11. A Summer Hookup
Because Wang Meili said that place had been overworked, it hurt, Jin Yu obediently held her in his arms.
In the pitch dark environment, his gaze stayed tightly locked on the small screen.
Wang Meili absentmindedly touched him, scratched at her foot, and suddenly noticed that one spot felt different from the rest. The texture was tight, yet soft and slick, the sensation dull.
She turned on the light to look. It was actually a red sore. A chilblain had grown on the back of her right heel.
“Is it a chilblain? Or did your high heels rub it?” Jin Yu grew up in the city, pampered. He had probably never seen something like this. In his understanding, reddened heels were just a kind of beautiful affliction of pretty women.
“It’s a chilblain. I recognize it. I had them when I was little.” She pointed at her second toe on the left. “I used to get them here.” Wang Meili found it faintly amusing. Usually only poor people got sores like this. When she was young, money was tight, there were only a few pairs of shoes to change into. Wearing the same pair for long periods without seeing sunlight, chilblains would grow. But to still get this thing at her age now, it felt a bit ridiculous.
Jin Yu tucked her foot into his arms to warm it. “Was it from the cold?”
Hearing him ask that, Wang Meili curled her toes slightly, as if the icy sensation from last night were drilling back into the sole of her foot.
She had a habit of scraping dead skin off her feet. She had even done it a few days ago, and it had not been there then. It must have formed overnight in the cold.
Her gaze drifted elsewhere, and she let out a faint, almost imperceptible sigh. Too ridiculous. In freezing snow and ice, still wanting men and women together. Serves them right to freeze to death. Freeze into sores, freeze into maggots, freeze into two writhing insects tangled together in play.
Thinking like this, her mind immediately sketched the fragrant, intense, desire-laden scenes from last night. Like the final scene of a film, under that overwhelming snowfall, they were two villains whose blood was still warm, advancing and retreating against each other in a fight to the death.
Jin Yu asked what she was laughing at.
“Huh? Was I laughing?” She touched the corner of her mouth. She had not even realized she was smiling.
Jin Yu grabbed her hand, brows knitting. “You just touched your foot…”
“You dislike me?” she deliberately teased, using that hand that had touched her foot to pinch his face.
Oh, he said he disliked it, but he looked pleased. The shallow dimples at his cheeks rippled as he smiled.
She could not help but suck lightly on his lips, then asked again, what are you laughing at.
Jin Yu could not think of why he was grinning foolishly, and so he grinned even more foolishly. It made Wang Meili catch him and kiss him.
He asked if it was really from the cold. Next time, wear snow boots, they are warm.
She told the truth. It came from snow and having outdoor sex with a man.
Jin Yu glanced at her, kept warming her foot, did not believe it.
Once halftime passed, the boy picked up his phone again and, in one motion, pulled her tightly into his arms. After two days of skin against skin, their familiarity had multiplied.
Just a moment ago Wang Meili had the upper hand in teasing him, and in a blink she became a turtle caught in his embrace.
Wang Meili felt like she had turned into a small quail. Jin Yu had a gentle temperament, young and strong. If only he did not have a heart.
At her temple, his lips breathed out faint mint fragrance. Wang Meili asked if he had brushed his teeth. Jin Yu said yes, he had found an unopened toothbrush in the big plastic bag on the island counter.
On the small screen, the black and white ball rolled back and forth. Wang Meili’s mouth felt lonely. She idly asked what she already knew, making conversation for the sake of it. “Which team do you like?”
“Arsenal.” The airflow moved between his lips and teeth, not yet reaching his throat, like he was saying the name of a lover.
“What do you like about them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Want me to guess?”
He smiled. “Go on.”
“You like how they lose matches for no reason. You like how they lead the Premier League, then collapse?”
Jin Yu let out a cold scoff. “Oh…”
Wang Meili could not see his expression, and recited as if from memory, “Arsenal’s failures symbolize the idealism in your fans’ hearts. We Asians see a fallen strong one as a hero about to rise again, always waiting for a twist of fate, waiting for a climactic turnaround, waiting for a comedic ending. But do you know, foreign screenwriters are very bad. They do not follow the formula…”
He emphasized, “This is a football match. There are no screenwriters.”
“Fine, I am just talking nonsense.” She rolled her eyes in surrender. Men’s sore spots were so easy to poke.
Jin Yu sulked for a moment. “Then say more.” Good or bad, words were still words. The topic was about football, and Jin Yu wanted to know what kind of aged brew this outsider had fermenting in her head.
Wang Meili reached back to scratch his chin, throwing him a flirtatious glance. “What do you think I understand? These are just second-hand love words in my head.”
“What do you mean second-hand love words?”
“It means at night, curled up, holding someone,” she blew a breath into his ear, then turned and climbed onto him steadily, “being forced to listen to too many of these kinds of words. After a while, you learn to repeat them.”
“All…” Jin Yu looked into her eyes. Two dim points of light flickered, reflections of the football on the phone screen, moving back and forth, making him blink several times to focus. His throat tightened. “What other words like that are there?”
“There are many, all kinds of angles.”
“Like what?”
He insisted on hearing more. His eyes looked soft and watery, though he did not move, he felt like a large, snow white curly-haired dog rolling around vigorously in her arms, nudging back and forth.
She said, “Like… Arsenal is the most popular club in China. Why do they keep losing but still win fans? Analyzing the loser mentality of Chinese fans.”
“Is that something someone who likes Arsenal would say, or someone who hates Arsenal?”
“It was… said by a Tottenham fan.”
Wang Meili was purely making it up. She did not remember which club that person supported at all, and for a moment she could not even think of any other clubs. She casually blurted out Tottenham, the one currently running and jumping on the screen.
She had no idea that Arsenal’s true rival was indeed Tottenham.
Jin Yu clenched his teeth, stared at her without moving while watching the match, provokingly asking what else.
“Are you mad?”
“What would I be mad about?” He raised a brow, trying to act like a broad-minded man, not knowing how flared his nostrils had become.
“Mad that someone badmouthed Arsenal.”
“Oh… that… tch…” He thought she meant something else. “No taste. Tottenham has no brain to control the field, their footwork is full of gaps. Your… that… one… is probably just a Sparta with well-developed limbs and a simple mind.”
The stutter between his words was like a ball intercepted by the opponent, a sudden stop, a stumble. Wang Meili filled in the blank according to her own meaning.
She could not hold it in and burst into trembling laughter. When a boy got angry, how could it be both funny and good-looking.
Now it was his turn to ask what she was laughing at. She did not say, and he caught her and kissed her mouth.
Brat, he learned fast.
The deep kiss was interrupted by the commentator’s sharp “shot,” his tongue pulling back, caught by Wang Meili. “The ball or me?”
The kiss sensibly continued. Jin Yu muttered, “Didn’t go in anyway.”
He was quick-witted. The first kiss had no tricks, but his ability to draw inferences was strong.
She liked teasing him, watching him get flustered. Out loud she said, why do you even like football. Basketball is more interesting, constant dunks, jumping high, big collisions, such strong hormones. In football, ninety minutes can pass back and forth and maybe not a single goal is scored. You cannot even tell what they are doing.
“You don’t understand. It’s not only scoring that makes it interesting.” Jin Yu was about to analyze, but she stopped him. Wang Meili was not here to hear what made football interesting. She only wanted to make a dirty joke.
“You men just want to hear the commentator shouting s-le s-le, right?”
“Why would we want to hear the commentator shout?”
“Then what?”
“We shout ourselves…”
Jin Yu pressed down on the corners of her upturned lips and told her that under the impact of international capital, the world of football had grown increasingly complex. Arsenal was a special club. It was his god.
She could not struggle free physically, so she resisted with her mouth. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“If other people’s words can get into your head, then mine have to go in too.” He was rarely this firm. His gaze fixed on her. “Remember it.”
“Remember what?” She tilted her head, confused.
“… ” Jin Yu licked his lips, looking at her eyes glazed with a layer of sheen. “Remember…”
“Mm?” she coaxed.
The next second, Jin Yu stared into her eyes as if he had just climaxed, burst out a curse, “It’s in!”
The ambiguity froze.
Wang Meili never expected him to be watching the match in her eyes. She immediately threw off the blanket, about to jump up. Jin Yu laughed as he tried to hold her twisting body down. “Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help it.”
“Do you know why you can’t get a girlfriend!” And he had the nerve to say girlfriends were hard to find.
“Who says they’re hard to find.” He cupped her face and kissed her all the way through.
The kiss was bright and dewy. At least he knew this trick worked.
Wang Meili, used to men with cat-like tactics, now faced a curly-haired dog head on. It knocked her dizzy, stars spinning in her vision. She wanted to ask, easy to find? Then have you found one? But she was afraid he would say yes, so she took another route. “Let’s bet Arsenal loses this match.”
“They’re already leading two to one!”
“All the more reason to bet.”
“Fine. What are we betting?” Jin Yu perked up.
Wang Meili pushed his shoulder away with one finger, keeping her distance. “Let’s bet…”
#
#
On a 1.2-meter single bed, Wang Meili and Jin Yu slept together night after night, and somehow stayed like this for over thirty days.
Almost a month.
One day, Jin Yu avoided her gaze and asked, have you ever lived with someone of the opposite sex for this long? He remembered she had said she was not very good at starting long-term relationships.
She said of course.
He asked, what was the longest?
Wang Meili thought for a moment, and answered honestly for once. “I’ve never counted continuous stretches, but the longest one, we tangled for three or four years. But it probably wasn’t good for more than half a year. You know me, I don’t last.”
Jin Yu opened his arms warmly and hugged her tight. “Then can we make a date with summer?”
She blinked. “What does that mean?”
“When summer comes, we will have been together for half a year.”
Wang Meili’s heartbeat shook like an earthquake. Then she quietly turned away, rebuilding the disaster site in a blink.
We will talk about it later.
Too many upheavals in life had made her dislike talking about plans, about the future.
Her usual way was to take it one step at a time.
#
#
This winter, the market for strong liquor was good. After social engagements, Wang Meili would sometimes carry leftover alcohol home and keep the buzz going. Three or four times, Jin Yu traced the pattern of her social routes and “by coincidence” passed by to pick her up once. Even though that day she met him with a cold face, later at night, Jin Yu would often receive calls from her asking for a ride home.
Jin Yu bought a car. On the very first day he confirmed his job, he bought it. With a temporary plate hanging in front, he drove around openly.
Wang Meili asked how much he earned in a month. He had just started working and already bought a Mercedes S-Class. If she were his boss, she would definitely give him attitude. Young people these days do not want to work, they only know how to live off their parents.
Jin Yu said he did not drive it to work. He took the subway to work and only drove when picking her up. He had his own calculations. Did he really buy this kind of old man car just because it was nice to drive? It was to make himself look more steady.
Of course he knew she did not like to make relationships between men and women public. She had mentioned this back on Tinder. Even if she was in a relationship, she would not change her status on Tinder. He had asked why. She said if she fell into a relationship, she would automatically block or uninstall Tinder anyway, so what was the meaning of a status.
He always wanted to test whether she had “fallen into” what was called a relationship.
The answer was probably no. Every time he came to pick her up, he stayed respectfully tucked inside the car, not showing his face. She never invited him to get out and greet her companions, nor asked him to help send any unfamiliar drunk person home. Every time, it was just the two of them, precisely so. Even Bai Mu never appeared.
Wang Meili asked him, now that you have found a job and bought a car, have you found a place to live?
Jin Yu played dumb. Aren’t we living pretty well here?
It was pretty good. So good Wang Meili almost felt anesthetized.
Bai Mu even asked her if she had really been steadied by a younger guy.
Had she?
Was that it?
Wang Meili poured her homemade grape wine into bottles and blew hot air over the shrink caps with a hairdryer. Wine of indistinguishable authenticity was made.
Jin Yu asked what she was doing. She said a client was urging her, she was making a sample wine.
That afternoon when she went to meet Sui Tang, she happened to have time free, so she watched a movie with Jin Yu.
The opening was a bit boring. She asked him if his workplace was fun, if there were pretty girls.
Jin Yu said, there is already a pretty jiejie at home. I do not have time to look at pretty girls.
“So there are some then. What, none of them make your heart flutter?” she teased.
Jin Yu did not like her joking about this. He felt she was drawing a line. Clearly they were so close, their bodies at zero distance, even negative, yet it felt like there was a dead line between them.
Of course, he would not pick up a stone and ruin the atmosphere. He quietly held her and did not respond to the topic.
There was an anti-ergonomic sex AI scene in the movie. He raised objections, saying it was unscientific. She told him to respect the film, respect the imagination of the body. In the end, back and forth, they argued, then adapted to local conditions and imitated it once themselves.
Did it succeed? Wang Meili did not remember. But it was very fun.
Because they had to stabilize their movements, they would slip. To avoid slipping, they had to loosen the posture. Back and forth, several times they broke into laughter. They clung to each other, sticky and soft, laughing even more happily than a climax.
This made her feel a trace of guilt when she went out.
Jin Yu waved at her, saying if you need anything, call me. The chauffeur is always on standby.
She did not look back, colliding into the elevator. She had the ability to be a bastard, but she was not ruthless enough. Especially with Jin Yu, it was hard to keep being cruel.
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