Stories

Elisa Davis was a somewhat odd child. Her brother tagged her with the nickname Lis, and it stuck for the rest of her life. Her parents figured out her oddness at a fairly young age. They’d be looking for something - a wallet, watch, car keys, whatever - and sometimes Lis would bring them whatever it was they were looking for. Usually though, she just told them where it was.

I know you’re probably confused right now. That confusion gets resolved in a later (but not much) chapter.

Former Delta Operative, Sam Trammel’s entire world has just collapsed and with no other option, he returns to Florida to bury his twin and his past. Ben Santiago is an Episcopal priest, a man with a checkered past, and a close friend of Sam's family. After a chance meeting brings them together, the two men navigate the tangled web of regret and forgiveness as friendship turns into love despite the obstacle of Sam's PTSD, and his reluctance to move toward Ben instead of away. Family and new friendships help Sam to rebuild and realize that sometimes the path to healing and finding home, is by confronting your past head-on.

Robby, estranged from his brother Tanner after coming out as gay, builds a life with his husband Manny, marked by love, resilience, and family. Over the years, Tanner sends cards for milestones—graduation, birthdays, even Robby’s children’s births—but never bridges the gap in person. Haunted by past betrayals and unwilling to risk his hard-won happiness, Robby wrestles with the meaning of family, forgiveness, and whether some wounds can ever truly heal.

Joshua struggles with painful memories and emotions when he is invited to his family’s Thanksgiving celebration. His boyfriend Marcus steps in to help him through what promises to be an emotional day as they both peel back another layer of their own childhood trauma and learn that they do, in fact, have many things to be thankful for.

Note: Joshua and Marcus first appeared in We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident. Many familiar characters from that story as well as Kept Boy to Made Man will make appearances. This story will reveal hints to many character’s futures.

Two for One

Book 2 The continuing story of Marc Alexander and friends as he navigates life in the family corporation, training, politics, lovers, mining, meetings and pirates. Helping people along the way as he starts his fledgling mining company. More problems than answers that can be easily attained.

This story is a prequel and sequel to my previous story, ‘The Boy on the Porch.’ While that was mostly Brendan’s point of view, this will be from the members of the Taft family's perspectives. It will cover things that happened before Nick was kicked out of his house, hit the necessary high points of what was covered in the first story, then continue on with their later lives, expanding on their pieces of the epilogue contained therein. I initially envisioned it to be Nick's story, but quickly determined it would be fairly short, so they all get some attention.

Prompt #385 –

Brendan Nelson had a tough week at work. He is a Project Manager at a small software company. Nothing went well on his current project. The last delivery to QA (Quality Assurance) was a total failure, the techs couldn't even install it. Add to that, a serious problem in the development of a new feature arose. Finally, on top of that, the customer was screaming about a bug that hadn't been fixed for months, and now it apparently crashed the system. As if things weren't bad at work, he had to come home to a surprise.

A recent college graduate has a painful coming out to his family but gets a surprising response from his father.

A response to Prompt #68:

Imagine where your character leads a pretty decent single life. Then there is a phone call and that life is turned upside down as they find out, they have just become a parent—to a teenager. Is this a cousin that has been left with no other family members? A god child? A niece or nephew? What is this first meeting between them going to be like?

The circumstances whereby Manny obtains guardianship are a little strange, to say the least. Not to mention what happens afterward.

Part of the Lost Soul Series and The Boot World this is Ian and Kevin's story. In the summer of 2011, they move from a rented flat in The Northern Quarter of Manchester to their own house in Prestwich. As couples do they reflect on the past and look forward to the future. Unexpected news changes their lives and gives a glimpse into the past of their friend Manny.

This re-write of the original story posted in 2022, is more than an edit, added dialogue and description tells the story better and has been achieved with the help of raven1.

It may help, but it is not essential, to read the other stories in the series.