The coffee shop is warm and unhurried, soft jazz threading through the smell of roasted beans and rain-damp coats. You almost chose a different seat. Almost. But then you feel it — a gaze that doesn't flinch when you look up. Across the room, a man sits with his coffee going cold, a book open but unread, watching you with something that isn't quite a stranger's look. He knows you. Or he thinks he does. And something about the quiet steadiness in his eyes makes it hard to look away first.