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“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

He puts it all on a tray and returns to the lounge Allyson is sitting on the sofa, her sandals off, neatly placed under the coffee table (The sight of her bare feet What this is doing to Willeht as well have taken off all her clothes)

He puts the tray down on the coffee table and sits on the couch, but on the opposite side from Allyson “I hope chamomile is okay,” he says “It’s all my uncle has”

“It’s fine,” Allyson says Then, “Your uncle?”

“Daniel This is his flat I’ here while he’s in Brazil”

Allyson alht he lived in Utrecht, that here she’d tracked hiht it went cold Until she’d accidentally heard about As You Like It being perforht and she someho that Willem would be in it

Accidents All about the accidents She wants to tell Wille like a complete lunatic, when he says: “Daniel used to share this flat withAnd thenThey spent a day together Not even a day, a few hours, and a year later, she showed up here She knocked on the door”

Like you just did, Willem thinks, but he doesn’t say that He doesn’t want to sound like a complete lunatic

“Your mother,” Allyson says

“Yes My ht now” He thinks of her He cannot wait to tell her this He takes a ser to tell hisAllyson, and her bare feet, which are right here He never thought he had a thing for feet, but he is beginning to reconsider