“Get the apples,” Johnny called over his shoulder, already halfway down the next aisle of the tiny corner market. “Mam said they need to be the crispy kind or she’ll lose the rag again.”

She rolled her eyes with a smile, reaching for the best ones she could find, sorting through them like it was serious business. She could hear him a few aisles over, probably charming Mrs. Daly out of the good strawberries again, like he always did.

Johnny Kavanagh had been her best friend since they were in pigtails and Velcro shoes — the kind of best friend who held her hair back when she was sick, who walked her home even when his house was in the other direction, who never missed her birthday, not once.

She still hadn’t figured out how to tell him she was in love with him.

He came back around the corner with a punnet of strawberries and a frown pulling at his mouth.

“I swear to God, Mrs. Daly just winked at me.”

She blinked. “Okay…?”

“She asked if ‘the missus’ wanted anything else for the week.”

There was a beat of silence.

She blinked again. “The missus?”

Johnny gestured between them with his strawberries. “Us. You. She thinks we’re together.”

She tried not to smile. Failed. “This makes it what, the fifth time this month someone’s assumed we’re dating?”

“Seventh,” he grumbled, but there was no real heat to it. Just the same low, confused flush that crept up his neck every time someone mistook them for something they weren’t.

She bumped her shoulder into his as they made their way to the till. “You could correct them, you know.”

He gave her a sidelong look, eyes bright but unreadable. “Yeah. Or I could let them think what they want.”

Her heart stuttered. She opened her mouth —

“Because,” he added quickly, “correcting them means having to explain why I’m not dating the girl I spend all my time with.”