Page 66 of What Happens in Amsterdam

He’s walked to the edge of the room, and now he turns back and presses his lips together, as though trying to lock the emotion inside. The way he’s been doing since I arrived. “That was what Ithought, too, but I saw those posts and figured…maybe it was for the best. You’d go have the beautiful life that you deserved without someone on the other side of the world holding you back. I couldn’t bear the thought of you holing up in a dorm room somewhere waiting for me. And I couldn’t—” A deep, anguished breath. “I couldn’t bear the thought of having a relationship with you where I couldn’t see you all the time. Hold you all the time.Touchyou.” His voice breaks a little, and he shakes his head as he cuts his gaze to the floor. “A long-distance relationship would have made us miserable in the end. I thought I was sparing us both.”

All of this rushes through me in fragments. A tidal wave of understanding, of finally being able to put the pieces together in a way my younger self never could.

“I wanted to talk to you all the time,” he continues, voice still a little hoarse. I wish it didn’t affect me the way it does, making itself at home inside my chest. “I wrote and deleted a hundred other messages. When I got into university. When my dad had his first stroke. When he passed away and I realized all the hard work didn’t fucking matter if it was taking time away from the people I loved. Even stupid shit, like seeing a sunset I thought you’d really like. I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll send her this photo and take it all back.’ But you were so far away that everything that happened with you felt like a dream.”

“I thought—I thought you regretted it. Like I was some dirty secret you left behind in America.” There’s a fragile catharsis in finally being able to say these things. I’m unsteady on my feet, like one more truth from him could knock me over. “You broke my fucking heart, but maybe the worst of it was that I was convinced you thought I was some aimless loser, and over a decade later, that’s still exactly who I am.”

“No. I could never. Not then, and not now.” With a cautious kind of strength, he strides closer. “I am so sorry, Dani. I reallyscrewed up. What I told you when you first moved in, about this being one of my biggest regrets—I meant it.” He’s been worrying at the sleeves of his shirt, at his neckline, and the whole thing has become a wrinkled mess. I’ve never seen a man look more disheveled, and it’s sexier than it has any right to be. Like he’s been tortured keeping all this in, and now that he’s letting it out, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. “Your family had even talked about coming to visit, and I let all of them down. I held on to the guilt for so many years. I never thought I’d have a chance to make it up to you. And then you show up here, a hundred times more gorgeous than I remember, and I think: ‘I am so fucked.’ ”

Despite everything, this makes me bite back a smile. Because I believe him—I do.

“You could have offered me a room in your house and asked me to marry you,” I say as I drop the towel to the floor, and he fails to hide a smile too. I’m still stuck on the knowledge that I am the one who made him look this wrecked. I never thought I had the power to take someone apart like that, and it makes me wonder how else I could do it. Whether he’d let me. “God. This would have been so much easier if you told me all of this at the beginning.”

He folds his arms across his chest and quirks one eyebrow. “ ‘Hi, great to see you again. By the way, I liked you too much when we were teenagers to have any semblance of rational thought, so I broke up with you over text like a coward’?”

“So we were just idiots who didn’t know how to communicate.”

“Maybe we still are. I know I am. And I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m so sorry you ever thought it meant you didn’t matter. When I was in LA, you were just…everything to me.”

Those words hang between us, so visceral that I almost believe I could pluck them from the air and tuck them away for safekeeping.

“And now?” I ask, my voice wavering, almost afraid of the answer.

Maybe the question is too bold. Maybe he won’t give me a real reply.

But slowly, slowly, I sense something in the room start to shift. My adrenaline has dropped to a low simmer even as my heart hammers. This time, though, it’s with anticipation. He moves closer, until there’s a couple feet of space between us, and with that wrinkled shirt and fierce longing in his eyes—how did I not see it before?

“You have to know I can’t stop thinking about you. Every spare moment,” he says, voice rough. “Tell me you haven’t thought about it, too. When we kissed in the kitchen, and—and what happened after.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot.” A hard swallow. A step toward him. “Probably too much.”

“No such thing.” His gaze tracks my bare legs. Pauses at my hips before going higher, back up to my face. He lifts his hand at the same time as he lifts his eyebrows, as though asking for permission to touch me. Dazed, I give him a nod, his fingertips landing on the curve of my biceps.

“You said you wanted to stop. That night we were drunk,” I say. “And yesterday, you wanted to forget about it.”

“I didn’t want us to make such a big decision when we weren’t sober. And then you were avoiding me, and…I got scared. That you didn’t feel the same way.” He drags his finger down my forearm, taking his time before he speaks again. As though realizing we’re on the precipice of something dangerous, and whatever he says next might seal our fate. For better or for worse. Till death do us part. “When we were in the kitchen…it had been so long. I didn’t want to ruin it by not being able to remember every singledetail.” That fingertip sweeps upward, beneath the sleeve of my T-shirt, curving around my shoulder. “I didn’t want to kiss you if my senses were the slightest bit impaired. Being around you already does enough of that.”

“Oh,” I say softly. Half relief, half awe.

“Tell me you think we’re better off just friends,” he says, and from the focused way his eyes hold mine to the determined tone of his voice, I can tell something’s changed in him. He’s finally giving in to the side of himself he’s been so desperate to hide. “Is that better than me kissing you until neither of us can see straight? Because there are so many places I want to kiss you, Dani.So many.” He moves his hand to the side of my neck, thumb stroking along my skin. “You’re so pretty right here.” Up to my jaw. “And here.” He grazes my hip bone with his other hand. “Here, too. Your hips. Your waist. Your perfect tits.”

My throat is dry, the ache between my legs almost painful. Every place he’s touched me feels singed. Electric. I take a final step, my toes aligned with his, wondering if the weight of his thumb is all that’s holding me up. Just to be sure, I grip his arm. Savor the swell of solid muscle.

“Tell me right now if you’d rather ignore all of this,” he continues. “Because all I’ve been able to think about, ever since you were on that table in my office, is ripping off those sweet little panties so I can feel how wet you are.”

A whimper slips out. “Please.”

“Please what? Tell me, Dani.” Now his hand is at the juncture of my thighs. He gives me the smallest amount of pressure, enough to have me gasping as he massages me through my shorts. “Tell me platonic is better than me getting on my knees and fucking you with my mouth all night long.”

My chest is already heaving with the effort of holding back. There’s nothing else. No more reasons not to do this.

So I press myself to him just as his lips crash down on mine.

His kisses are greedier than I remember them. They’re reckless and unashamed, infused with the kind of urgency that makes it clear we’ve both been denying ourselves for far too long. He clutches me tight, his hands tangled in my hair, his tongue parting my lips so I can open for him.

I’m on my tiptoes, his hands traveling down my shoulders until he realizes the height difference doesn’t make this particularly easy. So he picks me up in one effortless motion, my legs wrapping around his waist while he trails his mouth down my neck.This.This is perfect. Tongue and teeth. Sighs and gasps. I cling to the solid heat of him, fingertips in his hair. When he hoists me higher to kiss my breasts through the fabric of my T-shirt, I shudder against him, my head thrown back. His mouth finds my hardened nipples—andoh. It’s almost too good when he gives them a few exploratory flicks with his tongue, making damp spots on the thin cotton.

Every touch feels like a small miracle.

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