The following lines come from a manga I'm reading. The male lead is a high
schooler who uses a lot of truncated colloquial forms. He says the following
lines, ruminating on an event where he should have stood up for his girl, but
didn't, yet she doesn't appear to hold it against him.

> 何ちょっとホッとしてんだ
>
> さっき
>
> 一歩も動けなかったくせに

The first part of the first line, 何ちょっと, is what's throwing me. The rest is
fine. It seems like there's a particle omitted after 何 but I'm not certain.

My main question is, how do I unpack this sentence to make sense of it? And
more generally, what are some strategies for figuring out what particle (or
other parts of speech or morae)is being omitted in this kind of colloquial
speech?
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2023-06-14T02:36:58.460
99942
2023-06-14T02:36:58.460
56768
question
grammar meaning colloquial-language
What does 何ちょっと mean in this sentence?