“Ice would have helped, like, an hour and a half ago.”

“We’ll try it anyway. I’ll be right back.” Weiran left for the ice machine and Xiaokai just leaned back. He felt a little strange now—stripping in front of Weiran like that had seemed like a good at the time, but now he just felt exposed. Shirt and suit jacket and socks and shoes all still on, absolutely naked in between. And Weiran hadn’t looked at him with even the smallest hint of desire.

Well, maybe he wasn’t into him anymore. Maybe he and Xingyu had finally hooked up in this room and Weiran didn’t have any use for his crush’s second-rate brother. Well, good for him. Xiaokai could just get off all on his own, if he wanted to.

“Are you really jacking off right now?”

Xiaokai bent his head forward to watch Weiran come back through the door with a bucketful of ice. He grinned but didn’t stop moving his hand. “I got bored.”

“Well, stop. If anyone but me had come in, they would have gotten a hell of a view.” Weiran dug around in his suitcase, found a pair of socks, and started stuffing them with ice. “Sorry. I don’t have any plastic bags or anything.”

“No, don’t worry. I’ve put a lot worse in socks.”

Weiran chuckled and came back over, kneeling at Xiaokai’s feet again and passing over the socks. “Put these on. It’ll help bring the swelling down.”

Xiaokai pressed them onto his thighs with a sharp hiss. “Wocao. This hurts worse than the damn whip.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for? You weren’t the one who did this. Well, you are the one insisting on the ice, but—” Weiran cut him off with a kiss. Gentle, like it was their first kiss—like it was his first kiss. And then he touched their foreheads together.

“Xiaokai,” he whispered.

“You’re being weird,” said Xiaokai.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You’re really being strange.”

“Xiaokai…you clocked me from the beginning. About being in love with Xingyu, I mean. And you were right. But I think—I think when I fell in love with him I didn’t know him, and maybe I was just enamored with, like, the idea of him.”

Xiaokai brushed the water from the melting ice off his leg. “Yeah, I could have told you that.”

“The thing is, Xiaokai, I—I hated you at first. I hated you because I thought you were unfair to Xingyu, but I didn’t…know anything. What you were going through, what he had done to you—anything. And I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh, he told you what he did?”