The brisk summer morning outside the Rijksmuseum kept me company as I waited for Davis and his brother, Kieran. They weren’t late; I was early—and I wasn’t even embarrassed about it. As if I would be anything but early after witnessing what had to be the worst hen do in the history of the world. The minute that the sun was up, I had bolted out of the hostel before the rest of the bridal party awoke to see just how much cock paraphernalia they had left strewn across the dorm (spoiler: it was enough to outfit—and intimidate—an entire NFL team).
For most of the morning, I wandered briskly through the maze of canals, happy to be wearing jeans and a t-shirt for once (which Paul believed were unbecoming of a young woman). I grabbed a coffee by myself and people-watched from a bench as the city came to life and more tourists crept out of the woodwork. Despite the nagging urgency to, you know, conjure up enough money to get home, it was a rare stretch of peaceful solitude. No shifts to run off to. No problem sets to agonize over in the dead of night. No lunches to pack or coupons to clip or laundry to scrub in the sink because I was out of quarters. For once, it was just the morning and me.
Amsterdam was a magnificent place despite its global reputation for debauchery. There was something indescribably fluid about it—like this city had been a hundred different things since its heyday as a finance and trade capital centuries ago. It had started out as a fishing village and had transformed time and time again. Maybe it was still changing.
For whatever reason, I felt a kinship with the place, like maybe I would continue to change time after time. Maybe I wouldn’t always be that poor girl whose father never remembered to pick her up from school (until he never came at all one day), who had to learn how to cook breakfast for a toddler when she was in the fourth grade, and who never held a bill larger than a ten until her mom’s shitbag boyfriend entered her life and sent her to the corner store with a twenty to get him rolling papers, Hot Cheetos, and an ungodly amount of Arizona iced tea. Maybe I wouldn’t always be that random freshman who lived off-campus in a studio with her little brother, and who hadn’t spoken to her father since he signed away primary custody of said brother to her on her eighteenth birthday.
Maybe.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Davis walking alongside the water installation that led to the Rijksmuseum. Even from a distance, he stood out. Noticeably tall and big from shoulder to shoulder, he certainly stole attention wherever he went. I had first noticed it last night when he approached me at the club with a look of sheer terror as he tried to weave through the dancefloor. He was like a full-grown St. Bernard that still thought he was a puppy—except unlike a St. Bernard, Davis was bafflingly handsome.
He waved as he approached, the light breeze picking up his dark blond hair and making him look young. As he came closer, my stomach once again flipped over and fluttered with abandon. The guy was so sweet looking in this endearing, teddy bear way. Pink cheeks, squeezable—the whole nine yards.
Adorable. He was adorable.
“Hey,” he greeted me, still waving in a manner that was a little awkward, sure, but mostly just earnest.
When he was close, I found myself pulling him into a hug, almost like I couldn’t resist putting my arms around his warm body once again. He didn’t disappoint. His grip was gentle but dominating, making me feel secure for the brief time we held each other. It was so strangely…right. It was the same hold that he had on my body last night, when we shamelessly made out in front of all of his friends—a dalliance I hadn’t carried out in ages, not since sloppy high school house parties with the dumbasses on the football team. An act Professor Paul would have called “tacky.”
Maybe it was tacky. I didn’t care. It was nice to feel wanted for once—to feel like a guy was so smitten with me that he couldn’t hold back. Funny thing was, Davis hadn’t even been the one to initiate. It had been me. I was the insatiable one who couldn’t hold back.
God, it had been fun.
“How was your night?” he asked as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, fidgeting a little bit. Adorable. Freaking adorable.
I let out a groan. “Horrible. I was roused awake at five by the sound of a hen do gone wrong.”
“Brutal. I was up though. You should have texted me. We could have gotten breakfast.”
My eyebrows shot up involuntarily at that response. “At five? What was keeping you up?”
“I’m an early riser,” he replied, shrugging like it was normal for a guy who just graduated college to be up before sunrise. “Unlike my brother.”
“Oh, he’s not coming?”
Davis rolled his eyes. “Nope. He’s hungover. I tried a bunch of times to force him up, but he doesn’t do what I say. Classic little brother shit. Do you have brothers?”
“One. Charlie. He’s eleven.”
“Is he a pain in the ass?”
“No,” I admitted truthfully. “He’s a great kid, actually. We live together.”
“Hey, that’s cool,” Davis mused, not even questioning the arrangement as he led the way to the museum. “In the dorms?”
“I have an apartment off-campus. It’s a trek to class, but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than living in student housing.”
“So you’re, like, a real adult.”
I found myself laughing lightly at his response. “As opposed to?”
“I don’t know,” Davis admitted. “Me, I guess. You probably cook and do your own laundry and pay utilities and all that, right?”
We stopped outside of the museum and I turned to face him, canting my head thoughtfully as I examined his expression. His face was statuesque but still soft. Underneath the pink swells of his cheeks, I could see a jawline so effortlessly sculpted that I almost wondered if he had contoured it.
Honestly, this man was so fucking fine.
“You say all of that like it’s bucket-list worthy.”
He raised a broad shoulder, which made the hem of his t-shirt lift just enough for me to catch a glimpse of a faint happy trail on his lower stomach. “I don’t know. It sounds fun to me.”
I cocked an eyebrow, forcing myself to focus on his face instead of what glorious mysteries awaited underneath this guy’s clothes. “Well, if you ever want to come to St. Louis and cook me dinner, let me know.”
“Nah, I’d screw it up.”
“You’ve never cooked anything?”
Davis shook his head vigorously. “My dad has people do that for us. Then I was in the dorms at Yale, so I ate in the dining hall most of the time.”
I raised both brows before I could stop myself. Clearly, between all the gin and tonics and vodka shots, I missed the part where this adorable guy just so happened to go to an Ivy League school. I should have clocked that a mile away, but I was so caught up in the notes of his cologne last night that my stupid brain didn’t pick up on it. Now, it was a matter of time before this guy realized that he was literally out of my league—that my upbringing would make his rich ass parents clutch their pearls and pocketbooks.
“Oh no, that sounded pompous, didn’t it…” he murmured, his expression falling—and it wasn’t a question.
“No, good for you,” I tried to assure him. “Well, actually, I take that back. It was super pompous, but I don’t expect you to water down the truth.”
“If it helps, I didn’t like it there,” he acknowledged, glancing to the side like the privilege police might be listening in. “I always felt like I was there because my dad…damn it, this is dumb. You don’t want to talk about this. You want to talk about Rembrandt and Vermeer and Dutch history, right?”
“Hell no. I wanted to hang out with you.” I reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “That’s okay, right? Don’t tell me you were here to wax poetic about old, dead white guys.”
“Me? Never,” Davis replied with a shake of his head that made his floppy hair move from side to side.
Professor Paul would be red in the face if he could see me now, I knew. But screw Professor Paul; this was such an upgrade.
“Tell me if I’m being pompous though,” he went on. “I want to know.”
“Really?”
Davis nodded. “Honesty means a lot to me. You have no idea how much I wish people would be more honest with me.” Then he grinned, looking sweet again.
So. Fucking. Fine.
“We could all afford to be more honest,” I replied as I cocked my head towards the museum’s lobby. “Ready?”