Re: [Boating: Hugh and Atticus]
These days. Hugh huffed a brief laugh, wondering if there was some sort of weird time travel thing going on, because the guy didn't really look that much older than him, but he wasn't about to ask. Instead he nodded. "You can't," he told Atticus. "Or at least I can't. And the shortest version of that story is that I tried to pretend that it was, until I couldn't, but by the time I'd decided it wasn't and was ready to tell her how I felt, another guy had caught her eye," he ducked, keeping his head clear of the sail's movement. "I've wished many times I'd gotten that courage sooner."
But he hadn't, and he couldn't go back. Any wondering about whether or not she would have been the woman that would have kept cheering him on forever was currently a moot point.
He finished off his coffee and sat it down, by his feet, catching it between his shoes so it wouldn't roll around the boat. "It's an argument, yeah," Hugh nodded. He could even see it easily enough, he liked men and women both, and the idea of settling in one direction or the other sometimes made him not want to settle at all, or it had, and maybe it was still there, although he hadn't really thought about it much recently. "I knew people who had an open marriage in Seattle, but they weren't an anything goes relationships either, they communicated intensely. I think they're still together." Technically he'd lost track. He shook his head, but for a moment didn't say anything. "If I'm bitter, I think it's mostly at myself for being foolish," he offered softly. "I was the only person conning myself."
Which seemed to be a pattern now, and it was truthfully what made him feel terrified of falling again. It was why he'd deleted all of his dating aps, and decided to try to just make friends- non-sexual friends. No hook-ups, no FWB, and hopefully no painful realization that they didn't want to stay at some point down the line. He shook the mood off, and glanced back to Atticus. "What do you think does work?"