"Kind my ass," she snorts with a smirk. "If I know there's a good Irishwoman to appreciate the whiskey, then I pour her the good stuff." She jerked her head over to Blade. "This one I'd give whatever too, but I made a few promises to his handler several years back. One was to make sure he learned to appreciate good liquor. Still working on it. He's a tough one to crack, if you haven't noticed yet."

Then she was gone, and Blade glanced at M-, startled by her words. It'd be a lie to claim that he even knew the first part of what she said, let alone the last. Blackmail him into a social life? Well, he'd wondered just why the hell Ellen was playing hard to get with what had to be a simple location to find some suckheads. Now it made sense. And here he'd been joking about the date in the car.

What really got to him, though, was the idea that he'd look tortured by her nearness. He floundered for what to say to that, but most of it was inward. Blade didn't ever flail. She might have seen the surprise on his face, but that was about it. And of course she couldn't see through the ever-present sunglasses.

"I'm not tortured by you being here. Just trying to get to the hunt I promised you." He wasn't even fully comprehending yet that Ellen probably thought this was the most important part of their evening. He was still just focused on the hunt as the important element, because whether or not she could handle herself would make a huge deal in how he regarded what they could have together.

"I...want you here." The words were kind, but he glowered as he said them, unsure of why he even had to say them at all.