[Regifortis]

Steve felt odd at Will covering his hand. He was glad that the old guy was being reasonable, but that came out of nowhere...he looked straight at him and realized he was actually pretty good-looking. Especially for his age.

"I get that. It was just this secret in particular that crippled me," Steve replied, patting his belly. "it's not something you can just explain away, even though you've been great about it. As for getting out in the world...I dunno, I've always been bad about that. I've been a loner for pretty much forever. And now being sociable feels next to impossible sometimes. I can't tell who might figure it out and made a media circus out of me...I've lost a lot of sleep over it." He didn't ask Will to remove the hand, although he couldn't quite figure out how he felt about it yet. "I wouldn't be a normal tenant no matter how you sliced it. But I think now I could at least be agreeable. I would keep the right to refusing any company or invitations; I don't need a reason for not doing something 'just for fun' other than 'I don't want to do it.' And the same goes to everyone else."

"That's why I came here, by the way." Steve tried to keep the situation from getting too tense; it was hard enough to be humble without an attractive older man being suggestive. "If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be here now. Not at all like last week. And I'm sorry, but baseball is just boring to me. I've never been a sports fan, and I don't think that'll change anytime soon. But those vet stories were more interesting in hindsight...yeah. I just wish THAT didn't happen, but the rest of it wasn't as bad as I felt it was."