"That would probably be it, yeah. Go figure, apparently I stopped being hip when I started writing dry policy tomes," the biting sarcasm was there, but the words were clean. He'd worked so hard to make it work, to clear everything from his vernacular that had to do with swears. He actually gave interviews that didn't need to be scrubbed, for once.

Amazing, really. "When I was in college, I thought I'd never become like those guys who sat all day discussing policy on TV, but apparently it had to happen eventually."

Banter was easy, and safe. He didn't trust anyone, so he fell back on what was comfortable, and impersonal. Banter was terribly impersonal. It gave the illusion of being open and honest, but it never was. Now, to be fair, he really had never thought he'd be some lame-ass dick who went on TV to talk about politics, but then again, he'd spent a good portion of his college days stoned out of his mind with Ray, with pizza and a bootleg copy of Star Wars in the tape player.

"How do you feel about a cup of coffee, we can talk this over, see what we have?"