Stories

My best friend Maison agreed to kitten sit for his older sister as a peace offering. He wasn’t banking on losing one of them.

Jemya Hanlon was born on Benteen, a planet settled 500 years earlier from Old Earth. But the lines of communication with the mother world were broken after only 200 years, and the colonists have been on their own ever since. Jem was raised in the cold northern lands of New Australia, the only continent where the settlers have a foothold. The nearby town of Nocksic Bay is a seaport, where the ships sail forth to hunt the great orx, a staple seafood of the settlers. Jem has longed dreamed of going to sea, and now he has his chance. And he is just in time to encounter a new mystery, one that may change the settler’s lives forever!

"My grand-father always used to say that everything that happens to us in life happens for a reason. And when we look back on our lives there are some moments that just seem to stick in our minds forever and I can now see what he meant by that."

For Scott Fraser there was one such moment that he remembers well. It was the time when, as a teenager, he saved the life of a young boy who was about to be swept out to sea.

What he couldn't have prepared himself for, however, was what would happen when that same boy comes back into his life some years later . . .

John Winston III is as rich as the king of England. So, when he meets the love of his life, he pretends to be a poor struggling writer. The web of deception grows more and more complicated.

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.

To have someone to love is one of life’s greatest gifts, his grandma used to say. However, what grandma didn’t know, and Otis didn’t have the heart to tell her, was that getting there in this day and age required going through a painful phase called dating. Something he’s not very good at, to put it lightly. However, when someone moves in an apartment a few doors down from his, Otis begins to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Full summary inside.

Being the oldest and growing up in a large family can be hard, especially when you are gay and the family is extremely homophobic. You are constantly being compared to your deceased father. A man whose stature and deeds are always increasing, as time goes by, and are held up as your goals. Anytime you reach those goals, your mother moves the goalpost further away.

You never seem to measure up. You are always being told that you are worthless and will never amount to anything since you cannot measure up to your father. It never mattered that you were a straight "A" student and that you were an athlete.

How close can Kenan come to the flame before he gets burned? Will love cauterize fresh wounds or will it blister? Just how hot is Asher? (Very)

Jackson is a Senior in high school. Everything seems to be coming together to make this the best year yet.