Alternatives to "for a moment" in fiction?

I am usually pretty good about not using repetitive language in fiction… but I am catching myself using, “for a moment,” “it was a moment before he answered,” “they were both silent for a moment,” and so forth more than I should be.

I just… can’t come up with any good alternatives. I’ve tried just cutting them, but that increases the pacing, which is not always what I want. I’ve tried replacing with action beats, but sometimes that doesn’t make sense either.

In my WIP, my MMC will stop and think before he speaks, and he’s also very deliberate about his movements… so if he doesn’t know how to reply, he will just stand there and think about it. And I don’t know how to convey that without undesirable repetition… but I also don’t want to just cut those phrases, because that makes him sound much more impulsive than he is.