“It’s been a tough day,” Tom said. “Let’s take a walk and we’ll sit outside a coffee shop.” And in that cold winter sunshine things started to look up.

He sat back, put his long legs on the table, and drank his latte. I noticed that he had extraordinarily big feet.

“I’ve just realised that I didn’t put on clean underwear,” he remarked, and then he took one of ten thousand puffs on a blackberry, blueberry and raspberry vape. Tom was the coolest guy in the world.

I tried to say something clever, but it sounded like “mwah,” and he gave me a funny look.

And so, I made discreet notes on my phone before realising that the guy standing behind me was reading everything, and I hoped that he wouldn’t say anything that might embarrass me.