‘Ohhh yeah,’ says Breslin, tilting his chair back and grinning. ‘My man Rory’s a playa. Tell your Uncle Don the whole story. Girlfriend? Friend with benefits? True love?’

‘She’s . . .’ The pink gets deeper. Rory swipes his palms across his cheeks like he can wipe it away. ‘Well. I don’t know if I’d call her my girlfriend, exactly. We’ve only been on a few dates. But yes, I’m hoping it’ll go somewhere.’

Present tense. Not that that means much; he’s not a fool. I smile at all the adorable young love; Rory manages a smile back.

‘So you made a bit of an effort,’ Breslin says. ‘Right? Tell me you made a bit of an effort, Rory. That shirt’s fine for selling The Gruffalo to soccer moms, but if you want to impress your way into a babe’s – well, into her good books, let’s put it that way – it’s not going to do the job. What’d you wear?’

‘Just a shirt and a pullover and trousers. I mean, they were decent ones, they weren’t—’

Sceptical look off Breslin. ‘What colour? What kind?’

‘A white linen shirt and a light blue pullover, and dark blue trousers? I’m normally a jeans guy, but Aislinn’s . . . I knew she’d be wearing something a bit fancier, so I thought I should too.’

‘Hmm. Sounds like it could’ve been a lot worse. You’ve got decent taste when you try, my son.’ Breslin nods at the overcoat on the back of Rory’s chair. ‘That coat?’

Rory glances uncertainly back and forth between it and Breslin. ‘Yes. I don’t really have another proper winter coat. I got it at Arnott’s, it’s not just some . . . I mean, it’s OK, right?’

‘Not bad,’ Breslin says, squinting critically at the coat. ‘It’ll do. You didn’t wear those gloves with it, though. Did you? You didn’t.’

Rory’s head whips around to the gloves. ‘Yeah, I did. Why? What’s wrong with them?’

‘Yeesh,’ Breslin says, grimacing. He reaches across the table and pokes the gloves with his pen, flips them over. They look clean. ‘Maybe I’m getting old; maybe nowadays all the cool kids go on dates looking like they borrowed their hands off a mountain biker. You really wore these?’

‘It was cold.’

‘So? You’ve got to suffer for style, Rory. You don’t have a black pair? At least those wouldn’t have stuck out like a couple of sore thumbs.’

‘I looked. I thought I had black leather ones, somewhere, but I don’t know where they’ve gone. These were the only ones I could find.’

We’ll look too. ‘Quit hassling the poor guy,’ I tell Breslin. ‘You take the gloves off as soon as you’re in the door anyway, amn’t I right, Rory? Who cares what they look like?’