“Please.” I clasp a hand around my compass. “Eat with us.”
“It’s okay. I really do need to pick up a brush before tomorrow. Besides” – he glances at Kurt – “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“You wouldn’t be imposing.”
But Josh is already walking backwards down the side street. He’s still facing me. “See you in a few days,” he shouts. “Enjoy your raw fish.”
“Enjoy your schnitzel!”
I laugh at the unexpected perverseness of our final exchange as Kurt pops up over my shoulder. His brow wrinkles. “Why was he here? How did that happen?”
Josh turns around. I admire the back side of his physique as the street lamps illuminate him, one after another. His figure grows smaller. He reaches a curve in the road and looks over his shoulder. One hand raises in a wave. I mirror the gesture, and he vanishes.
“I don’t know.” I’m mystified. “I was alone in my room. And then he was there.”
It’s Sunday – just before midnight – and I’m curled in bed with Joann Sfar, when there are two knocks against my door. The sound is so soft that I’m not sure I actually heard it. My mind races to Josh, but I push it away as improbable. Kurt? No, he’d text. Maybe it was next door. Or maybe it was a practical joke; it wouldn’t be the first.
I wait for a voice.
Nothing.
I settle back into my book, warily, when I hear it again. Knock-knock. Low to the ground. I’m still gripping the hard cover, which might make a serviceable weapon, as I climb out of bed and tiptoe forward. “Hello?” I whisper.
“It’s me,” the other side says. “Josh.”
He adds his name, because he does not yet realize that I’d recognize his voice anywhere, under any circumstance. I’ve had this fantasy before: Midnight. Him. Here. My heartbeat accelerates. I shake out my pillow-limp hair and take a steadying breath. It doesn’t work. I turn the handle silently, but my hand trembles.
“Hi,” he says. His face is close to mine, as if his cheek, or maybe his ear, had been pressed against the wood.
“Hi,” I reply.
Josh leans against the doorframe. His body is several inches lower to the ground, which makes our eyes nearly level. We study each other in silence. He looks different this close. He looks real. Complete, somehow. I glance down the hallway. It’s dark and empty. This fantasy is definitely familiar…until he holds up a beer stein.
I frown, but it clicks only a second later. “You went! You really did go.”
Josh lifts the stein in a mock cheers. “I did.”
I smile. “How was it?”
“Crowded. Loud.” He sounds depleted. “A fairground with wall-to-wall frat boys and drunken parents trying to escape from their own bratty children. Mike and Dave would’ve fit right in.”
“Yikes. That bad, huh?”
“It’s safe to say that I’ll be selecting a new destination next weekend.”
“Germany’s loss.”
The corner of his mouth lifts into a smile. He holds out the stein, and I tuck my book underneath my arm to accept it. The stein is made out of traditional earthenware, heavy and gaudy and carved, with a pointed tin lid.
I laugh. “This is really, really hideous.”
“They all were. And the ones in the beer tents were even worse, plain glass with this badly designed Oktoberfest logo. At least this one has a sword fight. See the tiny knights in front of the Bavarian castle? It was the most adventurous one I could find.”
And that’s when I realize…this is a gift. Josh picked this out for me. Suddenly, the stein is beautiful. I clutch it against my chest. “Thank you.”
He nods at my book. “How is it?”
“Good. You can borrow it. If you want.”