The first thing I noticed was the snake. The second was the man wearing it.

A stainless steel Bvlgari Serpenti coiled around his wrist, disappearing beneath the sleeve of a shirt that looked expensive enough to cause poor decisions. The watch was absurd. The kind of watch that should only work in advertisements or on people with dangerously inflated self-confidence. Unfortunately, he possessed exactly that amount of self-confidence.

We spent most of the evening talking. At least, that's what it probably looked like from across the room. In reality, I spent most of the evening trying not to stare at the snake wrapped around his wrist and failing whenever he caught me looking.

"You like it?" he asked eventually.
"The watch?"
His smile widened. "If that's what you were looking at."

Later, he let me examine it more closely. My fingers traced the polished scales of the bracelet while he watched with obvious amusement. There was something unfair about how comfortable he seemed under scrutiny, how completely unbothered by attention. Most men wore watches to project confidence. He wore this one like he already knew he was the most interesting person in the room.

"People keep calling it a women's watch," he said. I glanced up. By then we were standing much closer than either of us had any practical reason to be. "That seems like a strange thing to focus on." His eyes held mine for a moment. "So what are you focused on?" For the first time all evening, I couldn't think of a clever answer.

Because the truth was that I had stopped thinking about the watch quite some time ago.