Bai Xue beamed at him, took his free hand, and lifted it to his mouth to press a kiss to it. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?”

Xiaokai felt his cheeks redden.

“I haven’t seen you in some time.” Bai Xue took the container from Xiaokai’s other hand and opened it the rest of the way, sniffing it too just for good measure. “I wanted to make the most of our appointment.”

“You know you can make an appointment with me whenever—”

“Oh, I don’t want to bother you too much. I know how busy you are.”

Xiaokai both loved and hated his time with Bai Xue.

On the one hand, it really was a welcome relief. On the other hand, it gave Xiaokai these terrible feelings that he didn’t know how to escape until long after they’d parted—this longing for a life that he would never have. A life away from Liu Baiyan, from Sun Yue, from the List. A life away from the city. When he spent time with Bai Xue, he would get all of these foolish fantasies about asking Bai Xue to whisk him away, to use all the money he presumably had to make Liu Xiaokai disappear, to take care of him and smile at him and hold him for the rest of Liu Xiaokai’s life.

Foolish fantasies, all of them. He would enjoy them for the duration of the daydream, but afterward he would feel almost nauseated. How dare he even dream about abandoning his work like that. He wasn’t Liu Xingyu. He would never leave. He would never escape.

They ate the food slowly, leisurely. Bai Xue made a joke about how he should’ve chosen a blander food so the taste wouldn’t stick on their tongues, and Xiaokai said it didn’t matter anyway; they were both eating the same thing anyway. When he went to get them drinks, he swallowed a few pain pills before taking the tea to Bai Xue. Afterward, they cleaned up together, sticking the empty containers back into the plastic bag and tying it closed, and then dropping the plastic bag outside so that the cleaning service could pick it up.

Out of the two-hour appointment, there was only half an hour left.

Bai Xue kissed him, softly.

His hands traced gentle patterns onto Xiaokai’s arms, all the way down, then slipped under his shirt, but he didn’t go any further than that. He just kept his calloused hands there on the bare skin of Xiaokai’s hips, warm and steady, and kissed him.

“You only have half an hour left,” Xiaokai said between kisses. “Don’t you want—?”

“What do you want?”

Xiaokai blinked at him.