With aching feet and no talent for small-talk, I fall back on this.
"I guess," he says, "I could tell you about the one date I've ever been on."
I nod encouragingly, sloshing my Twinkle on his shoes.
He doesn't seem to notice. "We went to see Amelie."
"Great choice! Very... date-y."
"We were in a play together, and it was hard to find time to... you know. So it was an afternoon, and then we came out, and then... well, it's awkward isn't it? You know, in daylight? People pushing past."
I agree a little too vehemently, and he shifts his weight backwards, out of range.
"So I thought about kissing her. But the moment passed and I didn't kiss her. I thought there'd be lots more chances. But in the end, nothing happened. Then the play came to an end. I mean, I liked her. She was very pretty, but..." He laughed. "Sorry. Not much of a story, really."
"So you didn't...?"
Across the room, a baby starts to wail. We are officially old enough to be at a cocktail party with wailing babies.
"Oh that? God, not til I was - It was really late. I must have been, twenty-three? Now that's a'" - he makes a face - "well that's more of a story."
He tells me that story. If he hadn't told me, I would probably have looked him up and down and sketched out a different version. High-school girlfriend and Stereophonics on the stereo. Beer and a clammy beach in Spain. Freshers week; an awkward goodbye over a cup of tea.
Later he and his friends catch up with me on the overground platform. My party heels are in my bag; we're all going back to Hackney. On the train a group of young, drunk, pretty things sway close to the guys. There's a girl with long dark hair and freckles all down her arms and she's smiling and leaning and laughing and even though she won't remember all this in the morning it feels like vindication, like that other story was only a scribbled thing.
And so we get to Hackney and I ask if I may write it down, before it gets written over entirely.
He shrugs. We all drink cider.
I take that as a yes.
