Page 7 of Crosswind

"Patrick," he says.

"Yeah."

"Go to sleep."

I look at him. At the expression on his face, the one that isn't a smile but contains one, the Jan version of warmth, which he distributes carefully and which I have learned to recognise and which does, every time, the same thing to my chest.

"Okay," I say.

Then he moves.

He turns toward me and puts his head on my chest, just like that, without asking, without making anything of it, and his hand finds mine on the duvet and he is quiet and still and I feel the weight of him against my ribs and the warmth of him and I put my free hand over his and look at the ceiling and think: there it is. There is the whole thing.

His breathing slows. Evens out.

For the first time in a very long time, nothing feels unfinished.

He is asleep. I close my eyes.

I wake before six. My body does this regardless, the internal clock of a man who has caught too many early departures to sleep past it.

For a moment I don't move.

I have slept the way I haven't in a long time. Deeply, completely, the kind of sleep that doesn't happen in hotel rooms or in beds that aren't yours. I didn't notice falling asleep. I was looking at the ceiling, Jan's head on my chest, his breathing evening out, and then I was here, in the grey Saturday morning, feeling like I have been set down somewhere solid.

Jan is still asleep. His head on my chest, one hand loosely curled against my ribs, like he found me in his sleep and held on without waking. His face is completely unguarded. Something about that, the fact of it, the trust of it, sits in my chest and doesn't move.

The line is behind us. Everything from here is different.

I put my hand on his back and don't move.

At some point Jan shifts onto his side. I wait a few minutes. Then, carefully, I get up.

He doesn't stir. I stand for a moment and look at him, on his side, one arm curled against the pillow, entirely at ease, and allow myself the moment because he is asleep and cannot apply his particular gaze to me for doing it.

I am completely gone on him.

I go to the kitchen.

I know this kitchen. I have been in this kitchen most days for three weeks, the cups in the second cupboard, the coffee in the fridge because Jan has a reason for everything, the grinder above the stove. My tea is in the third drawer because Jan put it there the second week without mentioning it and I have not mentioned it either.

I make Jan's coffee. I make my tea.

I have stood in a lot of hotel windows in a lot of cities and looked at a lot of mornings. This one is different. The light is the same grey Amsterdam light, the canal is the same canal, but the tea is warm in my hands and Jan is asleep in the next room and I have nowhere I need to be and no desire to be anywhere else — and those last two things are not the same as they usually are.

I take the cups back to the bedroom.

He is awake. Lying in the same position, eyes open, watching me come in, Jan who surfaces from sleep the way he does everything, completely and without intermediate stages. He looks at me with the expression of someone who has already assessed the room and is deciding what to say about it.

"Good morning, beautiful," I say.

Something crosses his face. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at the ceiling briefly, like he is searching for the correct response to this and finding the options limited.

"Good morning," he says. Finally. With the dignity of a man who has decided to accept the compliment and not engage further with it.

I hand him his cup.

He pushes himself up. Takes it. Looks at it.