Page 11 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“And the amazing thing isthat the floor is included at no extra cost,” Wouter says, completely straight-faced, after a run-through to document all the damage. There isn’t much: some of the hardwood floors are scuffed, some of the crown molding cracked. “But that’s an extra perk just for you. Don’t tell any of my future tenants.”

On the outside, this canal house looks like most of the others on the Prinsengracht—gorgeous, narrow, made of brick, and tipping forward just slightly—but inside, the space is bright and clean, with newer appliances and basic IKEA furniture. It was built in 1760, Wouter told me when we arrived, a year I could barely wrap my mind around, and his family’s owned it since the late nineteenth century.

Here in the city’s Grachtengordel—the canal belt—the facades of the buildings are UNESCO protected, with only interior renovations allowed. Even on the inside, plenty of the old-world charm remains: stained glass sliding doors separating the kitchen from the living room, a fireplace, tall street-level windows. Those windowsare all over the city, and I can never stop myself from peering inside strangers’ homes. I don’t know how anyone can resist.

The combination washer-dryer may be under the bathroom sink—“we have to get creative with space here”—but even so, I’m grasping for reasons to say no.

I take a closer look at the stained glass doors. A ship is being tossed about the waves, serpentine swirls of blue and green. “This place really is a work of art.”

“Indeed, it’s very special.” There’s a clear reverence to the way he says it. I’ve always scoffed at men who baby their cars or their boats, but maybe I can appreciate taking pride in something beautiful, especially if it’s been in your family for this long. “My grandmother owns the house, but she doesn’t live in the city anymore. I’ve always hoped I’d inherit it one day and have the chance to make some improvements it desperately needs. You’ve probably noticed many of the houses here lean one way or another? Like a mouthful of crooked teeth.”

I nod, tugging my sweater tighter around myself. The heat hasn’t kicked on yet. “And it’s not, I don’t know, dangerous?”

“Nope. With the houses so close together, it’s almost like they’re all holding each other up, and the city is constantly surveying them to make sure they don’t need reinforcements. The leaning…” He heads over to the window, drums a knuckle against the glass. “Some of it is because the houses were built on wooden piles, and they become unstable when the wood starts to rot. And you see the hooks on those houses across the canal, sticking out from the roofs?”

It’s dark outside, but I can still make out the details with the help of a streetlamp.

“Most houses have steep, narrow stairs—including this one. Hundreds of years ago, it wasn’t realistic for people to carry theirpossessions or merchandise up the stairs, since a lot of these homes belonged to merchants who sold their goods on the ground level and lived up top. So those hooks were attached so they could use a—” He breaks off, brow furrowing. “Sorry, I only know the word in Dutch. Katrolsysteem,” he says, and makes two fists to mime the action.

“A pulley system?”

He nods. “Evidently not a term I’ve ever needed to know in English. They had a pulley system to bring their items up to the higher floors. And the houses were built to tip slightly forward so that they didn’t bang into the building on the way up.” When he turns back to me, I can still see the Prinsengracht reflected in his glasses. “Anyway. You didn’t ask for an architecture lesson.”

“I don’t mind. I promise you’re not mansplaining Amsterdam to me.” Thirteen years, and I’m still enamored by the way he talks about this place. He’s being much too nice, though, and I can’t understand why. “Seriously, the apartment is perfect. Beyond perfect.”

“And yet I can hear the hesitation.”

I blow out a breath, every grudge-holding cell in my body telling me this is a bad idea. “You don’t think it would be a little strange, me living here?”

He considers this. “It doesn’t have to be. We can be adults, right?”

“My aching lower back would say yes.”

“As would my thinning hair.”

I try not to laugh. I don’t want it to be this easy to fall back into conversation with him. Even when we tiptoed around our attraction, we never had trouble talking to each other. He’d wanted to see all the typical LA spots—Rodeo Drive and the Walk of Fame and Griffith Observatory—and my parents were always game to play tourist. But when it was just us, I designed my own itinerary.

“I have to warn you,” I told him once as I started up the car, about a month before our first kiss, “this isn’t going to be very culturally significant.”

“As long as we can get In-N-Out afterward.”

“That’s a given. A cultural touchstone,” I said. “What are you going to do when you get back to Amsterdam and you can’t get a double-double?”

“Open my own franchise, obviously,” he said. “It’s time they expanded to Europe.”

“You’ll be an artist–slash–entrepreneur–slash–fry cook.” I gave him a lift of my eyebrows. “Once you figure out how to make potatoes without burning them to a crisp.”

He let out an exaggerated groan. “That was one time.One time.” He’d tried to cook dinner for my family, and it had ended in disaster: black smoke curling from the oven, the fire alarm blaring. In all fairness, I’d been distracting him, sitting on the kitchen counter and playing every Top 40 hit from the past five years to see which ones he knew. He kept shaking his head, laughing, telling me that the Netherlands was not in the dark ages and people still listened to Taylor Swift.

That night I drove us to Sunken City, the site of a nearly century-old landslide that had dragged houses into the ocean and left the neighborhood abandoned. My parents wouldn’t have chosen it as one of their daytime destinations, and at night it verged on spooky, the air punctuated by coyote howls. With all the graffiti and jagged ruins, it screamed inspiration.

The risk of hopping the fence past theNO TRESPASSINGsigns was more than worth it when he turned to me as we sat on a rock, his mouth close to my ear. “You’re the best tour guide,” he said, and despite the warm autumn evening, I shivered all the way home.

This new version of him leans a hip against the kitchen counter, cream granite flecked with gray. Under the bright overhead lightinginstead of the dim café, his eyes turn a glowing bronze. “You’d be helping me out, too. Now I don’t have to take a chance on a complete stranger.”

“Still, thank you. This is more than generous.”

I watch him bite down on his lower lip. “I wasn’t generous back then?”

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