read.

Just good friends". I hate that. Tom Paine and I are "just good friends". Why are we just good friends? It's a warning, no, it's a disclaimer: the little witch adores her dear man, and the dear man is so lovely and kind and teasing to his little witch, but they don't want to settle down together and live happily ever after. They'd go to the cinema together or for a meal, but it would certainly wouldn't be a date. There are no desires to possess one another (although let the little witch admit in the third person because she's ashamed that she can be a bit possessive, but then she wants to be everyone's favourite, and besides which she gets smacked when any claws stretch out). No one wants to be anyone's boyfriend or girlfriend, so Tom Paine and I are not boyfriend and girlfriend. Tom Paine would actually in my mind would be a crap boyfriend, and this little witch is too flighty and stubborn to be Tom Paine's girlfriend. He inwardly shudders at the thought of having the LW as a girlfriend.
So then just good friends. Just. Why trivialise? There is nothing 'just' about my feelings for this man, but somehow if I say it's more than friends but less than romantic partners it just doesn't make sense.
...... This kind of relationship is friendship, and it is good friendship. I value it and I cherish it. And I won't have anyone undermine it.

Brilliant just absolutely spot on.