This Love

by Hilaria Alexander

  “I didn’t change my mind about that, but I thought about what you said. We only have about a week, and I cannot let you leave without showing you the windmills,” I said with a playful smile.

  He smiled in response, and I relaxed a little. Maybe this week didn’t have to be a lame sad-fest. Maybe we could still have fun together, and then we’d go our own separate ways.

  “So, I asked my bosses if I could take some afternoons off, and they said yes.”

  “Hmmm, imagine that. I thought your bosses needed you. Maybe they could be okay without you for a couple of weeks? As you recall, I already asked them. You are the one that needs to make up her mind.” I wanted to be irritated by his words, but I still smiled.

  “I don’t think it would be fair to them. Soooo, I have everything planned out for us…”

  “Us?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Yes, the two of us,” I said, trying to be unaffected by the emphasis he was trying to put on the pronoun. “Lieke might join us a couple of afternoons.”

  “That’ll be fun. I would love that.” He gave me a smile afterwards, but then got quiet. I thought he’d be more excited at the prospect of spending more time together; it was just what he asked me to do yesterday before he dropped the bomb he was leaving in a week. Maybe he thought I was going to finally say yes and go to Florence with him.

  “Steven is here,” he said, noticing one of our customers he usually chatted with. “I’ll go sit by him.” He gave me a nod and walked away from me.

  After that tense exchange, I thought our last few days together were going to be strained, but he went back to his usual, cheerful self, and we ended up having a great time. He never asked me again to go to Italy with him, and that made me feel relieved. The most shallow and immature part of me still wanted to be asked, over and over, which was ridiculous. I had told him no numerous times and I had a good reason to do so, but doubt had started creeping in, and now, honestly, I wasn’t so sure anymore. We went everywhere I could think of and covered pretty much every corner of Amsterdam and the surrounding areas. Yes, we went to see the windmills as well. Most people took guided bike tours, but we avoided all that, opting to go on our own.

  The day we went out to the countryside, he spent most of the afternoon with his head in my lap. I was taken aback when he first did that, but I couldn’t bring myself to protest. It was nice, and I felt a warm fuzzy feeling spreading out in my chest. His eyes were closed for the longest time, and he wasn’t moving or talking, so I thought he had fallen asleep. I studied his features—the way his brows were slightly furrowed even when he was resting, the long black eyelashes, and his full lips—as if I were trying to memorize them. I couldn’t stop myself from running my thumb across his bottom lip, and when his eyes shot open, bright and excited, I was blushing like a kid caught stealing candy. He caressed my face and made me lean down to kiss him. That led to a long love fest on the grass. It was definitely our longest make-out session to date. No words were spoken, but what our kisses said to each other was that we were going to live in this moment until the very end.

  “Hey Mom and Dad,” I said after hearing the beep of the answering machine, “it’s me. I know I haven’t called or sent you anything in a while, and I’m sorry. I’m doing well…I’m still in Amsterdam. I have started playing again. Actually, I have been playing a lot. I’ve met this musician, and I’ve been helping him with some songs. I don’t even know why I’m telling you that, because I know you don’t approve. Anyway…things have been great. I don’t think there is much else to say…I wish I could say I miss you and I’m ready to come home, but I’m not. Don’t be worried about me…I’m doing fine, and I’m happy, really happy. I’ll call soon, okay? Bye.”

  Anytime I called, I always imagined my mother sitting by the phone and listening to the whole message through the answering machine. In the beginning, they picked up the phone a few times, and I always hung up immediately.

  Therefore, I had good reasons to believe they were home when I’d call, and they knew better now to just let me say what I had to say without picking up the phone. I did have a slight sense of guilt for cutting off ties completely with my parents, but then I would think about how all my life they tried to mold me into what they wanted me to be, and the sense of guilt would evaporate. I kept wondering if, in the future, I would ever be able to mend our relationship.

  Ally and I had made plans for my birthday dinner; Lou was supposed to join us at some point. Helga was upset with me because I didn’t let her organize some big birthday party at the pancake house. She still squeezed me really tight when I came down from my room that morning, and she covered my face with kisses. She, Johan and Lieke gave me a cupcake and made me blow the candle as they sang Happy Birthday to me in Dutch.

  Ally never told me which restaurant we were going to and I didn’t question it, because she knew the best places, and I liked to eat everything, so I was a little surprised when we stopped by a houseboat.

  “Is this a restaurant? Are we the only people here?” I asked, confused.

  I could see a table set outside on the patio with several chairs. It had white linens and a vase with pink tulips as centerpiece. Pink and red geraniums decorated the perimeter of the patio and made the place look even cozier. A few rows of string lights were tied from a post all the way to the roof of the house, making the place look even more enchanting. What was this place? Ally gave me a coy smile but didn’t answer my questions. She stepped on the patio and headed for the door. As soon as I stepped on the patio of the houseboat, the door opened, and Lieke came running to me, screaming, “Surprise! Happy Birthday!”

  I opened my arms to her, and hugged her, smiling widely, but still confused. Lieke was soon followed by Helga, Johan, and Lou.

  Lou. He was behind all this. I had told him how much I wanted to stay or even see a houseboat. I had always been fascinated by them and when I got here I bugged the shit out of Johan asking him if he knew anyone that owned a houseboat I could visit or stay in for a night. Sneaky Lou had been suspiciously quiet and left the pancake house earlier than usual telling me he’d see me tonight. This was why he had been acting so weird.

  When I recovered from the initial shock, I hugged each one of them and thanked them. I was so thankful for having such good friends that cared about me.

  When I got to Lou, I couldn’t stop smiling.

  “This was you,” I said, hugging him tight. I had just told him about my houseboat fascination a couple days ago, I couldn’t believe he pulled all this off.

  I didn’t want to let go of him. I didn’t care if our friends saw us or teased us. But he released me, and he looked a little shy, scratching the back of his head and shrugging it off like it wasn’t a big deal. He was wearing a dark blue button-down shirt and gray jeans. He always looked handsome, but I don’t know what it was that made him look even more handsome in my eyes: the birthday surprise, the place, or the pretty string lights.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, getting closer to him and kissing him on the cheek. Then I thought of something else.

  “Are we sleeping here tonight?” I asked, nervously. He couldn’t seem to hold my gaze, which made him look downright adorable.

  “We don’t have to…we can if you want to, but it’s not like that, I swear. That’s not why I rented the place.” I bit my lip trying hard not to laugh. He looked so damn cute.

  “I get it, I get it,” I reassured him. “We’ll have a sleepover.” It was fun for once to see him as flustered as I usually was in his presence.

  CHAPTER 9

  When I blew the twenty-four candles out, I did feel a little pang of sadness that I wasn’t sharing this moment with my parents, but I was surrounded by people who loved me. I promised myself to make a serious effort to mend that relationship, sometime soon.

  We had a lovely dinner of salmon, asparagus and potatoes Helga had picked up from a nearby restaurant. The cake was my favorite apple tart from 43 Whiskers. As soon as I saw it, it re
minded me of the first time Lou and I kissed. I glanced in his direction and found him staring at me. The smug grin that appeared on his face told me he had been thinking the same thing. I enjoyed dining al fresco, and I loved listening to the sound of the water. More than once I zoned out listening to how the water would crash against the planks of the houseboat, or how the whole thing would slightly sway when a boat came across the canal.

  Of course, not only was I gifted with a dinner party, but my friends also gave me gifts. Ally got me an oversized gray sweater we had seen in a store together and I had put back once I saw how much it cost, Johan and Helga had a leather guitar strap made for me with my name on it, and Lou gave me sheet music of several composers, in case I wanted to play more and couldn’t remember every single note.

  Everyone but Lieke was ready to call it a night, and she complained to her mom and dad because they wouldn’t let her stay with me.

  I got mischievous grins from each one of them as they left.

  “Don’t let me down,” Ally teased me, whispering in my ear when she hugged me goodbye.

  When I shut the door, nervousness got the best of me. I was spending the night with a boy—no, a man—I really, really liked. Sure, we didn’t have to do anything, but it didn’t mean that I wasn’t thinking about it.

  “Helga brought a bag with a change of clothes. It’s in the bedroom,” he said, as I was busy discovering the rest of the place, exploring every nook and cranny of the houseboat. It was definitely an older one, not as modern as some I had seen around. It was fascinating. The bedroom was quite small and windowless.

  “I can sleep on the couch,” Lou reassured me, as he came up behind me. I gave him a teasing look over my shoulder, and he shrugged, hands in his pockets. He bit his bottom lip, and I realized I hadn’t kissed him at all since yesterday. My stomach flipped at the thought of his kisses and the discovery of how much I longed for them. I raised myself on my tip-toes and gave him a soft kiss on his full lips.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, we can share the bed,” I whispered.

  “Ella, we don’t have to…it’s not why I did this.”

  “I know,” I said, giving him another peck and holding his hands. “I know you’ll be a gentleman.” He just gave me a silent nod in reply. Problem was, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to be.

  “I’ll go change my clothes in the bathroom,” I said and I heard him exhale loudly.

  Neither of us could sleep, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because of the sexual tension. The weather was changing outside, and if there is one thing I had just learned from spending the night in a houseboat it's that every nature sound seems ten thousand times louder. Every crash of thunder seemed to rumble through the whole place. I felt exposed to the elements, almost as if we were camping with a flimsy tent in the middle of a storm. The rain started coming down hard outside, and pretty soon it wasn’t just rain, it was hail as well, clanking loudly on the roof of the houseboat. We were in complete darkness, but I could tell by the way he was breathing that he was awake. I shifted on my side, and he extended a hand, searching for mine. I held it.

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Neither can I,” he replied.

  “I’m glad we’re sharing the bed. I’d be waking you up by now.”

  “Are you scared of thunderstorms?” he asked.

  “Not usually, but this one seems really loud. Or maybe it seems louder because we aren’t in a traditional house.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said softly.

  There was another loud clap of thunder that made me flinch, and I scooted toward him. He pulled me to him and I suddenly felt safer in his embrace.

  Several minutes passed, and although the rain hadn’t stopped, the thundering had subsided. I could tell from Lou’s even breathing he had fallen asleep. The sound of his breathing gave me unexpected comfort, and he was still embracing me, which helped me feel more relaxed. I was convinced I’d finally be able to go to sleep, but just as I was drifting off, I heard several noises come from the ceiling. I stared up at the ceiling, unable to see anything in the pitch black darkness. The noises were followed by a loud crack. I disentangled myself from Lou’s arms to reach for my phone. I turned on the flashlight and, as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a small crevice in the ceiling. A few drops seeped through the crack—water was coming straight down for us.

  And come for us it did.

  The ceiling was leaking before I could even get Lou awake. And if at first it looked like just a few drops slowly trickling down, in no time it turned into a mini waterfall coming right down the middle of the bed.

  “Lou, Lou wake up!” I said, shaking him.

  “Hmmm, Ella, what…come here,” he mumbled sleepily, as I tried to move off the bed.

  “Lou, the ceiling…the rain is coming in through the roof…get up, get up now!”

  I turned the light on, and he woke then. He squinted, but after a couple of seconds he yelled “Fuck!” as he looked at the ceiling, and he felt the water raining down on him.

  “We need to get something to hold the water,” he said getting up hurriedly and going to the kitchen.

  He grabbed a couple of big pots from the kitchen and placed them on the mattress, which already had a big wet stain in the middle.

  “What the fuck!” he exclaimed while we both leaned against the doorframe, watching Niagara Falls develop right in our bedroom.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he apologized. Neither of us could look at the other. We were mesmerized by the amount of water falling. Pretty soon, we’d have to empty the pots or replace them with something else.

  “It’s not your fault…how could you know this would have happened?” I reassured him, holding my arm around his.

  “Should we go back to my place?”

  This was a disaster, and still, I didn’t want to leave.

  “I have an idea. Let’s take the mattress and bring it to the living room. The other side should still be dry. We can flip it and go to sleep in the living area.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go home?” he asked looking me straight in the eye.

  I shook my head no.

  “It’s late and it’s still raining pretty hard out there. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to find a taxi and get home dry. Let’s stay here.”

  His eyes diverted to my wet and limp hair first, then my chest. My pajama shirt was so soaked, I could have participated in a wet t-shirt contest. The material was a dark color, but still, I knew you could pretty much make out the outline of my breasts.

  “Your shirt is wet. Here,” he said, taking off his shirt.

  “You don’t need to…” I mumbled.

  “Put it on. I never wear any clothes at night,” he winked, and that made me blush.

  “You don’t huh?” I asked sarcastically. I made the mistake of glancing at his chest again, and I felt my cheeks redden even more.

  Bastard.

  I tried to look down, and when I did, I ended up looking at his chest and realized this was the first time I had seen him half naked. He was lean, and his pecs and abs were defined, but it wasn’t the body of a guy you’d see on the cover of a romance novel. I thought about how different his body was from his brother’s, but I didn’t care, because I wasn’t into gym rats. In fact, I quite liked what I saw, and it certainly wasn’t helping getting rid of my blush.

  I stared at the shirt in my hand. I couldn’t put it on. First, I would have to go to the bathroom to change, since I didn’t have a bra on. And second, I was more concerned about rescuing the mattress. I put Lou’s shirt on a chair in the living room.

  “Let’s get the mattress before it gets even more soaked.”

  Moving the mattress wasn’t as easy as I expected. The water was still coming down from the ceiling pretty steadily, so we had to be fast. And once we had grabbed and moved the mattress away, it took a while to coordinate our movements and guide it through the door. It was two in the morning, and our thoughts and actions were m
uddled. We both looked so sleepy and ridiculous too, and as soon as we dropped the mattress on the living room floor, I face planted on it and I started having a hysterical laughing fit.

  “You’re going to get the mattress wet with your shirt,” he warned, a tone of fake annoyance in his voice.

  “Shoot! You’re right!” I immediately bounced off the mattress.

  My hair was soaking wet, so Lou took my hand and led me to the bathroom. I wondered for a moment if we were going to take a hot, steamy shower in the only tiny bathroom the house had to offer, but Lou apparently had other ideas. First he took a towel and rubbed it on my scalp to get most of the water out, then he looked for a hair dryer, and when he found it, he started drying my hair.

  I felt embarrassed for just a moment, but that changed when I felt him behind me, his fingers in my hair, trying to be gentle. I loved the sensation of him touching me, and it had been so long since we had properly kissed that my whole body was as tense as a guitar string. I couldn’t help but stare at us in the mirror, him drying my hair, going crazy in every direction. He looked mystified by the way my long hair was moving with the hot air blowing against it. When our eyes met in the mirror, something snapped inside of me. By the way he stared at me, his expression dark and hooded, I could tell I wasn’t the only one.

  “Give me the hair dryer. Please,” I yelled over the noise.

  He did as I asked, and then I told him to sit on the toilet. His hair was wet too, so now it was time for me to return the favor. I didn’t have a comb, so I tried to be as gentle as I could running my fingers through his hair.

  I was facing him, and since the bathroom wasn’t very big, I was dangerously close to him, my legs standing between his, my chest at his eye level.

  He tipped his head backwards and closed his eyes, seeming to relish my touch just as much as I did his. He had shaved today, and I couldn’t help but run my fingers under his jaw. I stared at his lips a little too long, and when he opened his eyelids, I was met with hungry eyes again. I felt my heart beating faster and faster, so much so, I could feel it all the way up in my throat. I felt Lou’s hands come up to my waist as he laid his face against my stomach. My heart didn’t slow down, and my body was inundated by a warmth that I had never felt before.