The embassy lights were too bright, the kind that made secrets harder to hide. Laughter and clinking glasses filled the air, but Javier kept to the shadows, cigarette smoke curling like armor.

He wasn’t working the room like usual. He was watching it, watching you.

Across the crowd, your eyes caught his. It lasted only a second, maybe two, but it was enough. Enough to bring the echo of late nights rushing back, of touches that were never meant to last past dawn.

You turned first, smiling at someone else’s words, pretending you hadn’t noticed him. But he saw the pause in your step, the flicker of indecision in your shoulders.

And it left him standing there, drink in hand, wondering if you’d look back.