"But I will say this, and forgive me if my bluntness offends you."
I haven't a clue what he was about to say. I mean not an inkling.
This is why one should never leave fics alone for more than a day. I'm someone else when I write, no matter how much I think I'm me. The left brain really doesn't know what the right brain doeth during creation, and if the left brain doesn't get a look at the thing at regular intervals it can all seep back into the wordless right the way dreams do on waking.