Page 25 of What Happens in Amsterdam

Wouter turns quiet for so long that I wonder if he heard me at all. “What if you didn’t have to?” he finally asks.

“I don’t want you to think you have to rescue every distressed American you come across.”

A twitch of his mouth. “No,” he says. “Just you.” Then he turns pensive, schooling his features back to neutral. “I’ve been thinking about this since you texted me last night, and there might actually be a solution to both our problems. But…fair warning, it’s pretty outrageous. Extremely unorthodox. Once you hear it, there’s a good chance you’ll never stop laughing.”

“Now you’re making me nervous.” I reach out to give his arm a nudge with mine. I mean it to be a friendly tap of encouragement, but I’m not expecting the rigidity of his triceps or the way his eyes close for a brief second, as though processing the physical contact. Now that the Red Light District isn’t monopolizing my senses, that single touch feels drawn out, somehow, as though it happened in slow motion.Friends, I remind myself.We are friends.And new ones at that.

“There’s no need, I promise. Really, you’re probably going to find it hilarious. Or horrifying. Or both.”

Swallowing hard, I force myself to keep my voice light. “You already have me convinced it’s something not quite legal.”

His grimace deepens.

“Holy shit. It’s not legal, is it?”

“Well…” A look I’ve never seen crosses his face, along with all the other new Wouter expressions I’ve tried to categorize. There’s an uncertainty mixed with something else as he runs a hand down his stubble. “Do you remember that I mentioned inheriting my building?”

“Yes?”

“My grandmother still owns it, and the rest of my family has no interest in it. But I love the place. It’s where I grew up, and nomatter how crowded the city gets, I can’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s just—it’shome,” he says. “My grandmother won’t sign it off to me unless I meet certain conditions—well, just one, actually. She wants me to be married first.”

I hold up my thumb and forefinger, my pulse kicking into a frantic new rhythm. “Just a touch old-fashioned?”

“I think the hope was that I would raise a family there. Unless…there was a way around that. Something that would benefit both of us.” His gaze is expectant, eyebrows raised, as though he’s waiting for me to put all his hints together.

It dawns on me a moment before he says it, his words an unholy blend of serious and absurd:

“We could get married.”

Eight

I have to grip thebridge railing to make sure I don’t tumble into the water. The ground beneath me is buckling, the charming houses blurring together. Those mouthfuls of crooked teeth morphing into something sinister.

“Dani,” Wouter says, a touch of concern in his voice. His rare use of my nickname makes this sound serious, somehow the exact opposite of when anyone else uses my nickname. “Are you okay? Do you need your inhaler?”

He sounds far away, as though he’s speaking to me from somewhere deep underwater.

When I blink myself out of the daze, I’m surprised to discover I’m still standing. That the world is not, in fact, caving in on itself.

And then, just as he warned, I burst out laughing.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, swiping at my eyes. “Maybe that weed was stronger than we thought, because I think you just asked me to marry you? Or—I guess it wasn’t a question, but more of a statement?”

Wouter looks entirely too logical. “I’m not high. I only had one bite of that cake. I—I wanted to be able to look after you.” There’san uncharacteristic pang as this settles in my stomach, this quiet bit of caretaking. “You need a way to stay in the country. Marriage to a Dutch citizen would certainly accomplish that.”

He says it so simply, as though it’s basic math. One plus one equals visa. He isn’t wrong, of course—except for the tiny inconvenient fact that a green-card marriage must be a crime here the same way it is in the US.

A green-card marriage. I didn’t know this was something that happened outside of movies from the mid-2000s, the kind where the unfairly attractive leads end up falling in love and no one gets in any real trouble from the government.

“Should it be more formal?” Wouter asks. “Do you want me to get down on one knee?”

The postcard-perfect scene in front of us turns claustrophobic. Dizzying. Suddenly I wonder whether I’ve recovered from jet lag after all, because it feels like I left all rational thought on another continent.

My brain focuses on all the wrong questions.

Shouldmy ex-boyfriend and current landlord get down on one knee?

To propose?

---