Whether or not the waitstaff is trained not to listen in, Jim doesn't say a peep about Starfleet while the waitress is around, ordering a third martini (hey, let's be fair, it's not a lot of liquid). He's still got some food left, but despite the conversation, he hasn't let that slow down his progress. There won't be a crumb left by the time he's done. If people want to assume it's because he likes the food that much, he's not going to dissuade them.

"They were furious," he answers honestly, but he doesn't want to go too far down the road of the aftermath, because tonight's supposed to be fun. "They wanted to bust me back down to cadet. Admiral Pike convinced them to just demote me to commander." Ah, there's what he wanted to avoid, that gnawing feeling in his gut whenever his mentor comes up. He pushes past it, not meeting the eyes of either other person at the table. "Unrelated events got in the way and I ended up captain again, but we should leave that for another time. It's not a happy story."