FEDRA boarding schools were still boarding schools, and he'd spent seven years in segregated dorms, every shithead teenager the military could drag in boiling over together. The man's point B is so far from Owen's point A he can't take it as anything but idiotic ribbing, and over the years he's evolved his adolescent eye-rolling into a blink so slow it's almost reptilian.

He drops the hand back to his side; at this point, his new friend can let him know if his legs aren't working. Well, needs to and can are different things. "Would pretending it was get you to come along any better than admitting it's not?"