uh… i can’t talk right now. (for hal!)
He stops pacing, phone held to his ear as he hears a lack of noise that wouldn't usually bother him. Except... Kate was supposed to be at a party, and even if she had seen his call, she wouldn't have been able to step out that quickly. It's not something then that he mentions, but he files it away, casually, as if he would revisit it when the time was right.
The words that he was about to say pause at the tip of his tongue and seem to fail him for a brief second, but he recovers. He always recovers, because the alternative was that it would mean that Hal Wyler was at a loss of words, and even in front of his own wife, that wouldn't do.
" --- I hope you're behaving yourself, Katie." He finally says, glancing out the window of the estate. "I know parties aren't your forte, but you know how important this is." He pauses, and Hal can almost see the set of her jaw, grinding down against teeth and everything she wants to snipe at him. She'd do it probably anyways, but Hal has the luxury of nobody around.
"Listen, I won't be home when you come back. I'm taking a flight to DC in a few hours. Can't say much more than that, but ---..." he pauses, was that a rustle of bedsheets?
" --- I'll be back across the pond in two days. Doctors cleared me for the trip." A lie. He hadn't been cleared, hadn't even mentioned it, but last minute trips often meant having to bypass other ...bureacacy, and if there was anything Hal was good at, was navigating around red lines.