If she thought about calling him back, she didn't show it.
He reached the edge of the stall lane and kept walking, the street bending him away from her view like a reed yielding to the current.
He didn't glance back, didn't slow his pace.
The skewer shop loomed again, the busty owner tossing her head back in laughter at some customer's joke, her cleavage drawing stares like moths to a flame—every man around her pretending to eye the meat while devouring something else entirely.
But as he moved on, Lor felt that familiar coil tighten in his gut: the knowledge of her need.
Not the casual want everyone chased, but the raw, gnawing kind that shoved a girl like Ameth—sharp as a blade, eyes like winter frost—behind a rickety cart, watching rot claim her stock and her margins along with it.
Pride versus hunger, a brutal arithmetic where neither could be sold cheap.
Desperation ticked like a clock, and he'd heard its echo in the silence when he walked away.
