Alfred was skeptical of Julian's assertion that he wasn't trying to solve any of Alfred's problems. None of the Fisk siblings were suffering from a lack of strong opinions when it came to him and Zelda, and he didn't entirely believe that a healthy respect for her wishes was going to stave off attempts to meddle, if someone was inclined.

If he had been in a better mood, he might have made more of an effort to seem enthused about whatever Julian was trying to bait him in to. At the very least, he would have tried to demonstrate that he was willing to go along with it for the sake of engendering good will between the two of them. Right now, though, he just didn't have the energy. He wanted to drink. He was on his first pint, still, and would have preferred to have been on his fifth — maybe by then at least his brain would have been too numbed to keep drifting back to the letters he'd tried to write to Jo and Zelda.

"Well," he said with a shrug and a vague gesture at the full pint in front of him on the table. "Since you have me here." His tone gave away precisely how unenthused he was at the prospect, but he wasn't going to just get up and walk away, and have Zelda's family talking about him later and saying he was rude, or odd, or something.