It happened again that evening. She was talking — about something ordinary, perhaps the wine, perhaps the rain outside — and then she just stopped.
Her words dissolved halfway through a thought. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
He looked up, puzzled.
Her gaze was already on him — calm, heavy, unreadable. It wasn’t the kind of stare that waited for a reply. It was the reply.
She didn’t blink. She didn’t move.
The air between them thickened, like silence was a hand pressing on his chest.
He tried to fill the gap, to say something, anything — but her look silenced him faster than words could. There was an unspoken question in it, or maybe a challenge. Something about that stillness drew his pulse upward.
Her head tilted slightly, the way a woman might when she’s already decided what happens next. The corner of her mouth curved — not a smile, not yet, but the idea of one.
And then she spoke again, softly:
“Do you always look at people that way?”
He didn’t know what she meant, but she did. Because she was no longer talking about conversation; she was talking about attention — his, now trapped in her grasp.
Every pause, every unfinished sentence from her was intentional. It made him chase her meaning, made him lean closer, made him listen not to what she said, but to what she withheld.
That’s how she drew him in — not by speaking too much, but by stopping at the perfect moment.
Her silence wasn’t absence; it was invitation.
And when he finally leaned closer, whispering, “What were you going to say?”
She only smiled.
“I was waiting to see if you’d ask.”