Page 77 of From Beijing, With Love

“All right, you grab his arms and I’ll take care of the rest,” Poppy said to Yang as she mimed a shotgun. Yang laughed. The two of them were in cahoots now, which Daniel kind of loved.

This whole meal felt strangely normal. Like Daniel had done hundreds of times before, he was sharing good food with good company. Except there was nothing normal about it, because he was in a small restaurant tucked deep within the residential neighborhood of Xi’an, eating something phenomenal he had never even heard of before.

And he was doing it with his best friend and the guy he was falling in love with.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREEYang

Yang stole a glance at Daniel as they strolled through the campus of Xi’an Jiaotong University. It was surreal, seeing Daniel there on the sycamore-lined street he had walked down hundreds of times in his life.

“I saw that.” Daniel turned from his animated conversation with Poppy, a smile on his lips. The branches overhead quivered in the breeze, casting dappled shadows across Daniel’s cheeks.

“Saw what?” Yang feigned ignorance, a corner of his lips tilting upward.

“You checking up on me.” Daniel stuck his hands in his pockets. He kicked a pebble across the hot pavement. “I’m a tough cookie. I promise.”

“I know. You survived a whole night with my family.” Yang bumped his shoulder into Daniel’s. He had once or twice considered bringing a girl home just to get his family off his back, but he never had. It was funny—as ironies often were—that the first person he’d actually brought home to meet his family was a man.

“Don’t forget that he also beat you at dumpling making,” Poppy added in a singsong voice. She walked on the other side of Daniel, her lemon-yellow skirt swaying.

“Not just me.” By the end of the night, Daniel had been churning out prettier dumplings than both of them.

“True, but cooking is like his thing.”

“Not the only thing. You make it sound like I have nothing else going on,” Daniel protested. “I have other talents.”

“Eating doesn’t count, and neither does moving a dumbbell up and down a thousand times.” Poppy poked Daniel’s bicep, which looked great in the sage T-shirt, if Yang did say so himself.

“Biking. I’m good at that.” Daniel pointed to the row of blue rental bikes sitting idle on the sidewalk. “You’ve been away from Dutch Land for so long. I bet you don’t even remember how to bike.”

Poppy arched a manicured brow. “Um, you really wanna bet, schatje?”

“I’ll get the bikes,” Yang volunteered. That was the only way to settle their bickering.

Yang paid for the bikes, wiping down the handlebars and seats of each one with a sanitizing wipe. It wasn’t something he would have bothered with himself, but seeing Daniel’s smile made it more than worth it.

“Tell me when you guys are done making eyes at each other.” Poppy gathered up her long skirt into a knot above her knees and mounted her bike. Daniel rolled his eyes.

As much as Yang wanted Daniel to himself, he liked having Poppy around because she made Daniel happy. And the two of them bickering like siblings was a glimpse of who Daniel was back home—a version of him Yang was never going to know.

“Ready?” Daniel mounted his bike with the graceful swing of a leg, making it look easy. He tilted his chin toward Poppy. “She’s a total savage on the bike, like she owns the road.”

“That’s the Dutch way.” Poppy winked, pedaling ahead.

Yang climbed onto his own bike and was swiftly reminded of how very long ago he’d last done this. His foot fumbled for the pedal, missing it on the first try. The sad bike wobbled under his weight, threatening to topple over. While Daniel and Poppy moved like the bikes were extensions of their bodies, Yang’s zigzagged like it couldn’t pick a lane.

“Finally, something you’re bad at?” Daniel rode in large circles around him on the wide-open road. “Besides making dumplings, that is.”

Yang gripped the handlebars for dear life, willing the bike to just stay upright. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m bad at a lot of things.”

“Slowpokes,” Poppy yelled from the end of the road. How had she made it that far already? “I’m going to take a lap. Join me once you learn how to ride a bike.”

“I know how to bike,” Yang yelled back, but Poppy had already disappeared around the corner. He was never going to catch up to her. Not without risking face-planting on the concrete.

“The campus is gorgeous. All this green.” Daniel’s head swiveled about as they biked down the main road. Giant sycamores lined both sides, their reaching branches meeting each other overhead, encapsulating them in a green tunnel. He let out a breath. “It’s so quiet. Like I can actually hear myself think.”

“I always loved it here in the summer when no one is around. It feels like I have a five-acre city all to myself.” Yang marveled at the sleepy campus, remembering the nonstop rhythm of his undergrad years. “I did my undergrad here, but I was coming here long before that. My grandfather was a professor here for three decades before he passed. My mom taught Chinese literature here for a short while before … you know. And my dad is a tenured professor here. When he’s not teaching, he’s hiding in his lab in the chemistry building. I guess this place was always in my blood.”

“You must have a favorite spot, then.” Daniel flashed him a smile as he biked one-handed.