Hudson Bartholomew

Thanks, Val!

Great insight! There's definitely a lot of psychological stuff going on with Ryan, but he's not as good at verbalizing it all.

Thanks for the review, Lisa! You have so much insight, I love it

My prompt for last week didn't make the cut off time, so I'll share it here, in case people are interested. First line: "I'll never, ever, forgive you!" https://www.gayauthors.org/story/hudson-bartholomew/promptsbyhb/5

“I’ll never, ever, forgive you!” Andy said under his breath, between clenched teeth. He could feel the heat of a blush spreading across his cheeks. Marcus cocked an eyebrow that matched his wry grin. “That’s not very Christian of you.” Andy glared back at him and forced a smile on his face as people started coming up to him to wish him a happy birthday. Marcus and his infuriating, conniving grin slipped through the crowd and Andy lost sight of him as the guests gathered closer. Andy hadn’t wa

The higher the elevator rose, the greater the feeling of dread that threatened to overwhelm Ryan and send him running down the stairs. A fancy hotel in Midtown was the last place he wanted to be, and the job he had in front of him was the last thing he wanted to do. The elevator dinged much too soon for Ryan’s liking, and the door slid open to reveal Erik, leaning against the opposite wall, long muscular legs crossed in front of him, head bent over his phone. The sound of the elevator arriving

Great post! I'm over in Ontario so I have to admit that I don't know much about BC politics, but I appreciate the great overview you gave. I also studied political science and I've followed politics my whole adult life, but I've never been too actively involved with politics myself. I think it's great that you're involved and I wish you all the best of luck in your campaign! Let us know how things progress!

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the encouraging words. You guys are a great community!

Thanks for this! Same as hohochan657, I would have been wondering about it the whole time, too.

I got some bad news today. It wasn’t anything terribly tragic, and I was kind of expecting it, anyway, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. But it was disappointing all the same. Anytime I get bad news, I immediately go into self-doubt mode and systematically convince myself that I’m not worth my salt, I’m not good at anything, and who am I to think I deserve to have what I want. It’s always the same voice in my head, and it always says the same things. The voice has become so familiar over the years that, these days when it speaks, I recognized it immediately. That voice was speaking today. I recognized it and I know it’s unhealthy, so I’ve been actively trying to ignore it. But it’s still there, whispering away in the background, and it won’t shut up. I was in an elevator today and standing next to a pizza delivery guy. If I had to guess, I’d say he was middle aged, probably an immigrant based on his accent; he reminded me of my dad circa 20 years ago, when I was a teenager in high school. In my head, I imagined that this guy had a family at home, maybe he had kids who were in high school, and here he was delivering pizzas to make ends meet. I hope I don’t sound pretentious, I don’t want my life to look like that when I reach his age; I don’t want to be delivering pizzas when I’m middle aged. And I’m fairly confident that my life won’t look like that. Because I’m lucky. I’m lucky to have a well-paying job, to have resources at my disposal, to have skills and abilities that are sought after in this job market. Not everyone has those, and I often forget just how lucky I am. It’s hard to remember to be grateful. It’s much easier to wallow in my own self-pity. When I get bad news, it’s hard to remember that life isn’t over, that I’m still good at a lot of things, and I can and deserve to be a worthwhile member of society. It’s hard to pick myself back up, put on a brave face and continue on. And, really, today’s bad news? It wasn’t terribly tragic, and I was expecting it, and I have other options to explore. That’s what I’ve been repeating to myself, trying to drown out that stupid voice in my head. Because I’m lucky, and I should be grateful for what I have.

I feel like this portion of the story is really about Ryan. Without giving anything away, Erik's journey comes a bit later, I think.

I'm glad you like the pacing. That's always something I worry about

Thanks, Lisa!!

Maybe I should get some stock in Best Buy, too! Thanks!

Thanks, Mac! Hopefully this will become clearer soon, but Erik's not as heartless as people seem to think he is. I think you put it exactly right, he's a bit better at balancing his emotions, or at least hiding them

I think a lot of times people just don't care. Especially in places like hospitals, they deal with a million people every day and I'm sure that patients can easily become just another body they need to treat. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending them, but I can see why they're less than careful about people's names. I don't know how many times people have gotten my name wrong. Even when I'm spelling it out for them, they can't seem to wrap their minds around the letters I'm saying. I was trying to get into a building once and the security guy had to look up my name on the visitors list. I spelled my last name for him, gave him my ID with my name on it, and I watched over the counter as he typed my last name wrong. I spoke up and corrected him, and he re-typed it... wrong again. It took him 3 tries to get it right... my last name has 3 letters in it, not that difficult, folks.

I don't know if there's a best way to approach a situation like this, because as others have said, this is hard. I think it's important to communicate, though, especially with an open-mind, knowing that everyone is trying to make the right decisions and no one is out to hurt anyone else. Sometimes we hurt people without meaning to, and being able to forgive is important for rebuilding trust. So be easy on yourself and be easy on your mom. *hugs*

That sounds like a conversation I would have loved to sit in on! I find this stuff fascinating!

Definitely. Chemistry is great for the camera, but not enough for a real life relationship.

I'd say that Ryan's natural defense is to go inwards, where as Erik has other ways to cope. But yes, trying to live up to other people's expectations, regardless of the context, is hard.

Erik really knows how to sell it, doesn't he?

I wouldn't want to leave any spoilers in the reviews, but you're right... there's a 50% chance

Interesting observations about Erik! I think there's more in the next chapter that addresses some of that.