Do you never stop to think of how it might be taken, or how it can go wrong when you do act like this?

Autor sucks a breath in through his teeth. Panic wraps its spiked tendrils around his heart, but then he leans back and closes his eyes, recovering the detached veneer he always has.

"She is nice to me," he says, lacing his fingers together across his chest. "Very nice. But there's a problem with nice people, and that's when they decide that they have a hammer and you're a bent nail. 'I can solve that problem,' they say. 'I have a hammer!'"

He shakes his head, and opens his eyes. "And I'm sure she's very good at being nice, and wielding her hammers. But there are some of us who prefer to remain as we are."

He twists his lips. "I would have left you alone in that shop. Maybe bantered a bit, and left, but here we are now, at dinner, dancing around the topic of are we friends or are we enemies."

Then, after a moment: "Congratulations on your new job."

He does sound like he means that.