Ye-es, the problem with hesitation was that it was read far too easily. Most people didn't realize it telegraphed as much as it did, because it was lack of motion rather than the motion itself, and where they realized that that was a dead giveaway, they didn't realize that stillness could be as much of a tell. People weren't still. Take a minute. Watch a crowd. They're not still. They flinch, they itch, they ease weight from one side to the other. Rarely ever still. In fact, the only time Jude could recall people in absolute stillness was either in meditation - or when they were confronted with something that required a mental re-calibration.
Hence, caught.
Jude's smile was easy. It was friendly, which wasn't to say he felt anything at all beyond the casual disinterest of strangers, but his face opened as if sharing an intimate joke. His shoulders slid forward, and his elbows, and it looked like a confidence rather than a confrontation.
"That," he said, conversationally glancing down to her pocket, "Is gonna cost you extra. In fact, I think that's double. Plus the drink itself. And one for the house, of course. And maybe I would take your complaint under consideration but in actual fact. You haven't actually been served, now, have you?"
Another deliberate look at where that whiskey was stowed. "Or you can take it up with management?" he suggested, all reasonableness and mirth even as one regular elbow to elbow with Dahlia smirked and shook his head. You didn't cheat the Cat.