[Deacon tenses and hunches his shoulders, making himself even smaller in response to Miller's looming. The rage in the air has his paranoia rising. God, he wants to be invisible right now. Just completely erase himself.

He spread his arms, palms out.]

I did. Try, I mean. Although I know you only have my word on that and my word is shit.

But I like you. I didn't want to piss you off. That was never the plan. [Fuck, he's bad at this.] Believe it or not, that was me opening up in the only damn way I know how. [By lying. And dropping in nuggets of critical truths among the lies.]