[ ...Cool, so, that came off even worse than he was thinking it might. Lupine pushes out a low sigh. ]

Am I all right, he asks. Look, we didn't — talk that much, the first time around. [ Too busy with his CRITICAL DISTRACTION, which maybe he's told you about by now. ] ...I was trying to say, if you'd been waiting on me, I would've tried to make it less weird. Which, you know, is worth exactly squat, because you weren't.