Re: adrian's place; dietre & hugh
Truthfully, Hugh could not claim immunity to the closeness. It was a very different type of dancing than he typically did at a club of any variety, and in many ways the flirting and the back and forth held an innocence that he rarely had with strangers that he hooked-up with, and that reality perhaps tended towards a different sort of intimacy that he couldn't entirely pretend wasn't there. Nor regardless of what they were calling the night, was this anything other than a date. Maybe he'd not intended for it to be one, or maybe he'd half known it was, and god, for the amount that he prided himself on communicating with people, he wasn't really communicating at all, and maybe he'd never been nearly as good at it as he'd wanted to believe himself.
Hugh could say that if he didn't say anything then it was just friends, but Hugh rather thought that he was probably being obtuse if he considered anything about this evening just friends. There were certain questions in his mind, and he didn't quite know how to voice them, even to himself. It was easier to avoid them, or pretend they didn't exist by pretending that this was purely platonic rather than trying to figure out how to put to words the fucking impossible mix of genuine interest and uncertainties and somehow avoid hurting Dietre in the process.
This flashed through his mind, as he watched Dietre, knowing that a different him might have leaned forward to kiss him just then. He let himself glance for the dog, the distraction a welcome one in that particular moment. "She's clearly proud of you, I can see it in the tilt of her ears just now," Hugh returned, and he looked back, his heart seeming to jump just a little at the compliment. "You should save your praise until I give you something really complicated to learn," he grinned. "Alright, this is - you're going to have most of the work here - so you'll step, there's a count," he stopped, stepping back and grateful for a moment for the space between them, and stepping out of that desire to kiss Dietre and fuck consequences. A desire that felt selfish, and irresponsible, and like someone he was trying not to be right now.
As he stepped back, he demonstrated, the steps and the count, his hand held out as if he were holding onto an invisible partner's hand. "I'll be mostly staying in my space, but staying there as sort of an anchor on the floor. You want to try?"