[ He was probably about to keep going hard too, but (thankfully) she catches him in the act and he promptly bites his lip. One or two can usually sneak by unassumingly in casual conversation, people just assume they'd misheard, but he'd really let her have it hadn't he... As soon as she starts snickering and calling him on it, he peters out. ]

I— Uh, yeah, sort of. I pawnestly cat help it, it's just kind of a tic I've got whenever I mewntion them.

[ See, repeats are totally purrmitted, Ramir. If you go through this many you pretty much gotta. It sounds like a canned excuse, one that he's pretty used to delivering. It's a weird one, but no one's questioned it yet. But... Hell, they're staying in a big magic castle floating through spacetime, they just killed a hentai villain on Deer Hawaii, no one should possess any disbelief to suspend anymore. ]

Actually... Y'know what, okay. If you promise not to laugh I'll tell you something I haven't mentioned to anyone in like fifteen years.