He really did mean ‘just hold’. Weiran laid down across the bed and the man curled into his side, wrapping one arm around Weiran’s waist while Weiran put his arm around the man’s shoulder. It was intimate in a way that Weiran hadn’t expected he would have to deal with—he’d been prepared to do something sexual if things went wrong, but this was…achingly tender. Something he didn’t even dare to imagine with Xingyu. No, he’d imagined all sorts of things with Xingyu—fucking him, being fucked by him, sucking him off, tying him up, tearing off his clothes—but he’d never once imagined holding Xingyu or being held by him. It was even further out of his reach than the one-night stands that Weiran fantasized about.

“Is it hard?” As Weiran spoke, he got a whiff of the man’s perfume—something gentle and subtle and floral and clean. “Your job, I mean. Is it hard?”

“Sometimes,” said the man, and then he said, “most of the time.”

Weiran wondered if he should apologize.

“You don’t have to say anything,” said the man. “You said it yourself. Sometimes it just gets lonely. It’s nice just like this.”

“Can I have your name?”

“Hm.” His hold around Weiran’s waist tightened. “Maybe if we meet again.”

9

THE CLIENT

DINNERTIME. XINGYU WAS having a surprising amount of difficulty keeping his mind off Zhang Weiran and how he might be doing—surely nothing could go wrong in the first meeting. The trip to the club had gone just fine, and they’d gotten some clean footage, especially since everything significant had happened upstairs. In free time leading up to Weiran’s “meeting” at the hotel, Xingyu had spent some time going over first the footage he’d taken and then the plan moving forward, and luckily it hadn’t taken long for Weiran’s expression to go from nervous to determined. By the time he was leaving for the hotel, Xingyu had no doubt he was going to be successful.

And yet he was still thinking about it now. Their plan was in motion—it would really be a shame if things were to stumble and fail now of all times.

The Liu family typically had late dinners. At ten, well past Weiran’s check-in time, Liu Xingyu was sitting with his parents at the long dinner table and wondering about Zhang Weiran. But as dinner continued on in its silent, slovenly manner, the empty chair that usually held his brother seemed to get increasingly emptier. Was he still working? What on earth could he be doing that kept him out so late?

“Does Xiao-Xiao usually not have dinner with us?” he asked at last, rolling his chopsticks against each other. His parents exchanged another silent conversation that he couldn’t read.

“Not typically,” said his mother. “His position in the company keeps him very busy.”