Holding his hands up in the universal ‘I surrender’ gesture, Zach tried to keep any edginess out of his voice as he replied. “You could have fooled me on that one,” because from where he stood it seemed like she had something against him. It wasn’t like Bea was the first woman to get pissy with him, and she likely wouldn’t be the last. Although it had just been harmless flirting, wasn’t like he was going to force himself on her or something – he wasn’t that kind of guy.
More than likely there was probably a reason for the way Bea was, there was always a reason. Zach just wasn’t sure if he should poke around to figure that out or get out before he got himself slapped or worse. Maybe another day he would press his luck, dig deeper into what made Bea tick – but today he was going to pull the self-preservation card and let the whole damn thing drop for the time being.
“I’m sorry,” Zach remarked when she admitted to having had to have a couple MRE’s before. “Those things shouldn’t be subjected on anyone.” Granted he had experienced them while in the service, which he sort of thought made it worse ‘cause he was risking his damn life and having to eat those things. But he didn’t say that, mostly because he wasn’t looking to get some kind of snide comment back from her. That and for the most part he didn’t go around advertising he had served, sure some people found out after spending time with him – but with the way government was viewed and in connection the military, Zach kept his past to himself until he knew it wouldn’t color someone’s opinion of him.
To say he was surprised by her reply would have been an understatement. He had half expected her to have some kind of biting response to his words, not to come back with what seemed like a fairly sincere answer and a fucking apology to top that off. “Good,” and he left it at that, keeping himself from making a comment about being a trustworthy guy. “Don’t worry about it, you aren’t the first woman to snap at me like that, probably won’t be the last either,” He wasn’t big on making a huge deal out of apologies and he had a feeling Bea wouldn’t want to dwell on it. “You’re no going to slap me if I admit I’ve heard about your rep? Because I’m sure you’ve heard about mine as well.” It wasn’t much of a secret that some people thought Bea was a bitch. But some people also thought he was a cocky ass, so he tried not to judge others by what he heard about them.