[Wryly,]

I'm really fuckin' good at saying 'no' when that's what I happen to be desiring. My friends used to call me a pain in the ass for being aloof and mysterious.

[He wasn't really. He was mostly pretty transparent, even if he used more than his fair share of defensive irony. But he tried to seem aloof. He tried to be like the family he had worshipped across four generations, as cunning and inaccessible as a dead hero.]