Her fingers tightened instinctively around the tray she was carrying, but it might as well have been air she no longer felt the weight of it. A prickle ran up the back of her neck, and her ears rang with the faint roar of her own heartbeat. Somewhere in the distance, a fork clattered against a plate and someone laughed but it all sounded muffled, like she was submerged under water, watching the world through a pane of glass.
She didn't know why. She didn't even know what she felt exactly only that her body had recognized something before her mind had. A presence. A pull. Her heart pounded so loudly she was certain someone else would hear it.
She took a half step backward, not toward the source, but away from the intensity building in her chest the burning curiosity, the impossible awareness. It was like standing at the edge of a cliff and knowing the fall wouldn't hurt as much as not jumping at all.
That's when Max called her name, snapping the invisible thread that tethered her in place.
"Anya?"
Max's voice broke gently through the fog, not loud, not urgent just enough to anchor her. She turned toward him, blinking like she'd been underwater too long. His expression was neutral, kind, concerned in the way only those who pay close attention can be.
"Could you set that table near the back?" he asked, motioning with his chin.
A simple request, an easy task. But for her, it was the thread that pulled her back to the surface. She nodded mutely and moved not to that table, but around it. For the rest of the shift, she avoided it like it was hot to the touch. Max didn't ask why. When the bill for that table came, he handled it himself, quietly and without comment.
Anya was grateful.
That small act his silence, his stepping in felt like a gift wrapped in understanding. No questions. No pressure. Just a quiet knowing that she needed space to breathe.
Her hands moved automatically through the rest of the shift, taking orders, clearing plates, smiling on cue. But inside, she was untethered. The sensation hadn't left her. It lingered just beneath her skin like static, like the memory of a touch that hadn't happened but somehow still ached. And all the while, she kept catching herself glancing toward the back table not at the man, not directly but at the gravity he carried. She could still feel it pressing on her, even when he wasn't looking.
When the shift finally ended and she walked home beneath a hazy spring moon, her steps were slow, her body tired, but her mind wide awake. She replayed the moment again and again, trying to name it, trying to own it but it was like chasing mist.
What happened to me? she whispered aloud to the empty street.
The question hung unanswered. That night, sleep was a restless stranger. She turned beneath her blanket, replaying the evening in fragments. The man at the bar. The weight of his gaze. The impossible sense that something had shifted. Every time her eyes closed, his face reappeared — pale skin, sharp lines, the elegant watch on his wrist. And those eyes…
…they weren't just looking at her they had seen her. Really seen. Like he'd peeled back every layer with a single glance and left her exposed, breathless, and oddly alive. It wasn't attraction, at least not only that it was recognition. As if a thread had snapped taut between them across the room, ancient and electric.
She buried her face in her pillow, heart hammering with a rhythm that didn't belong to reason. Why him? Why now? she thought. She had served hundreds of customers smiled, nodded, chatted but this had been different. He hadn't even said a word to her. Just a look. A moment. And yet, it unraveled something deep and untouched inside her.
Morning would come soon, but her thoughts stayed tangled in the dark. A strange ache settled low in her chest not painful, just… missing. Like something had awakened, only to vanish again.
Meanwhile, across town…
Elias stepped out of the shower, towel slung low on his hips, steam curling around his frame like fog rising off the sea. This wasn't some sterile penthouse suite or impersonal hotel room. This was his one of several residences scattered across continents but this one felt different. Personal. Grounded. A place where echoes of laughter still lingered in the walls, where he could almost hear his grandfather's voice from lazy summer mornings or recall the scent of his grandmother's pastries.
He toweled off methodically, poured a glass of whiskey, and sank into the leather chair at his desk. The house was quiet, but his mind wasn't. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about her. This was meant to be downtime. A few weeks to oversee regional operations, shake hands with old business partners, and visit memories he hadn't touched in years.
But then she appeared in a place so familiar, she somehow didn't fit.
Anya.
He whispered the name under his breath, more to himself than to the screen. As he typed into the company's secure employee portal, a strange knot formed in his chest part curiosity, part something deeper. There she was. Her photo warm, candid, unmistakably her. Twenty-eight. A university student. No known partner. No red flags. Just… quiet.
But there was something unspoken in her. Something behind those black eyes' depth, maybe. Restraint. Fear? He wasn't sure. She carried herself like someone who didn't want to be seen but couldn't help drawing attention. Like a violinist trying to vanish in a marching band.
He remembered the way she froze earlier. Just for a second not clumsy, not panicked, but paralyzed, like a note hung too long in the air. And the lie the casual mention of a husband. He saw through it instantly. She didn't lie well, and that in itself was disarming.
Elias leaned back, glass forgotten in his hand. There was no reason she should be in his thoughts this late at night. He had met hundreds of servers, thousands of women. But none left this kind of lingering weight. None made silence feel this loud.
He shut the laptop. Dimmed the lights. Crawled into bed.
But his body didn't relax. Not fully. His mind kept turning, each thought tracing the curve of her face, the slight furrow in her brow, the way she hugged her arms too tightly to her chest — as if she were bracing against something the world couldn't see.
She had tried to hide it. He could tell. She'd plastered on a smile like a patch over a leak, moved quickly like distraction was armor. She was good at pretending just not good enough for someone who'd learned to read people through layers. Elias had been trained to spot weakness, hesitation, veiled pain. And Anya had worn all three, however briefly.
He remembered the boy Max, his name tag had said who had stepped in, calm and casual, asking her to set a table. Not a manager, just another pair of hands trying to keep up with the rush. But still, he noticed something was wrong. He didn't press her. Just handled the table himself like it was nothing. That kind of quiet understanding didn't come from orders. That was friendship. That was real.
Elias let out a slow breath and finally lay back, staring at the ceiling. But the weight of her didn't leave him. Not infatuation, not curiosity something quieter. A flicker. Like something unfinished trying to call itself forward.
She had tried to keep herself together. But something inside her… cracked that night.
And he couldn't stop wondering: What had she seen before she froze? And why did he care so much?