Aalam bhai sat alone after closing the stall that night.

He had watched it happen in real time, over the rim of a glass he was filling — Hamza's eyes finding the girl the moment she stepped up to the counter, that quick assessing flicker before he managed it away. He had watched her catch it too, the way her face stayed perfectly composed while something underneath it sharpened. He had watched Uzair notice the noticing, jealousy flaring instant and visible, and the girl smoothly redirecting him with a request for rooh afza like she had done it a hundred times before.