Page 39 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“Yes,” I say. “If it would make you happy, I’ll do your stretches.”

“You shouldn’t do it to make me happy. You should do it so you’re not in tremendous pain by the time you’re forty.”

“Why do you have to be so reasonable?”

At this, he finally laughs, and that makes me relax a little. He tilts me to one side and then the other, guiding me through a couple stretches before returning to the massage.

As he continues his survey of just how stiff my muscles are, the fabric of my T-shirt seems to get in his way. “Is it easier with my shirt off?” I ask. “Because I don’t mind—”

His hands pause. “Oh—only if you’re comfortable.”

“But most people do?”

“If I’m working on their back, yes.”

So, because I want the full experience, I sit up and he averts his eyes as I tug off my T-shirt before giving him my back again. His hands settle on my bare skin, fingers warm. Practiced. Intentional. I thought maybe he’d avoid the band of my bra, that it would be too intimate, but he doesn’t, like the professional that he is. He even stops for a moment and returns with some oil, and while the lavender scent calms my muscles a bit, my brain has not forgotten that I’m half-naked in his office. That slickness turns his movements smoother, makes his skin glide across mine.

What he said about being a physical person comes back to me—it makes sense, now, that his career would take this turn.

That this would be his something meaningful.

My mind wanders as I sink into the sensation. He lingers in certain places, repeats a movement when I let out a sigh of satisfaction. It makes me painfully aware of the fact that no one has touched me like this in so long, which is a sad thing to realize when someone is touching you in a wholly medical context.

“Good?” he asks.

“Very. Please don’t stop.”

This is a new peace between us, and while there’s so much we haven’t talked about, right now he feels closer to the boy I used to know—though the baggage we shared back then was significantly lighter.

Even once we’re married, I can’t imagine bringing up the past. Our relationship is too new, too easy to ruin by digging up a complicated history, and yet there’s still that unanswered question:Why?Teenage immaturity, like he said? Or something else entirely, something that might hurt to hear all these years later?

“I’ve been wondering,” he says, “how your parents reacted when you told them you were moving here.”

“Well, they thought I was on drugs when I told them. My mom put her hands on my shoulders and looked me deep in the eyes and said, ‘Danika, have you taken something? Do we need to go to the hospital?’ It was so outside the realm of what they expected when I said I had something important to tell them. Then they asked if there was a small town in California also called Amsterdam that they hadn’t heard of.”

Now Wouter’s laughing again, and yet his hands remain steady on my spine.

“They didn’t understand it. They probably still don’t. They were just concerned, you know. The way they always have been. That I’d fall into a canal or get run off the road by a cyclist.”

“Or the other way around.”

“Precisely.” I close my eyes while Wouter’s fingers massage deeper. “I have to admit, I’m a little nervous about your grandmother not approving of me.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Her English is a bit more limited, but she’ll love you. She’s loved all the girls I’ve brought home.”

“All of them, huh? How many would that be?”

He turns sheepish—I can hear the new shyness in his voice. “Maybe ‘all’ wasn’t the best word. All two. Is that better? My last serious relationship ended about a year ago and—I don’t really do casual, so…”

He trails off, as though realizing he’s gotten too personal. It takes me moment to connect the dots—if he doesn’t do casual, that might mean he hasn’t slept with anyone in a year.

Which is not something I need to linger on, especially not while I’m in his office in just a bra and jeans, my breasts pressed hard against the table.

“You know I’ve just had one, really. Unless you count you,” I say, because the way he’s loosening my muscles is apparently loosening my tongue, too. “Then that’s two.”

“It was that serious to you?” His surprise throws me off. I don’t know if this means we were only ever superficial to him or that he never felt any remorse for ending it.It’s one of my biggest regrets, he said the night I moved in.

I’m not sure which version of him is telling the truth.

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