[What's he supposed to tell her? That he isn't a fan of parties like this because they always involve doing business and they always mean he has to spend his time talking to people who act as though they're so much better than he is? That he doesn't like showing up and pretending to fit in with the kind of guys who wear a tuxedo like it's a second skin, but that he feels hurt when they recognize that he doesn't fit in all the same? No, he's not going to tell her any of that.
But there's a part of him that would certainly like to.]
Y'know, it seems overwhelmin'.
[That's a half-truth, really. They're not overwhelming so much as they are simply... Wrong somehow. He'd thought, when he'd gone away to college, that maybe he'd finally learn how to blend in at events like this. Would he have, if he'd stayed there instead of going off to war? Probably not. As much as he can pretend to be Nucky Thompson's son -- and as much as his biological father, who he shudders at even thinking of, is an important man -- he's pretty sure everyone can tell that he, himself, comes from...
He shouldn't go down that mental pathway. His emotions always show too strongly on his face, and he doesn't want to frown again. So he just turns it into a smile instead, a small one, somehow more intimate and flirtatious than his bigger grins have been.]
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[What's he supposed to tell her? That he isn't a fan of parties like this because they always involve doing business and they always mean he has to spend his time talking to people who act as though they're so much better than he is? That he doesn't like showing up and pretending to fit in with the kind of guys who wear a tuxedo like it's a second skin, but that he feels hurt when they recognize that he doesn't fit in all the same? No, he's not going to tell her any of that.
But there's a part of him that would certainly like to.]
Y'know, it seems overwhelmin'.
[That's a half-truth, really. They're not overwhelming so much as they are simply... Wrong somehow. He'd thought, when he'd gone away to college, that maybe he'd finally learn how to blend in at events like this. Would he have, if he'd stayed there instead of going off to war? Probably not. As much as he can pretend to be Nucky Thompson's son -- and as much as his biological father, who he shudders at even thinking of, is an important man -- he's pretty sure everyone can tell that he, himself, comes from...
He shouldn't go down that mental pathway. His emotions always show too strongly on his face, and he doesn't want to frown again. So he just turns it into a smile instead, a small one, somehow more intimate and flirtatious than his bigger grins have been.]