The first time you saw him, it felt like déjà vu—like hearing a song you used to love but couldn’t quite remember the lyrics to. Something about the way he looked at you, the way his blue eyes darkened for just a second before his expression smoothed over… it unsettled you.

“Do I know you? “The words were out before you could stop them.

The stranger—tall, effortlessly confident—smirked, but there was something else there, something guarded. “No,” he said easily, leaning back against the bar. “We’ve never met.”

But that wasn’t true.

You didn’t know how you knew, but you did. Something inside you twisted at the way he spoke, at the way he held himself like he was keeping a secret too big to say out loud.

For the rest of the night, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were missing something important—something he wasn’t telling you.

And then, just as you were about to leave, you heard him murmur under his breath, almost like he didn’t mean to say it at all:

“You really don’t remember, do you?”