Page 16 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“Is that not the easiest way to carry around tools?”

“No, no, I’m sure it is. Come in.” Even though he knows where it is, I lead him toward the kitchen. “Sorry to bother you. I’m sure this is the last thing you wanted after a full day of work.”

“Part of the job,” he says, testing the faucet a few times. He doesn’t make eye contact as he reaches into the belt for a wrench. “No point paying someone when I can usually figure out what’s going on. I’d do it for any of my tenants.”

There’s an emphasis on that final word. A confirmation that this is all I am to him.

With that, he rolls up his sleeves and kneels to inspect the pipes beneath the sink. Then he turns so he can get on his back, head disappearing and long legs sprawled out on the floor.

“Do you just have to give it a good yank?” I ask in an effort to keep the mood light, shutting my eyes on a cringe the moment I say it.

He stills on the floor. “Something like that.”

An uncomfortable stretch of quiet passes between us.

When he lived with us, I once asked about stereotypes.The Dutch can be very direct, he said, and I’d use it to force confessions out of him, asking how he really felt about a meal my parents made or what I was wearing that day. Even though he’d press his lips together and refuse to give me a straight answer, he was always direct when it came to his feelings for me.

Now that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“It’s kind of funny,” I say, trying again as I lean against the counter across from where he’s working, because I’m nothing if not persistent. Often to my detriment. “Flood in my last place and now the water won’t work in this one. The universe had to restore the balance somehow, I guess.”

“Then maybe you’re secretly Dutch. We’ve always had a contentious relationship with water.”

“Right—the windmills?”

“Yes. Most of them have been replaced by more modern systems, but hundreds of years ago, they were used to pump water back into the rivers to drain the land. About a quarter of the Netherlands is below sea level, and back then the country was mostly marshes. Uninhabitable. They were able to turn a lot of that into farmland, which is part of why the Dutch still have the reputation for excellent water management,” he says, and god, that’s a wholesomereputation. “This shouldn’t be too bad. Last month, the pipes froze, and one of them in my apartment burst.”

Surely a tenant and landlord can discuss water management. That’s topical.

Also topical: that the bottom of his shirt has flapped open, exposing a section of his stomach.

Dark blond hair arrows down from his navel, his skin pulled taut over muscles he didn’t have at seventeen. Ridges and valleys I never explored. I saw him shirtless so many times—late nights and stolen moments when I’d drag my hands along his chest, but also on trips to the beach or when he helped my parents in the garden. What’s probably 4 percent of his naked body shouldn’t bring this much heat to my face.

The light glints off his silver belt buckle, as though crafting a cinematic moment just for me. It feels wrong, getting this peek at him while he’s under the sink, and yet right now logic and decorum are meaningless. Because there is a very tall, very attractive man on the floor of my kitchen, one whose body I used to know very well, and from this angle, I catch the slightest glimpse of a waistband beneath his jeans. A stripe of navy.

“You weren’t kidding when you said this place needed work.” I finally force my gaze away from his abdomen. “How’d you learn how to do all of this?”

There’s a strange pause before he answers. “Probably a cliché, but I did some with my dad growing up.” A clearing of his throat. “The rest—YouTube.”

This brings back a memory. “Remember when we spent a whole day watching old Bob Ross painting videos because his voice was so mesmerizing? And then we challenged ourselves to see who could talk like him the longest?”

“Danika—” Wouter lets out a grunt of exertion, the muscles inhis forearms flexing. “It’s fine if we don’t talk. You don’t have to force it—I’m just here to do a job.”

“Sure. Yeah. Sorry.” My voice is high-pitched. Unrecognizable.

It’s such a stark reversal from last week, when he was trying to be pleasant and I was the one setting boundaries.

This was what I wanted.

So I give him some space, attempting to keep busy in the kitchen while he works.

“Try it now?” he says after a few more minutes.

I have to step over his legs to get to the sink, and when I turn the tap, water flows freely. “Dutch water management in action. Thank you so much—I’ve never had a full-service landlord.”

And because I am cursed, somehow it comes out sounding suggestive.

He’s still beneath me, half in the process of getting up as scarlet attacks his cheeks, which only sparks another swell of memories: Wouter politely answering my parents’ questions about our classes, becoming sheepish when they told him how impressed they were with his rigorous course schedule. Taking our notebooks to the Getty, sitting in front of our favorite paintings and sketching them for hours, him turning shy when he showed them to me.

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