Stories

Website designer Scottie Ness is taking a well-deserved vacation from the grindstone, and he plans to spend it in the solitude of Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest around Mt. Adams. He’s prepared for everything—except the lightning storm that traps him in a wildfire. Or meeting Jax Quintero, an abrasive firefighter whose bulky uniform couldn't hide a jawline chiseled from stone and intense eyes that burned him with scorn. Or was that the flames surrounding them?

Maybe Scottie should have gone to Hawaii on vacation instead.

Plants and animals were my thing. The intricacies of nature intrigued me and yet there was an elegant simplicity that I loved.

6888 Ardra. Heavy gravity planet. Human-compatible atmosphere. Generally temperate climate; I’d aimed for the southern continent which had milder weather and a good mix of terrain.

“Damn Sonez anyway.” He’d tried to keep me on his ship instead of letting me explore the planet with a team after the probe returned. Well I’d stopped his plotting before he could ruin my life.

And I’d show everyone just what Essell Deray could do.

Trevor Carlson is making his way through graduate school. He’s the best friend and beta to the most powerful wolves known to exist. Rather than be swallowed by the shadows of his friend’s success, Trevor’s shown time and again he’s a confident and powerful force who can stand on his own. A summer internship working at his friends pack in California broadens his horizons and reminds him not all education takes place in the classroom.

Thank you to Carlos Hazday for his tireless work as editor and pushing me through writers block to make this story what it is.

Carter Malis thinks he knows exactly when he turned into a self-identified homophobe, and that had to be the moment when Aron Ruskin, his best friend since forever, announced to him that he was going to marry a dude. Great. So there were going to be two Mr. Ruskin’s, and that without counting Aron’s dad.

And here’s this thing. The face staring back from the mirror, the moment he wakes up in a hospital bed, doesn’t belong to him, but to douchebag Alex, aka Aron’s husband. And now he’ll have to talk to Aron, after two years of radio silence.

Under the phases of the moon, Jimmy Coutreau is hunting, following the howls that don't belong. A loner by choice, he finds himself fascinated by Sawyer Thomas, a man who doesn't belong in his world, but here he is anyways.

The last thing fitness guru Heathcliff Stone needs is a babysitter, mainly because the one thing he hates more than his name - courtesy of his mom who, to this day, continues to be a Brontë obsessed reader - is for someone to try to control him.

When the most important company endorsing him sends over a preppy looking guy to keep him on a tight leash, his knee jerk reaction is to send the yuppie packing.

Yet, there is something that stops him from putting the figurative boot in the guy’s ass. Aidan Spark is exactly what the doctor ordered.

(Full summary inside because there's a character limit)

I'm Ian Wright I lost heart ten years ago, when my James died from illness. We were only 25 years old. I was devastated, sinking into a crushing depression for many years. I'm now 34, I took a job as a science teacher at a high school and moved from Florida to Kentucky for a fresh start, never dreaming my life would improve or that I'd ever be happy again.

Adam was a detective in Florida, his life was turned upside down when his pregnant wife up and deserted him without a trace. Unable to locate her after time, he was offered a position with the FBI on a task force. With nothing left to lose, he took the job and moved to Kentucky.

At fifteen, CJ moved to the District of Columbia when his step-father discovered the teen was gay and banished him from their Miami home.

In Washington, living with his biological father and his partner, CJ blossoms thanks in part to the guidance provided by his father’s gay friends.

Jett Huntsman has his business straight, which is to scare schmucks into paying back what’s due. And yeah, he’s making shit tons of money while at it. Mostly because he’s good at it. Not that he brags.

What he’s not good at, though, is how to deal with seeing a crying baby left in front of his house with the self-explanatory message: “Assume responsibility, asshole!”

Jett has no time to think things through. He has schmucks to shake for money. So his kid, if that’s his kid, will have to come with him.

(Full summary inside.)

CJ has spent his first few months in Washington, D.C. living with his father and surrounded by a group of gay men who have become his mentors.

As he begins his sophomore year in high school at School Without Walls, the traumatic events at the end of summer linger. And over the next few months, he begins to explore his new life with visits to Chicago, Miami, and New York City.