Embarrassed. That's...Christ, he feels a stab of guilt at the thought. Putting yourself out there and getting turned down isn't a blow he's experienced much, mostly because he tries not to put himself out anyplace if he can help it, but he has enough sense of it to know the feeling.

And knowing it's Jean--Jean, whose scent feels more like home than any he remembers--only piles the guilt on harder. She really thinks he's just grateful.

"Look," he mutters, forcing himself to look her way. That's the hard part, the thing that's like a knife at his throat. She's so beautiful in the moonlight, everything about her made softer by the night's shadows--but the way she moves reminds him just how powerful she can be. Is. Jean's terrifying to behold sometimes, and it has nothing to do with the shit she can do with her mind. It's all her, all that personality of hers. "You're what, seventeen, eighteen? You can do better, Jeannie. Believe me."