"I did. ...I will? I do?" He shakes his head and waves off the temporal grammar. "But I didn't tell anyone about what we decided. Anyone, not right after we talked about it. Not for months. It wasn't because I didn't have feelings about it, it wasn't because it didn't mean anything to me. It meant... everything."

Neal finally picks up his tea, taking a sip and raising his eyebrows. "Do you see where I might be going with this?"