She wasn’t his. He knew that.

But Omar Nadeem had spent a year making it very clear that if anyone was going to make her laugh in that way—grin crooked, eyes all warm—it was going to be him.

So when he walked into the party and saw her laughing at something that engineer-boy-with-perfect-hair said?

Yeah, something shifted. It wasn’t jealousy. It was worse. It was territorial.

And that wasn’t like him.

He was the guy who flirted with the aunties to get extra chai. The one who called her “meri jaan” half-jokingly every time she handed him her phone to fix. He wasn’t the guy who got serious.

But he was serious now.

She caught his stare from across the room—bangles on her wrists, heels a little too high, smile a little too wide. She didn’t know. She didn’t know that watching her be charming with someone else felt like choking on the same joke he’d told her a hundred times.

Later, when she stepped out for air, he followed. Found her leaning on the railing, scrolling her phone like nothing had shifted.

“Oye,” he said, voice lighter than he felt.

She looked up. “Oh. Hey. You okay?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m great,” he lied, slipping his hands into his kurta pockets. “Just needed a break from watching you flirt with Airlift ke poster boy.”

Her brow rose. “Seriously?”

He tilted his head, half-smirk in place, but it didn’t quite land.

“I joke around, sure,” he said. “I call you jaan and all that dramatic shit—but I’ve meant it. And maybe I looked stupid the whole time, but at least I didn’t hide it.”

She stared. Said nothing.

He took a step closer, voice lower now, and the grin faded.

“So next time you want to laugh like that, maybe remember who was making you laugh first.”