The smile slipped away from Dan's lips and the spark left his brilliant blue eyes. Glancing away from his briefly, he cleared his throat and leaned forward, steepling his fingers before allowing them to slide and lock into place.
"I wasn't pretending" he said more seriously. "Look, if I turned my nose up at every single person accused of doing some horrid, I'd have very few friends... I want to know what happened though" he said, making sure he had eye contact again.