Somehow he is always in the area
The bakery you only visit on Thursdays. The hardware store car park. A work event he has no reason to attend. ‘Funny, I was nearby.’ He says it flatly, with no wink, which makes it hard to argue with.
Read the calendar, not the excuse. A busy man does not drift into your week three times by luck. He checks where you will be and quietly lengthens his route, and if he ever admits it, he will do it in one sentence and mean every word of it.
He fixes things you never asked about
You mentioned once that the bathroom door sticks. Two weeks later it does not, and he has the grace to say nothing. Sleeves rolled, a screwdriver back in the drawer, hands rinsed before you got home.
It sounds small until you count how many people have heard you complain and done nothing. Care from a man like this arrives as a result, never as a promise. You only find out it was him because the wrong screwdriver is in the drawer.
The question about your Thursday
He asks how Thursday went. Not the vague ‘how’s work’, the actual Thursday. The presentation you were dreading, the phone call with your mother. You mentioned both once, between the starter and the main.
Watch what he does with your answer. He does not fix it, and he does not top it with a story of his own. He nods, asks one follow-up and keeps the rest for later. Interest from a serious man is mostly listening that somebody bothered to hold on to.