Rosie Webster

The first time I met Ethan, I was dressed as a giant strawberry.

Not by choice.

My friend Mia runs a juice bar in Auckland, New Zealand, and begged me to hand out flyers in a ridiculous costume for the opening. “Just an hour,” she’d said. “I’ll pay for your drinks all weekend.” I agreed because free drinks are free drinks.

So there I was, on Queen Street, sweating inside a plush red monstrosity, when a gust of wind sent my flyers flying into traffic. I chased them without thinking, which is how I tripped over my own oversized strawberry feet and crashed into a very startled stranger.

Ethan.

Tall, dark-haired, holding a takeaway coffee that was now all over his shirt.

For a second, we both just stared. He at me—an apologetic fruit—and me at him, mortified.

“I—uh—” I stammered. “You’re… caffeinated now?”

He blinked, then laughed. “Well, this is a first.”

I scrambled up, brushing imaginary dust off my ridiculous foam body. “I am so sorry. Can I pay for your dry cleaning?”

He smirked. “How about you buy me a coffee instead?”

That’s how, still dressed as a strawberry, I found myself sitting with Ethan at a café, watching him stir sugar into his replacement coffee like it was completely normal to be on a spontaneous fruit-themed date.

“Is this your actual job?” he asked, amused.

“Tragically, no.”

We talked. I learned he was a photographer, that he hated pineapple on pizza (red flag), and that he once accidentally joined a dolphin tour thinking it was a fishing trip. He learned I was 28, worked in marketing, and had a talent for falling over at the worst moments.

When we left, he grinned. “Same time tomorrow? You can wear normal clothes.”

And somehow, I said yes.