"Nah, I don't blame you," Noah said, his tone resigned. He didn't really have the sauce for an argument right now, anyway. All this unexpected drama had exhausted him, and he wanted nothing more than to get into his bunk and pull the covers over his head, sleep so he could forget all of this. Definitely a flight response, as opposed to fight, but he didn't care. He hadn't expected anything like this at all this evening, but life was about the unexpected, it seemed.
He could just about tell from the set of her shoulders that his lack of response hadn't been what she'd wanted, but there was no help for that now. He didn't want to hurt her, didn't want to make her feel that she wasn't enough, but like many men he wasn't good at spur of the moment responses to heavy statements about feelings. This made whatever they had seem more complicated than he'd like it to be, but there wasn't any help for that, either. It was what it was.
Noah was mildly wary when she covered her face, hoping she wasn't about to burst into tears, and he was relieved when she turned around. When she spoke again, he managed to stifle the question of why it mattered so much where she stood. He was aware that was just another thing that was often more important to women than it was to men. Why take the intriguing illusion of mystery away by defining everything with labels and words? That was something he'd never understood, usually didn't buy into... except when he'd married Jenna, he supposed. "I've never been easily read," he agreed. "Probably never will be."
It was a little too much, and Noah didn't think he was going to be able to come up with any answers that would satisfy her tonight. "Maybe," he said carefully, "we should talk about this another day. I'm not sure we're gonna get anywhere with it right now." That might offend her; he didn't know, but he didn't see any point in going around and around in circles.