1) I was thinking the same but I can almost feel the tension between the two of them through my screen. What they're doing seems way too genuine to fake, and if they are they should be nominated for an Oscar.
2) I feel like NIK trying to get under LL's skin is NAI. How would getting Lucky all riled up be a good move for the scum team?
3) I feel like this is the most likely scenario that you've brought up. Lucky was being pressed from the beginning, made a couple bad retorts that I thought were deflections. I think it's well within Lucky's scum range to deflect some the pressure onto NIK.