says, turning off the boat’s engine. “Right over here, you can see seven bridges all at once, perfectly lined up. It’s my favorite spot in Amsterdam.”

Even though she’s probably done this tour hundreds of times, she sounds a little mesmerized.

From this angle, I have a view of all seven for only a few seconds before the boat nudges one of them from view. Seven concentric semicircles, with the nearest canal framed by leafy green trees. The bikes and the tipsy houses, those Amsterdam trademarks, and the sunlight turning everything golden.

My breath catches in my lungs. It feels like magic, the way time stops for a moment in this city I thought had rejected me—when I only needed to give it a chance to truly come alive.

This place doesn’t have to be an escape from a life that wasn’t making me happy, I realize. It doesn’t have to be temporary, a spot for me to pick up the pieces before moving on to something better.

It could be my home.

Sixteen

Wouter gives me an inscrutablehalf smile as he lifts my suitcase onto the rack above our heads. If there’s any kind of grunt while he does this, it absolutely does not remind me of what we did in our separate rooms last week.

Then we drop wordlessly into our seats on the train, both of us too awkward to claim the armrest in between.

For a while I considered backing out of this trip, but maybe some time away from home will do us both good. We’ll return with fresh perspectives and clear minds, because quite simply, there is no other option. Now that I know what this version of him sounds like when he comes, the way his moans slowly reach that aching crescendo—there’s no comparison to our history. He had none of that brashness back then.

The thought comes with a quiet kind of heartbreak. We were so close that night, closer than I’d been with anyone in a long time. For those few breathless minutes, we understood each other.

Now we’re only capable of small talk.

“Beautiful scenery,” I say when the silence starts to get to me,pointing out the obvious. I check my phone, stunned to realize we’ve only been on the train for fifteen minutes.

He crosses one leg over the other, glances up from the book he’s reading. “Really beautiful,” he echoes.

Disheveled isn’t a look I’m used to seeing on him, and yet that’s the only way to describe him right now: deep lavender circles beneath his eyes, jaw and cheeks patterned with days-old stubble, and his hair messier than usual, as though he’s been raking his hands through it. His shoulders are stiff, and what’s ironic is that he looks like he could use a massage more than anyone.

I doubt it’s the situation between us that’s been keeping him awake at night—more likely it’s a challenge at work, or some other stress—but for a moment, I let myself imagine I’m the reason he’s this rumpled. That he can’t sleep because he craves my mouth on his neck. That he can’t make eye contact because of what we did in a daydream.

I broke a couple nights ago and called Phoebe, told her only about the drunken kiss and the emotions it had stirred up.

“Oh, Dani,” she said with a sigh, and though there was some concern there, it wasn’t judgmental. “Do you have feelings for him?”

“I don’t know,” I said in a quiet voice, and she sat with me in my confusion for a while.

Because it’s so much more convenient if I don’t.

Wouter tucks a bookmark into his paperback. Scans the train car. Midafternoon on a Saturday, the seats around us are empty enough. “I think we should probably talk.”

“But the not talking was going so well,” I say, hoping this will make him laugh. It only earns me a small puff of breath. Nothing like the reckless way he laughed that night in the kitchen, that dimple only disappearing when he tucked me into bed.

He waits a while before speaking again. “What happened last week—it was a good thing we didn’t go too far.”

Too far. What we did was already so fucking intimate that I can’t even imagine whattoo farwould look like.

“It would complicate things too much,” he continues, a little quickly, like he’s worried if he doesn’t get it all out fast, he might lose his nerve. “If it ended poorly, and we’re still married…” He runs a hand through his hair, and when a strand sticks out, I have to fight the urge to smooth it back into place. “I would hate for you to be uncomfortable living here.”

All the logic is on his side—I know he’s right. I can’t fall into bed with Wouter, blur our boundaries even more, and have it mean nothing when we’re tied together in so many other ways.

“I agree, one hundred percent. It would have been a mistake.” I fold my hands primly in my lap, like I’m conducting a business meeting. A professional discussion of our unprofessional behavior. “We can absolutely just forget about it.”

Relief washes over his face, as though he expected me to challenge him. As soon as my pulse returns to its regular rhythm, maybe I’ll feel that relief too. Then he slips out a laugh. “God, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you feel the same. It’s…been a while for me. Since I was with anyone. I probably got a little carried away, and I apologize for that.”

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