A way to do it would be to respond to your buddy's demand, in system chat, while you're waiting down the TL.
I'm not comfortable with the grouped/unit thing. Yes, if you're in the same system, sure. But there've been players who've gotten sanctioned because they were grouped with pirating players while in a cap ship. They were there but didn't actually fire or say anything. But they were grouped with the pirating vessels. Hmm, we'll have to mull this one over, methinks.
(don't know if any of that made sense...only on my second cup o' coffee)
