Stories

Begin Again starts with one coffee. That had been the whole plan.

Evan wasn't looking for complicated. He had enough of it—a life he'd never settled into, a house in Wicklow he didn't know what to do with, and a habit of leaving before anyone could ask him to stay.

Then he meets Cian, an Irish arborist who is steady, direct, and clear about what he wants.

One night becomes another morning, a spare shirt, and a man who won't pretend this is less than it is. The sex is easy. Letting Cian see him afterward isn't.

Evan knows how to leave before anyone matters. Cian knows how much of that he'll tolerate.

What happens when a thick, sarcastic factory worker walks into a boulder gym and straight into the hands of two men who want him exactly as he is. Very explicit. No fade to black.

Noah Montgomery turned his grief into a phenomenon.

Years after losing the man he loved, Noah writes a bestselling novel inspired by their story.

But while traveling across the country on a sold-out book tour, Noah catches sight of someone impossible.

Matthew.

Alive.

The man Noah buried years ago is standing right in front of him. Only Matthew doesn't remember who he is.

Told across dual timelines, is an emotional, aching queer romance about first love, grief, fate, and the devastating question:

What happens when your soulmate can no longer remember your love story?

When a blizzard traps Arthur and the mall's chaotic security guard Flip in a dark, freezing apartment, they expect a night of awkward small talk. What they don't expect is the electric tension that's been building across the concourse for months—or the discovery that Flip's not as straight as he thought. Two days of forced proximity, instant coffee, and improvised fires spark something neither can ignore. But when the snow stops, Flip has a choice: walk away, or risk everything for the man who made him feel seen for the first time.

When a straight guy accidentally comes out as gay at work, the sudden attention is too good to lose. To keep the act going, he asks his straight-passing best bro to pose as his boyfriend for the company gala. It’s a foolproof plan that can’t go wrong—until it does.

A complete story in three parts.

After a long day of physical work, Mihai returns home and asks Lorenzo to kneel and remove his boots. What begins as a simple act of service becomes the first true test of the trust, shame, desire, and power growing between them.

Fresh out of his master’s, openly gay Marc dives into a high-pressure Munich consultancy and straight into the orbit of his cold, closeted boss, Frank. When a “running group” becomes their private ritual, breathless runs, heated glances, and charged locker-room moments ignite a tension neither of them can outrun.

Cwtch is a Welsh word, translated into English it means a hug, but the meaning is deeper and more profound than a simple hug. When you give someone a cwtch you also give them a safe place and this is what twenty something Londoner Harry gives Welsh farmboy Aled. The story tells how two souls find each other, and recognise one another immediately. It is attraction, but also love at first sight, although true love is never easy.

This story is also published under the title Eighteen Years by E K Stokes.