The seat he claims without asking
Third dinner, a cramped spot with a wall of bottles and a few too many tables. You aim for the booth and he lets you take your side first, then slides in at an angle with one arm along the backrest, facing the door. Heading out, he drifts to the curb side of the pavement without comment.
Ask him afterward and he will tell you he liked the view. The view was a fridge. What he was actually doing was planting himself between you and whatever might come through that door, a reflex that has nothing to do with the menu.
Short replies that are never late
‘Got it.’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Made it home?’ His messages would fit on a matchbook, and you have quietly started timing them. Forty seconds on a Tuesday, mid work call. Twelve minutes on a Sunday, when he is plainly under a car somewhere.
A serious man does not compose paragraphs to seem invested. He replies, every single time, and tacks one small question onto the end. Your friend calls it dry. You have clocked that nobody else gets the question on the end.
His timing falls apart the second you walk over
On the steps outside the building he is quick and dry with everyone. Then you turn up and the line lands half a beat behind, or he laughs at his own punchline before it arrives. The neighbour from 4B noticed. He did not.
That stumble is the most honest thing he will give you for weeks. A man who has chaired meetings, mended pipes and buried a parent does not trip over a joke for nothing. Something simply shifted in the air for him, and his timing footed the bill.
Half a second on your mouth
You are halfway through a story, something about the rental car, and his eyes drop to your mouth for what feels like half a second. Then they move to the wall, the window, the exit sign. Gone before you can be certain it happened.
He will not do it again, and that is exactly how you know. Men who flirt for sport hold the look so you catch them at it. This one glances off fast, rubs his jaw and asks what became of the rental car. You will run that half second back more than once on the way home.