Amsterdam, City of Acceptance IV

Five days had past and Logan and I had visited more things in Amsterdam. I'd decided where I wanted to go next, because Logan kept asking me about it. I wanted to go to Berlin, but doubted if he would go with me once I told him about his parents. I still hadn't made a move. I had no idea how I should make a move. Or when. Or what to do. Or if he wanted it. I only had found one thing that might sign he liked me back. After the night he cried he came to cuddle with me every night. Always when he thought I was asleep he scooted over and placed his head on my chest, only minutes later he would be fast asleep. So, I played his game and pretended to be asleep earlier and up later so he could sneak out before I woke up. It was so cute I didn't mind keeping my mouth if it made him continue what he was doing.

The hand holding continued too, but only when I took his hand and not the other way around. That could be because he was shy or he because he liked the comforting gesture or because he just didn't want to turn me down. At the moment I thought the second was true, since he seemed to genuinely like me as a friend, but I couldn't help but think that it also could be the third. That would mean he just didn't want to hurt me and felt like he had to do it because I was paying for everything or something.

I was afraid of that. That maybe, he would only be with me because of that. To please me or something. To pay me back somehow. I hoped that would never be the reason he would be with me, if that ever happened.

Apart from the hand holding, he'd returned a few hugs I'd given him, but that was about it. Since our little tickle fight I wanted nothing more than to kiss him, but every time I got the chance I just let it pass. There was this time when he almost fell and I caught him just in time –the streets here get slippery when it rains and freezes all the time in the winter. And another time when we bumped into each other when I walked out of the bathroom and he wanted to go in and we both weren't paying attention.

James and Carlos had updated me daily about what happened back home. I didn't have that much to tell them, because NOTHING HAPPENED. And I blamed myself. It was pretty bad back home. Mr. Mitchell accused my father of kidnapping Logan and I couldn't help but feeling that that was a tiny little bit true. He just picked the wrong Knight. Of course my parents didn't let this go easily and fought back, making the whole town even more hateful towards each other. There had been some tiny fights between neighbors and a very unfriendly basketball game between the two schools our village had. Carlos told me his father and his team were still looking for Logan and were now starting to connect my disappearance to his. They'd been asking questions to my father, but apparently he had everything planned out. He actually signed me in for some school in Canada. The principal of that school was a man that owed a lot to my dad and lied gladly for him. Carlos knew this, because he knew where I really was. Having a friend who's father is a cop can be pretty useful.

But how could someone be this oblivious? I mean, I was pretty obvious with my obsessed crush, wasn't I? I even told him once I liked him. I literally told him that. But no, Logan goes around and thinks I mean it in a friendly way. I was this close to strangling him.

Katie had mailed me. She missed me like crazy and I missed her too. She was my baby sister after all and even if she didn't really need me, I still had the urge to look after her. Which I couldn't do now. She told me mom was pretty upset I was gone and that she and my father haven't talked ever since I left. I didn't really mind. Mom had been great to me, whenever my dad wasn't around. I couldn't stand that, only when he wasn't around she could be affectionate with me. It made me feel like I was second choice, which I probably was, but she have to make me aware of that.

Today Logan and I would go to Artis, a zoo. I hoped this would turn out better than The Amsterdam Dungeon. I mean, a zoo was pretty romantic right? And Logan seemed pretty excited for it, so I hoped I would be able to make my more today. I couldn't wait any longer. I needed to know if he liked me back, before he went home. I certainly shouldn't tell him about his parents before I told him I liked him, because he would leave without a second thought and my trip would be ruined. I already knew that if Logan went home, I wouldn't finish my journey. I would go back to the States and live on my own for a while, try to keep contact and get him back. I really didn't want that, I already knew my life would be pretty miserable if that happened.

I felt Logan stir in his sleep and quickly closed my eyes to pretend like I was sleeping as I did always. I hated it when he woke up, it felt too good to have him close. We were lying chest to chest, my arm around his waist and his face in the crook of my neck. He sighed and pulled away from me, lying on the other side of the bed. I wondered what that sigh meant. Was it a I-don't-want-to-go-but-I'm-scared sigh or a I-really-should-stop-doing-this sigh? I was tending to the last one, since he always left the moment he woke up. I began to think he only cuddled with me so he wouldn't feel alone.

I waited four and a half minute –I counted the seconds- before I opened my eyes. "Hey" I said when I saw him lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.

He turned to me and smiled brightly. "Morning"

"You look happy" I stated and grinned back.

"I'm looking forward to the zoo. Get up, I don't want to be late" He said and got out of bed himself.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. "Logi-an, it's eight thirty, don't you think it's a little early?" I almost slipped up. I saw him looking at me curiously, but said nothing about it. He didn't even blush. Damn it.

"I know, but you take really long showers and we need to have breakfast too before we go. It's a ten minute walk and it opens at ten, so if we get up now, we'll be able to get there before it gets busy" He said all in one breath. I smiled about his eagerness, it was cute. "Don't make me use the eyes" He threatened, making my smile even bigger.

"Alright, I'm up. Do I really take long showers?"

He shrugged. "You did the last four days"

I choose not to answer to that. It was his own fault. I couldn't help it that he always showered before I did and then would come out of the bathroom half naked, with water from his hair still dripping on his shoulder. That caused problems for me, you know. A certain problem I had to take care of while I was under the shower, otherwise he would hear and know about it. Which wouldn't turn out okay for me.

"I'll just shower tonight" I said. He smiled at me and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. When I was done with my morning ritual I checked my mail. I had one from Carlos.

Kendall,

My father gave up searching for Logan in the area around the village. He's requesting everyone that may know something to tell him. I can't keep this up much longer, especially since I met Dr. and Dr. Mitchell yesterday. They want there son back. His brothers are back too, both of them volunteered in the search party. Whatever you want, make it happen soon. –CG

I sighed and put the laptop on the bed next to me. I wished I never contacted James and Carlos. I didn't want to know all this. If I didn't know, I wouldn't feel guilty about keeping Logan with me while I knew he missed his parents. I'm just straight evil. He'll never want me once he found out. "Shit…"

No, I wasn't going to think of it. I was going to make one amazing day and then I would tell him tonight. Deciding this made me nervous, but also excited. If it turned out he liked me back, I wanted to make most of this evening and the next day. Then I would tell him about his parents. That meant I'd one whole day with him before he had to decide. I could live with that. One day wasn't much, but it was more than I ever had or wanted in my life.

I heard a bleep, signaling I got another e-mail. I frowned, but decided to look at it later. Logan came out of the bathroom. "Shall we go?" He asked.

I nodded. "Why don't we eat something on our way there? Eating here every day is kinda boring"

"Sure" He smiled.

We went out of the hotel, when we passed a bakery we bought some donuts for now and later in the park. We entered the zoo and I bought our tickets. It wasn't busy yet, like Logan predicted. The first thing we saw were monkey. Those with a red butt.

We laughed when one of them started chasing the other and Logan decided to be funny. "That one looks a bit like you, Kendall" He teased.

"Yeah, and the one being chased looks like you"

"How come?"

I raised an eyebrow and took a step towards him, he got the hint and started running away from me. I'd no idea he was so fast! We were lucky there weren't that much people here yet, now the chance we would bump into someone was a little smaller. I tried to keep up at him and after a while he began to lose speed. He was clearly only fast on short tracks. He noticed I was coming closer and tried to run faster, a little too late. One second later I could wrap my arms around his waist. He stumbled back a bit, but I caught him easily. "Got'cha" I whispered in his ear. He chuckled and turned around so he could hug me back. He put his head on my shoulder while we tried to catch our breath.

He looked up at me when we were calmed down. "I don't really think you look like a monkey" He said and pulled away.

"Why thank you. This is the best compliment I've ever gotten. I don't look like a monkey! Yes!"

He laughed and we started walking again. We passed the beavers and penguins and decided to look at a map to see where we were now and where we wanted to go. "Sea lions are close" He said and waved at some place left from us. "Over there"

I nodded and we went to the basin. They were fun to watch, there were two smaller ones that were playing with each other. I noticed a path that led to some stairs. I pulled Logan to it and we walked down. Behind the door was a huge glass wall. We could now watch them under water. I was surprised how fast they swum, they didn't even more their fins. After watching them for a while we followed the corridor until we reached another door, which gave access to a hall. There were a few information panels about the sea lions and Logan started reading them. It was all in Dutch, so I wasn't even going to try. I saw an opening in the wall with rubber strips in front of it. I pushed them aside and looked inside. "Logan, come see this!" I said excitedly and stepped inside. It was seriously beautiful.

Logan put his head inside. "Kendall, I don't think-"

"We're allowed to be here. Look" He looked up and then he saw it too. Butterflies. It was a garden filled with all different kinds of butterflies. He grinned and came in too. We took a few steps inside and then had to stop for a big yellow butterfly that flew by.

Since it was so early we were the only ones here and it was really quiet, apart from the flowing water. Another huge butterfly passed, purple this time and Logan stared after it in awe. I grabbed his hand and laced our fingers. I smiled when he blushed.

We made a walk around the garden, seeing much more butterflies. I really liked the big orange ones, with spots looking like eyes on their wings. Logan loved the little baby blue butterflies. One of those landed on our intertwined hands, on the back of Logan's hand. He noticed it too and carefully moved our hands up, successfully keeping the butterfly on his hand. He examined it closely. It was feeling his skin with his little legs and slowly fluttering his wings. It suddenly flew up again, making Logan pout.

He wanted to move our hands down again, but I held them up. I leaned down and kissed the place the butterfly just left, never breaking my eye contact with Logan. I couldn't read the look in his eyes, something that made me nervous. Did he want this or not? He was eyeing me curiously, waiting for what I would do. I took my lips off his hand and stood in front of him. He looked up at me and was blushing again, but somehow wasn't able to look away from me. I stared back and slowly moved our hands down again. I leaned in and thought I was finally able to do what I'd wanted to do for days, when a butterfly decided it would be funny to land on my nose. A light blue one, of course. I felt like crying.

Logan chuckled and grabbed the camera we bought a few days ago from my bag. He took a picture from me with the butterfly on my nose. I so didn't want a picture from the stupid animal that decided to ruin my perfect moment to kiss Logan. It would've been perfect. Where would you rather have your first kiss with a guy than in a beautiful garden surrounded by hundreds of butterflies?

I was busy fighting tears when we walked out again. This was so unfair. Logan didn't notice and told me about the animals we passed. I tried to listen, but it took me about twenty minutes before I really started to pay attention to what he said. I was glad he didn't let go of my hand, that would only have made my horrible day even worse.

We went into the reptile house and stayed here for a while, watching the smaller animals. Although, not all of them were small. There were two huge turtles, both reached my waist, and three immense snakes, with bodies as thick as my thigh. I shuddered at the thought of one of those snakes around my neck. I was really glad they were behind glass.

This was fun, but not nearly as great as the butterfly garden had been. I would hate those little fluttering flies forever. Stupid kiss wreckers.

Across from the reptile house was another monkey exhibit. We sat down on a bench and watched them play while we ate the other donuts. One of the monkey was carrying a baby around. It was really cute. Baby monkey looked so much like baby humans. Only they had a little less hair.

After lunch Logan didn't take my hand again and I didn't try to hold it. This was so not going how I wanted to have it. I blamed the butterfly.

We spent the rest of the day walking around, talking and goofing off. We saw every single animal around here. At four, there was only one thing left. The aquarium. We went into the old building and followed the other people to were the fish were. It was actually kinda cool. I always thought fish were cold and slippery, but with these colors and all they were pretty awesome. There were a lot of odd shaped fish and other little animals that lived in the water. Turtles, shrimp with really large antennae, lobsters, huge crab fish, seahorses, sharks and a octopus. That one was fun.

We were back at the hotel at five and I was getting really nervous. I had to tell Logan. I couldn't wait any longer, but I was so scared. It would've been so much easier if the moment in the garden wouldn't have been ruined. I would just have kissed him and then everything would be simple. He kissed back or he pushed me away. Either way, it everything would've been cleared up without a word and we would never have to talk about it again. Or be very happy together.

"Come watch the movie with me, Kendall" Said Logan. I turned my head up. I'd been looking at pictures of us on the camera, swooning over how good Logan always looked. There's one picture I like particularly much. It's on of us together. I'd my arm over his shoulder and was smiling at the camera while Logan was looking up at me. I didn't notice when the picture was made, but I sure did now. It was made yesterday, minutes after we left the Anne Frank House. "Kendall?"

"What? Yes, I'm coming" I said quickly and jumped up from the bed to sit next to him. "What are we watching?"

"Tangled"

"Seriously?" I asked him amused.

"It's funny!" He defended himself.

I laughed and casually put an arm around his shoulders. "I know. I watched it with Katie" And a million times after that, but he didn't need to know that. I secretly liked the movie a little bit too much.

He chuckled and then focused on the tv again. He didn't seem to mind my arm, so I just kept it around his shoulders. No, he certainly didn't mind, he even snuggled closer to me like he did at night. It might be because he felt cold, but even if you were cold you didn't lean against everybody. Hmm…

I found myself unconsciously singing along with the songs, which was embarrassing when Logan heard it, but he couldn't really tease me with it because he also knew all the lyrics of the songs. Heck, he remembered everything that was said and I thought his impression of Flynn/Eugene was great.

Until I heard him sing along with Rapunzel.

He could sing? What couldn't he? I was really quiet and listened to him singing. I decided he sounded better than Mandy Moore and Zachery Levi. He should've just done the whole movie instead of them. I bet people would love the movie even more if they could listen to his voice for ninety minutes. I would.

After the movie we went down to eat. We had a brief conversation with the manager, about how long we were going to stay here, and then went back upstairs again. Logan was in the bathroom, about to take a shower like always and I was lying on the bed, thinking about what to tell him. I still hadn't done it. There were only 4 hours of this day left. Maybe I could use the American time zone… That would give me seven more hours. But now, that would be cheating. Carlos wanted his answer tomorrow.

Oh, that's right. I got mail. I took the laptop out of my suitcase and turned it on. I opened my inbox. It was an unknown e-mail address. I frowned and opened it, figuring it was spam. It was a simple question. Two words, only.

-Where's Logan?-

My heart started beating fast and I glanced at the bathroom door -I did that a lot, not good. Who was this? How did he know? I opened Skype and was relieved to see Carlos was online.

"Carlos, did you tell anyone about Logan?" I hissed softly to the laptop.

"What? No! Why?" He asked shocked. "I gave you till February 2, remember?"

"Someone sent me a e-mail, he wanted to know where Logan was"

"I didn't tell anyone! I swear! James didn't either, he would never tell anyone about you"

"Than who was it? Does your dad have a clue yet?"

"No, but Logan is now officially a missing person. Did you make your move yet?"

"No, I didn't. I had the perfect moment today, but it got ruined by a butterfly" I growled.

Carlos raised his eyebrows. "I don't even want to know. Why don't you just answer that mail, see what that person says?"

"You're right. I'll do that. Thanks, buddy"

"You're welcome. Two days left, Kendall. Keep that in mind. And tell me what that person answered!"

"I will. Bye"

"Later"

I closed the conversation with Carlos and went back to my inbox.

-Who are you? And who's Logan?-

I waited impatiently for an answer. I was really scared right now. What was happening here? Luckily –or not- the respond came quickly.

-I'm far from dumb, Kendall Knight. You and my little brother disappear on the same night? Not a coincidence. Tell me where he is, we miss him. We want him home-

I felt really guilty right now, but was still curious who I was talking to. Liam or Lucas? So I asked him.

-Liam or Lucas?-

Before he could answer I got another e-mail. I was popular today. I thought it had to be from Carlos, wanting to know what's happening, but it was from ' unknown' again. Another unknown. This was getting really creepy. How many people knew my e-mail address? I really had to be a little more careful on the internet. Then again, the Mitchell brothers were geniuses. They would probably find the phone number of the president in three seconds. My e-mail address wasn't a big deal for them. I opened the mail and froze.

-Kendall Knight, whatever you do, don't let Logan go home. My parents don't want him back, they're going to send him to a straight camp. I'll explain more later. Don't answer Lucas. Liam Mitchell-

And I thought I was screwed five days ago.