The readjustment helped a surprising amount, and Shannon let himself lean back into something he figured would last longer. It was pretty pleasing to know he hadn't totally messed up already, even if he wasn't getting everything right, either. Shannon had made sure Eli knew he really had no experience with any of this despite his work with the police; violent crimes, no problem, they handed him those to help on all the time. More sexual in nature, however, and they balked at letting some untrained civilian in on such a sensitive case.

If they were going to play a waiting game, then Shannon could do that. He only wished he'd had the forethought to turn on the radio before they started. If he was alone with his thoughts for too long, they started to get pretty jumbled up and distracting. That was probably part of the test.

"Yes, sir," he said. There was only a small bit of hesitance before he remembered to add the title.