‘You’re never lonely with a Chihuahua,’ he says without missing a beat. It sounds like a line he’s said many times before.

Instead of giving me a chance to push any further, he takes an empty jar from the bakery crate, fills it with water from a bottle, and picks up the bouquet of roses from the table where I’d put them down.

I decide it’s best to end this conversation here like he so clearly wants to do. ‘How do you accidentally eat tinsel?’

He lets out a bark of laughter without looking up from the paper wrap he’s trying to wrestle from the roses. ‘I love how you say that like intentionally eating tinsel is completely normal.’

I watch as he slices the bottom off the stems with a penknife on his keyring and puts an abnormal amount of effort into arranging the flowers.

‘You’re going to do it, right?’ I say quietly. ‘The tree thing, I mean. If it works out like we hope and other businesses go for it, you’d have a great chance of winning. Kids love Halloween and fairytales, and pumpkins are inherently fairytale-esque, and you’re so creative, and—’

‘Of course I’m going to,’ he cuts me off before I have time to turn that into a compliment. ‘And if I didn’t, then Mum would never let a chance to knit a pumpkin pass by. It’s a great idea. Genuinely.’

It makes me blush again because he sounds so impressed and for the first time in a long while, it makes me feel like something I do could actually make a difference.

I can’t help smiling when he looks up at me. His bright eyes twinkle as he holds my gaze, the corners of his mouth tipping up more with every second until he lets out a full laugh and ducks his head. It’s enough to make me forget about everything else.

The back table is still full of pumpkins, but instead of traditional Jack O’Lantern faces cut into them, they’re carved with swirl patterns and snowflakes now it’s November, their tealights blinking inside them. He walks over to sit against it, stretches his legs out and shakes his hair back, using his fingers to pull it out of his shirt collar and detangle it. He whips a black hairband from around his wrist and puts it up in a short ponytail, his forearm muscles moving as he works, and I think I might’ve accidentally started drooling.