Sometimes she leaves the answer out because saying it would make the whole thing clumsy.

He says the borderline line and waits. She gives him one extra second of eye contact, then checks her phone. Or fixes a sleeve. Or asks someone else where they parked. Nothing big enough to call flirting. Nothing clean enough to call rejection.

The table keeps moving, but the line is still there, sitting between the glasses and the napkins. That is what follows him out later. Not her words. The empty space she left, and the way she walked away before he could make her fill it.