He went on and on, digging up anecdotes from the past, stories I had long forgotten as the years washed away the trivia I hadn’t bothered to preserve in my fleeting memory. My mind started to drift. I became distracted. This became painfully obvious to my companion when the constant drone of his voice came to a dead stop.

For a moment, I froze. He could tell I had long stopped paying attention and I felt a slight tinge of guilt. My eyes turned back to look at his over the top of the brim of my coffee cup.

“What?” I said. He looked at me with a pained expression. “You were saying?”

He stared back at me. His demeanor cooled. “Sorry.”

“No. Go ahead.”

He just stared back at me, glaring. I started to get uncomfortable. “We probably shouldn’t have done this.” I wasn’t sure what to say. I just wanted get out of there and it looked like I was getting an out. But the temperature in the room dropped and I felt uneasy. Should I be honest with him or polite? I went against my natural instinct.

“You’re right.”