Page 27 of What Happens in Amsterdam

A year. I didn’t think far enough ahead to imagine myself living here long-term, but I certainly didn’t imagine I’d be fake married during that time.

“And I’d keep living downstairs?”

A blush tinges his cheeks. “It might make the most sense if we lived in the same apartment. To keep people from asking questions, since we’d need to put the same address on all our forms.”

“Right. Of course.”

“We wouldn’t have to—we wouldn’t be sleeping together,” he manages, the blush turning a deeper scarlet. “I mean, we wouldn’t be in the same bed. Obviously. You’d have the guest room.”

I want to make a joke about him being the tongue-tied one now, but the way he trips over his sentences drags forward the memory I’ve been trying the hardest to suppress.

The one that hurts the most, if only because I didn’t know how fleeting it was.

Once we started sneaking around, sex seemed like an inevitability. Neither of us had much experience beyond kissing, but keeping the relationship a secret made us even more desperate for each other when we were finally alone. I never found myself wondering,How far do I want this to go?From the beginning, I had simply wanted all of him. And even then I wasn’t sure it would be enough.

My friends had talked about how disappointing their first times were, and I’d prepared myself for it—that it wouldn’t be fireworks. That it would be awkward and messy and maybe wouldn’t even feel that great.

The thing was, most of those things were true.

And yet I loved every second of it.

My parents were gone for the weekend, and I lied that I was spending the night with a friend. Wouter and I cooked dinner together, the two of us laughing and blushing more than usual, even when I oversalted the pasta and he underseasoned the green beans. We lit too many candles and set off the smoke alarm—Why does this keep happening to us?—and I had to hop onto the table with a broom to turn it off.

Even with all those mishaps, I’d never felt soadult.

Then I led him into my room, and he kissed me up against the wall before we moved to my bed.

We’d figured it out together, how to make each other gasp, and here we were about to chart another brand-new first. I remember thinking I didn’t know wanting,truewanting, until that moment, Wouter hovering above me with his mouth on my collarbone.

“I’m nervous,” he whispered in that accent I adored. “I want it to be good for you.”

I burrowed as close as I could. “It already is.”

The way he looked at me afterward should have been too tenderfor how cynical I sometimes felt at my core. He toyed with a strand of my hair, fingers stroking up my bare back. “I love you,” he said against my forehead, and that ignited a whole new emotion. Three words I’d held close to my heart because I didn’t want to expose a too-soft piece of myself. “I love you, and I’m so scared of what’s going to happen when I leave.”

“So just don’t leave. Because I love you, too.” I kissed along his chest, where his skin was the warmest. His neck, where I could smell a hint of aftershave. “How do you say it in Dutch?”

“Ik hou van jou,” he said, and when I repeated it back to him, he held me tighter.

That love felt like a precious, delicate thing, like we were two kids let loose in an antiques shop with signs everywhere declaringDO NOT BREAK.

And yet: we broke.

“How do I know you’re not going to change your mind?” I ask him now. Because he did it once before, took something I thought was serious and turned it intoI’m just not sure it’s going to work. I’m so sorry. Thanks for everything.

He swallows hard. “I think you’d have to trust me. I—I understand if you don’t.”

“I guess I just don’t get why you’d do this for me,” I say in a small voice, feeling both seventeen and thirty at once, wholly unprepared for any of this. “You’ve already helped me out so much. There aren’t any ex-girlfriends you’d prefer to ask? Or friends, even?”

He’s quiet for a moment, as though the thought never occurred to him. “This way, you get something out of it, too,” he says. “Nothing about our daily lives needs to change.”

“Except the fact that I’d be living with you.”

A half smile. “Except for that.”

“And you could charge whoever moves in downstairs full rent.”

I’m starting to get dizzy again, imagining this life, picturing how it might feel to be Wouter’s legal spouse. If we ever spent time with his family, we’d have toactmarried. Newlyweds head over fucking heels for each other.

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