Steven Patrick Lynch made Madison Ashley Greco laugh when he walked up to the counter at Anderson’s Frozen Custard in Tonawanda, N.Y., where she worked as a cashier, in January 2019.

“What would you recommend: the roast beef or the lemon ice?,” Lynch asked her, knowing he would order both.

“Well, one’s a dinner, and one’s a dessert,” she responded.

She already thought he was cute when he walked into the ice cream shop, but when he started ordering, his humor won her over. After Lynch paid with his credit card, she took notice of his name at the bottom of the receipt.

Greco went home after work that night and couldn’t stop thinking about him. She managed to find his X account and followed him. A few minutes later, he sent her a message: “Wow, I’m impressed.”

They had their first date five days later at the local shopping mall, walking around and people watching. “By the time we knew it, we were lapping around the mall for three or four hours,” Greco said. Two months later, he asked her to be his girlfriend.

At the time, Lynch, now 32, was about a year sober, and Greco, now 26, was supportive of his journey.