He should grouse. He can feel the place where he would. She's right, and some part of him finds that deeply annoying, the fact that he isn't given latitude to do whatever fool things he'd chastise others for.

The sunlight streams through her hair, picking out the golden strands among the brown; it reminds him of autumn, and her eyes, then? A pond, a stream of clear, cool water, not yet frozen over.

He shakes his head. "Went out alone and almost died on your daddy's farm," he says instead. "You remember that?"