Chapter 6: Heat

The heat reached Su Yu on Saturday night, a week early, with the whole house empty.

He felt it on the stairs first, a slow warmth behind his ribs that spread down into his thighs.

By the time he got his bedroom door shut, his shirt was stuck to his back.

He knew what to do.

He had done it for a year in a marriage with separate rooms.

Shu Fan had called heats messy and left a heat pack outside the door.

Su Yu pulled the curtains, filled a glass of water, lay down on top of the quilt and set his teeth.

The knock came ten minutes later.

"Su Yu."

"Go away," Su Yu said into the pillow. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. I can smell it through the wall."

"It's just a heat. It goes in two days. Go and read something."

The door opened.

Lu Chen stood in it in his white pajama shirt, with his glasses off and one hand tight on the handle.

His face was pale, and his eyes were not composed at all.

"I'm not going," he said.

"Lu Chen, I do this alone. I'm good at it."

"I know you are." Lu Chen came in and shut the door behind him. "That's why I'm staying."

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed and laid his palm against Su Yu's forehead.

Su Yu turned his face into it and made a noise he had never made in front of anyone.

"There," Lu Chen said, very quietly. "That's the first honest thing you've said all day."

He took off his own shirt.

Su Yu stared at the narrow chest, the flat stomach, the collarbones.

The heat in him spiked so hard that he curled over.

"Come here."

"You said go."

"I changed my mind. Come here, fuck, Lu Chen, come here."