They ended up back on the couch eventually. Two mugs, both gone cold.
"So," she said. "Practically speaking."
"Practically speaking."
"He doesn't know. About any of it. For now he just knows you as... my friend."
"That's fine. I'm in no rush."
She turned her mug slowly on the table, not quite looking at him.
"I don't know when or how I'll actually tell him. I don't have a plan for that part yet."
"You don't need one today."
She nodded, more to herself than to him.
"He already likes you, you know."
"Good," Beichuan said simply.
A week or so later, over dinner.
"Mister Mo took me to see the dinosaur exhibit today," Luoli announced, mouth half full of rice. "He knew ALL the names. Even the hard ones."
"Did he," Qinran said, only half paying attention, cutting his food smaller.
"He said Triceratops wrong first though. I corrected him."
"That sounds about right."
Luoli kept talking — something about a stegosaurus, about Beichuan buying him a small plastic dinosaur from the gift shop "for research," his own words, clearly borrowed.
Later, tucking him in—
"Beichuan's coming again on Thursday," she said, adjusting his blanket.
She paused.
She hadn't meant to say it like that. Not "Mister Mo." Just his name, plain, like it belonged there.
Luoli didn't seem to notice anything unusual about it.
"Good," he said sleepily. "Tell him to bring the dinosaur book this time."
"I'll tell him."
She sat there a moment after his breathing evened out, turning the sentence over in her head.
Beichuan's coming again on Thursday.
She hadn't decided to say it that way. It had just come out — easy, unremarkable, like she'd been doing it for years instead of weeks.
She turned off the lamp and left the door open a crack, the way she always did.