Pretty sure it's not that, pinky fingers usually involve promises. Pinky promise? Don't know anything about strings. And Valentine's Day is... roses, a card, chocolates, nice dinner. That sort of thing. [ He pauses just for a moment, then- ] I could make you a nice meal but this might make it a bit hard.

[ John is maybe not taking this seriously enough for Carver, but in the face of Carver losing it he finds he wants to tone it down a bit. This is inconvenient, but really not the end of the world. There's plenty of worse things that could happen here. ]