Look, it wasn't like Avery was a fun sponge on purpose lately. It was just, it was Winter, and Christmas, and he'd been having to get up so early when it was still dark, and the ongoing thing with Lyra and Armaan was out with his boyfriend and Henry was going on about a monkey or something, and just- It was hard, at the moment, to evaluate where he was in life, and what he wanted out of it. It was easy to get absorbed in just moving from one week to the next, but then, what then??
"Sure," he said, and gave Lyra a nod and a smile, because that was the aim of the night. Get involved, and make things work. He gave the collar of her coat a little tug. "You look hot."