"I'm not very adventurous, either. Mentally, maybe. I think about a lot of stuff people don't wanna think about. But in terms of what I actually do? I'm the least exciting person you'll ever meet. I still live at home with my father, for Christ's sake."

Maybe he shouldn't have said that. That makes him sound both very young and extremely uncool. He takes a sip of his drink to disguise his sudden nerves. Will he ever stop blundering through conversations and just have them without concern of sounding ridiculous?

"Whatever's gotten into you, I like it," he hurries to say, trying to redeem his previous statement by sounding a little flirtatious, although even that's a gamble. "And yeah, mostly writing. I stay at the office late. And when I'm all alone, and I'm writing by myself, my brain feels a lot less cluttered. You do it by making pies, right? That's what keeps you sane. Relatively sane. I don't know that any of us are entirely sane."