The New Plan
The bathroom felt smaller than it had.
Not physically. Energetically.
Like the room itself was aware that something had happened between us and was now standing there with its arms crossed, waiting for one of us to say it out loud.
David and I stood side by side at the sink, toothbrushes in hand, mirror fogged just enough to blur the edges of our reflections. Two grown men pretending this was a completely normal morning and not the aftermath of a very confusing night.
Our shoulders almost touched.
Almost.
“So,” David said, mouth full of toothpaste foam, eyes very deliberately on his own reflection. “Sleep okay?”
“Like a guy who made extremely questionable decisions but also doesn’t regret them,” I said.
He snorted, then immediately tried to cover it with a cough.
We brushed in silence for a beat. The sound felt way too intimate. The scrape of bristles. The quiet shared rhythm. His elbow bumped mine and neither of us moved away right away.
I noticed everything.
The way his jaw flexed when he brushed too hard. The faint mark on his neck that definitely hadn’t been there yesterday. The way he kept angling his chin like he could hide it from me, which was hilarious because I already knew exactly how it got there.
He caught me looking.
I caught him catching me.
His eyes flicked up in the mirror, held mine for half a second too long, then darted away.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “This is weird.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But we’re gonna lean into humor.”
“Always.” He nudged my hip with his.
I laughed, a little too loudly. “Growth.”
But then there was that pause. That loaded, quiet space where neither of us said the obvious thing sitting between us like a live wire.
We rinsed. Spit. Avoided eye contact like professionals.
David wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gestured toward the shower. “You go first. It takes you ages.”
“Well, some of us actually use soap,” I retorted.
He grinned. That same grin he always used when he wanted to pretend nothing was a big deal.
I stepped past him and felt it again. That spark. Quiet but stubborn.
The water hit my shoulders and I closed my eyes, letting out a breath I’d been holding since I woke up.
Hot. Loud. Steady.
I braced my hands on the tile and let my forehead rest there, steam curling around me. My brain immediately betrayed me, replaying flashes of last night. The ease of it. The way I hadn’t felt awkward then at all. The way my body still remembered him without asking permission.
I groaned softly and turned the water colder, which helped for about three seconds.
I finished fast. No lingering. No thinking. Just get clean and get out.
Then I reached for my clothes.
Nothing.
Right. Because of course I’d forgotten them.
I stood there dripping for a second, towel in hand, debating my options. There were none. I wrapped the towel around my waist and opened the door.
David was sitting on his bed, scrolling on his phone, shirtless again like this was his natural state. He looked up automatically.
Then very obviously tried not to look.
“Oh,” he said. “You’re done.”
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly very aware of the fact that a towel was doing a lot of emotional labor right now. “Forgot my clothes.”
He nodded too fast. “Classic.”
I stepped into the room and the air shifted. I felt it in my chest. In my stomach. In the way his eyes flicked to me and away again like they were on a delay.
I bent to grab my underwear and immediately regretted having bones.
When I straightened up, he was staring at the wall like it had personally offended him.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s fine,” he said quickly. “It’s just… a towel. We’ve seen worse.”
“Unfortunately,” I said.
That got a laugh out of him. Real. Familiar. It eased something in me.
David grabbed his clothes and headed for the bathroom, brushing past me close enough that I felt the heat of him.
“I’ll be quick,” he said.
“No rush,” I replied, lying through my teeth.
I dressed fast. Too fast. Jeans, shirt, socks, like if I moved quickly enough I could outrun my thoughts. I sat on my bed to put my shoes on and stared at the wall while the sound of the shower started up again.
My brain did not appreciate that.
I focused on tying my laces. On breathing. On the fact that this was fine and temporary and we were grown adults who could absolutely ignore the weird pull in the room and go back to flirting with strangers like we’d planned.
This was Amsterdam. This was what we came for.
The shower shut off.
I sat up straighter. For no reason. None.
David came out fully dressed this time. Hair damp. Shirt clean. Back in familiar territory. He looked like himself again. The version of him I’d known for years. The one who joked and flirted and never overthought anything.
He grabbed his jacket and grinned, like flipping a switch.
“Alright,” he said. “We good?”
I nodded too fast. “Totally.”
“Cool,” he said, slinging his jacket on. “Because once we get laid tonight, this awkwardness is gonna disappear.”
I laughed. Because that was the script. “Obviously.”
“Like,” he went on, pacing a little, hyping himself up, “some hot European girls, a couple drinks, boom. Reset button.”
“Totally,” I said again, even as something in my chest tightened in a way I refused to name.
He shot me a look, playful. “You in?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m in.”
He clapped his hands once. “Perfect. Tonight’s the night.”
We headed for the door together, shoulder to shoulder like always. Like nothing had changed.
As we stepped out into the hallway, he bumped my arm lightly with his. Familiar. Easy.
And for half a second, I let myself pretend that was all it was.
Just two guys. Just a trip. Just a plan.
No sparks. No confusion. No quiet, persistent feeling that whatever we were promising ourselves wasn’t quite the truth.
Tonight, we’d get some action. With girls.
Definitely with girls.
*****
The Amsterdam air felt different than the bathroom. Wider. Louder. Forgiving. Like the city itself had decided to mind its own business and let us do the same. Late afternoon light spilled between narrow buildings, everything golden and smug, bikes flying past like they had places to be and zero emotional baggage.
We found a café on a corner that looked like it existed solely for tourists to feel cultured for an hour. Tiny round tables, wobbly chairs, chalkboard menus written in aggressive cursive. Every language floated through the air at once. American accents. British ones. Something French that sounded judgmental. A German family arguing about pastries.
We sat outside. Of course we did. Prime people-watching territory.
“Alright,” David said, stretching like he was warming up for a sport. “Game time.”
Something in him flipped. The awkward morning David vanished. This one leaned back in his chair, sunglasses on, legs spread like the sidewalk belonged to him. Loud laugh. Easy smile. The kind of guy who made strangers want to be part of the story he was telling.
I surprised myself by matching his energy.
Not on purpose. It just… happened.
I ordered in my best fake-European confidence voice. Tossed in a thank you that sounded vaguely foreign. Smiled at the barista like we were already flirting. She smiled back. Hard.
David raised an eyebrow. “Okay, Casanova.”
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m versatile.”
Girls started noticing us almost immediately. It was stupid how fast it happened. A group of three at the next table glanced over, whispered, laughed. One of them looked directly at David and didn’t look away.
He noticed. Of course he did.
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, said something I didn’t hear. They laughed louder. One of them leaned over, asked where we were from.
“California,” David said, like it was a pickup line.
“Oh,” she said. “That explains it.”
I jumped in, told some dumb story about jet lag and bad decisions. They laughed again. One of them touched my arm when she did it. I felt absurdly proud of myself, like I’d unlocked a new achievement.
Phones came out. Numbers were exchanged. It should have felt like a win. It almost did.
Except I kept checking where David was, even when he was literally right there. Even when I was mid-conversation with a girl who smelled amazing and laughed at all my jokes.
And David, despite being surrounded by attention like it was oxygen, kept drifting back toward me. Leaning closer. Making sure our chairs touched. Glancing over like he was checking in.
At one point, he rested his foot on the rung of my chair without realizing it. Or maybe realizing it and pretending not to. I didn’t move mine away.
When I got up to grab another coffee, he stood too, like it was automatic.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “You?”
“Always.”
But he stayed close anyway. Shoulder brushing mine as we waited. The contact casual, but my body clocked it immediately.
We left the café buzzing. Lighter. Louder. Victory in the air. We walked down the street with iced coffees and numbers in our phones, laughing about how easy it all felt.
“See?” David said. “Told you. Reset button.”
“Totally,” I said, nodding. “This is working.”
It was working so well that neither of us noticed we were walking closer than necessary. That our arms kept knocking together. That every time one of us slowed, the other did too.
By evening, the streets got tighter. Market stalls everywhere. Strings of lights overhead. People packed in shoulder to shoulder, moving in unpredictable waves. Music spilled out of bars. Food smells layered on top of each other until my brain gave up trying to identify anything.
We pushed through the crowd, laughing, dodging backpacks and shopping bags. I felt loose. Confident. Like myself again.
And then someone shoved me from behind.
Hard.
I stumbled forward, heart lurching, and before I could catch myself, hands were on my waist.
Solid. Immediate.
David.
He pulled me back against him without thinking, grip firm, grounding. His chest hit my back. His thigh slotted between my legs just enough to steady me.
“Got you,” he said, breath warm against my ear.
For a second, neither of us moved.
The crowd pressed in from all sides, trapping us together. I could feel him everywhere. His chest against my shoulder blades. His hands at my waist. His breath. The heat of him.
My brain went completely blank.
Then he let go, stepping back like he’d just remembered where he was. The contact broke too suddenly, leaving this weird echo in my body.
“You okay?” he asked, trying for casual.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just… surprised.”
He grinned, but it was a little tight. “Careful. You fall easy.”
“Only when pushed,” I shot back, meeting his eyes.
Something flickered between us. Recognition. Something honest.
We both laughed too loudly, like the joke needed reinforcement.
“Let’s get inside before you wipe out completely,” he said.
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