Page 33 of From Beijing, With Love

Yang placed a piece of ginger on Daniel’s spoon. “Try it again.”

The ginger was shredded so thin it was practically undetectable, yet it elevated the dumpling to new heights. This one bite summed up Chinese cooking—bold and seemingly opposite flavors and textures working together to create something harmonious.

“This is alchemy,” Daniel said as he polished off another dumpling. The empty steamers were racking up higher than the full ones.

“You mean chemistry,” Yang corrected. “It’s simple, really. You perceive ginger as spicy because of the phytochemical compound gingerol. It activates the heat receptors on your tongue and cuts through the richness of the glutamate in meat and seafood.”

Daniel had no response to that—none that would have sounded smart, anyway—but this science nerd thing was totally working for him.

“My dad’s a chemist, so I grew up with a lot of chemistry lessons,” Yang said.

“He’s back in Xi’an?”

Surprise flew across Yang’s brown eyes as he nodded, maybe at the fact that Daniel had remembered the city, or that he was able to pronounce its name. Daniel wasn’t about to tell Yang he’d spent twenty minutes practicing the pronunciation in his room last night.

“Is that why you went into academia?” Daniel asked.

“Am I that much of a cliché?” Yang laughed. “Does it matter that I went into a far superior discipline?”

“I mean, what is physics even? I’ve only heard of astrophysics. That’s like astrology, right? I’m an Aries sun, Gemini rising,” Daniel said as he stuffed another dumpling into his mouth.

At this, Yang was speechless, his brows crinkled with uncertainty.

God, he thought Daniel was serious. Yang was this brilliant scientist from a family of scientists, and Daniel was making dumb jokes about horoscopes. It wasn’t like Daniel believed in them. Well, maybe the good bits about Aries being bold, brave, and passionate. All true, by the way.

Yang was still frowning, the silence hanging between them, so Daniel did something even dumber. He poked Yang in the ribs, the way Poppy always did when he had the grumps. That wiped the stern look off Yang’s face real quick, so Daniel did it again.

“Stop that.” Yang laughed, the sound so bright on the rainy day as he grabbed Daniel’s finger to keep him from doing it again.

Daniel closed his hand around Yang’s. He had no idea why he did it, like he had no idea why he’d told that stupid joke. But Yang didn’t seem to be in a hurry to let go either. The two of them stayed like that for a moment, in the privacy of their corner table and the mountain of empty bamboo steamers.

Their hands bounced apart when the server came to collect the empties. Yang cleared his throat, his face a shade redder. “What do you want to do now?”

“You’re the tour guide.”

“We are clearly not going to the Summer Palace.” Yang turned his phone to Daniel, where the weather app predicted rain all day long.

“I brought the damn Dutch weather with me,” Daniel said. Being half Dutch, complaining about the Dutch weather was his birthright.

“What do you do in Amsterdam on rainy days?”

At that, Daniel smiled. “We get day drunk.”

CHAPTER FIFTEENYang

The bright-orange cocktail in front of Yang reminded him of the Bingfeng sodas he grew up on. Unlike his childhood orange soda, it was served in a stemless wineglass with a slice of orange. The effervescent cocktail was bitter and herbaceous at first taste, followed by a sweet note and bright citrus aroma.

“What am I drinking again?” Yang asked over the loud music.

Daniel had wanted to get “day drunk,” as he called it, which turned out to be difficult, given that Chinese people didn’t get day drunk on a weekday afternoon. The only open bar within their vicinity was the karaoke lounge in the building next over—Karaoke & Kocktails. After a dash through the downpour, they were now nestled in a dark, private room, and Daniel was singing. He was truly horrendous at it, managing to be off-key and off-rhythm at the same time, but he looked happy, and that was enough for Yang.

“Aperol Spritz,” Daniel said as the song came to an end. The U-shaped sofa was big enough to seat a dozen, but Yang and Daniel were huddled together in the middle, facing the wall-to-wall screen. Daniel leaned in and yelled into Yang’s ear, “It’s my favorite!”

Yang would have winced at the volume if he weren’t lubricated by his own Aperol Spritz. “It’s like an orange soda for adults.”

“That’s exactly what I used to say!” Daniel yelled again, his breath warm against Yang’s ear. “I’ll get another round.”

Karaoke & Kocktails was making day drinking remarkably easy. With a few taps on the iPad, the drinks were on their way. It hadn’t escaped Yang that the servers never walked into their room without first ringing the doorbell. He didn’t want to think too deeply about what normally went on in these private rooms, with their tufted leather sofas and neon wall decor that resembled graffiti.