I didn’t look away when he adjusted his hat this time. The movement shifted the fabric enough to hint at the clean curve beneath, and my attention lingered there before I could stop it.
“You are staring again,” he said quietly.
I lifted my chin. “I have never met anyone like you before.”
“No,” he said. There was no bitterness in it. Just fact. “I don’t suppose you have.”
“But when you find something good, you don’t ignore it just because it’s unique.”
His gaze sharpened.
“And have you?” he asked softly. “Found something good?”
My heart started pounding hard enough that I was sure he could hear it.
“I think I might have,” I said.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then a crash sounded from across the room as one of the students knocked over a display.
I laughed, a little breathless. “Apparently I’m not the only clumsy person in town.”
“You are not clumsy,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s generous.”
“You are dynamic.”
I stared at him. “You just rebranded all of my worst traits.”
His mouth curved into a real smile this time, small but visible, and it hit me with the force of a physical thing.
God, that was dangerous.
We lingered over our drinks until the light had started to shift gold through the windows. At some point, his knee brushed mine under the table. Neither of us moved away. The contact stayed there, quiet and steady, and I felt every second of it.
Eventually he glanced at his watch. “I should go. I have a client meeting this evening.”
Disappointment landed faster and harder than I expected.
“Of course.”
He reached for his wallet.
“No,” I said immediately. “This was my invitation.”
“Then next time,” he said, like it was a possibility but not a certainty.
I looked up at him. “Next time.”
Something softened in his face.
We walked to the door together. In the narrow space by the entrance, a couple coming in forced us closer than before. Suddenly he was right there, filling my field of vision, his warmth and scent and impossible presence all at once.
“I would like to see you again,” he said.
It was not casual. It was not tentative. It was simply true.
