Page 16 of From Beijing, With Love

Yang smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. He had completely forgotten about the photos. As per the tour agency’s promise, the photo book should have been delivered two hours ago.

Yang: Sorry, it’s my fault. I’ll pick it up from the print shop now and have it at your hotel in an hour.

Daniel: Did you fix your code? We can take a look together if you bring your laptop.

Yang: I figured it out, but thanks. See you soon.

It wasn’t a complete lie; he knew he’d figure it out eventually. There was a saying in Chinese about being blinded by a leaf and not being able to see the mountain behind it. Maybe a drive was what he needed to gain clarity.

As he slipped the key into the car ignition, he hesitated. For reasons he didn’t want to think too deeply about, he doubled back to his dorm and slid his laptop into his messenger bag.

As Yang backed the Prius into the parking spot, his phone dinged. Seeing Dr. Sun’s name on the incoming email made him sit up straighter.

Is the revision finished? The version on the server is still full of problems. I had a call with Dr. Ellis, and he wants to have a look at the draft before we submitted. Make sure the updated copy is in his inbox by tomorrow.

Yang shoved the car door open with more force than necessary. The fact that Dr. Sun had talked to their Cambridge collaborator without him was equal parts frustrating and unnerving. He was the lead on this study and handled all the communications with Dr. Ellis’s team. In fact, Yang’s adviser was opposed to the collaboration, preferring to keep the research in-house. But Yang wanted to do the best research with the best scientists in the field rather than stay isolated in the name of competition. Maybe that was naïve of him. Dr. Sun had hinted as much.

Regardless, he now had a hard deadline—tomorrow morning. That gave him tonight, however late it went. If he hadn’t already been at Hotel Alium, he would have turned the car around.

Making quick strides into the sleek hotel lobby, he was hit with a wave of déjà vu. Unlike last time, he couldn’t afford to wait for hours for Daniel to show up.

Except … there Daniel was, sitting on the modern lounge chair in the lobby, looking as stiff and uncomfortable as the chair surely was. But at least he was dressed appropriately for the weather this time in a mint-green V-neck tee.

Then Daniel looked up from his phone, and Yang was met with those hazel eyes and a beaming smile, like Daniel was actually happy to see him. This was a stark contrast to the last time they had been in this exact same lobby, under the same glass chandelier that hung from the three-story ceiling.

Something moved inside Yang’s chest, and for a few seconds, he just stood there.

“Sorry for the delay.” Yang passed the photo book to Daniel after he regained his bearings. He blamed his rapid heartbeat on the copious amount of coffee he’d drunk. “The digital copies can be downloaded from the company portal.”

“Thanks,” Daniel said with another smile—one that looked genuine.

“Well, that’s it from me,” Yang said, suddenly unsure of what to do with himself. Maybe awkwardness was contagious. There was the nagging urge to explain himself. “I should get going. I still need to fix that Python program.”

“Oh, I thought you figured it out.”

“I …” Yang was caught in a lie, even though there was nothing accusatory in Daniel’s voice. He let out a sigh as he thought about his new deadline, one he couldn’t miss. The strap of his messenger bag dug into his shoulder, heavy from the combined weight of the laptop and all the errors he hadn’t yet solved. “Actually, I didn’t.”

“Can I help?” Daniel asked, his eyes eager. “I kind of owe you for saving my ass last night.”

“No, I shouldn’t …” Yang said on instinct. He wasn’t about to push his problems onto a stranger—an almost-stranger—to fix. He would figure it out by Dr. Sun’s deadline. He had to. The postdoc selection was about to begin; now was not the time to disappoint his adviser. “It’s my problem to solve.”

“I get that. Not trying to steal your job.” Daniel smiled. “Just offering a second pair of eyes.”

There was a hopefulness in Daniel’s lifted brows. Yang’s wired, tired brain was surely short-circuiting, because he nodded.

Slipping the laptop out of his bag, he handed it over. Then he planted himself next to Daniel on the two-seater, his eyes not leaving the screen for even a millisecond. Daniel didn’t seem to notice the closeness as he read through the code. The soft instrumental music playing overhead filled the silence.

Daniel was squinting like an old person who’d forgotten their reading glasses, hunching farther and farther down toward the laptop. After ten minutes, his tall frame was folded in on itself. A chuckle escaped Yang, which he covered with a cough.

“Are you laughing at me?” Daniel looked up, his eyes wide. Yang tried very hard not to focus on how the mint green in Daniel’s T-shirt brought out the green hues in his eyes.

“Not at all,” Yang said, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.

“You shouldn’t laugh at the person who found your problem.” Daniel leaned back on the sofa, his brows halfway between teasing and smug. That wiped the smile right off Yang’s face. “That’s what I thought,” Daniel said, triumphant.

Yang expected him to gloat more, but he just got right to business.

Turning the laptop screen toward him, Daniel pointed. “See this line? This is where the first error was reported, but it’s not the beginning of the problem. Tracing it back, you can see that it’s referencing a variable that doesn’t exist because it was never defined. If you enable the linter, you see all these bits with red underlines? Same issue.”