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It isn’t a first kiss It isn’t even their first kiss But it feels like one

Not because it is fu or aard Not because she doesn’t knohere to put her hand, or he doesn’t knohere to put his nose None of those They slot together like puzzle pieces As Allyson and Wille the sa is not the right teroes out theand sout instincts "Knowing it in your kishkes" is how Willem’s saba would’ve described it

In his kishkes, Wille that Allyson found him, as Yael found Bram He doesn’t kno it happened, only that it did happen and that ita mental fist pu for hiht, watching Willem perform Orlando in Vondelpark, she’d been certain she’d found the were ht in her gut But listening to that inner voice was new to Allyson She’d spent nineteen years of her life ignoring it, listening to prettybut it So when she’d seen Wille luone away

Only not really Because here she is, at his flat, where he is kissing her, and she is kissing hi co deeply known Which would seem to be a contradiction Only it’s not The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin, Saba always said

• • •

Nothing goes on forever Not even second first kisses Not even those as hard-won as this Outside the , a tra the moment from fuzzy to real Allyson and Willem break apart

Allyson isn’t quite sure what to do next She is supposed to be catching a flight to Croatia This stop at Willem’s flat was a detour, the kiss a happy surprise But nohat?

Wille the question, as if co the transaction Then he offers her a coffee

He would like to kick hiirl he’s thought about, dreairl he just kissed (he’s still a bit dazed from that kiss)and his first words to her are those of a waiter

But then he re "Or a tea You like tea, don’t you?"

It is the s She likes tea She drank tea on the train to London, when they’d first started talking, about hagelslag of all things She drank it again on the train they’d taken to Paris together, later that o He reut (it’s her kishkes, only she doesn’t know that word yet) is yelling: See?

"Yes," Allyson says "I would love soo, nerves had left her with a mouth as dry as paper, but the kiss has taken care of that But this feels likeoffered

"Tea," Wille in her face, as when she’d jokingly solicited a complienerous and openhearted Back then he’d been guessing Now he is re He remembers it all He wants to tell her He will tell her

But first, tea

Willem starts toward the kitchen Allyson isn’t sure whether to follow him, but then he turns around and says, "Wait here," and then a few steps later adds, "Don’t go anywhere"

She sits down on the low leather couch It is a nice apartht and sunny and ht about where heanywhere When she’d met him, he’d lived out of a backpack

In the kitchen, Willem tries to collect hie is true, it refuses to boil) He digs through the cabinets for the tea that he recalls his uncle Daniel saying he kept for Fabiola, his soon-to-be wife, the soon-to-be mother of his child, whom he is noith in Brazil Wille the instant because it is faster and it has already taken too long for the water to boil