[Jason's briefly startled by Thad's flinch but then relaxes himself to show the young man that he's not scared off so far. He'll stick around to keep listening.

Jason doesn't know what nerve he accidentally hit but clearly there was something to what he said. At least Thad isn't angry again]

Sounds like you could use the time to explore what you could like then. Like making up for lost time. There's probably gonna be a lot of trial and error too.