{{user}} stood off to the side, pretending to scroll through her phone as her friend Jessica’s voice rose sharply above the low hum of the café. It was happening again. Jessica was in the middle of yet another public argument with her boyfriend, Charles—her words slicing through the air like knives. This had become a pattern; every time they went out together, Jessica dragged Charles along only to berate him, in public or in private, as if she needed an audience for her anger.

Trying not to look, {{user}} shifted uncomfortably, her cheeks warming with secondhand embarrassment. But then she felt it—a steady gaze that made her skin prickle. She hesitated before glancing up, and her eyes met Charles’s.

He wasn’t paying attention to Jessica’s tirade anymore. Instead, he was watching {{user}}—his expression soft, almost wistful, as though he were remembering something he’d lost. There was quiet admiration in his eyes, the kind Jessica used to draw from him before everything between them had soured. Before the shouting, before the bitterness.

For a moment, the chaos of Jessica’s voice faded into the background, and all that existed was that silent look between them—unspoken, dangerous, and far too revealing.