Custom Sort - Stories

Prompt #265

Write a story that begins with a phone call at three in the morning.

Trevor insisted the house phone be on his side of the bed. There was one problem with that; Trevor was nearly impossible to wake up. One night, the phone rings at three AM. Julius has a hard time waking Trevor, but finally succeeds. Trevor finally answers the phone on the ninth ring. The phone call starts something they never could have expected.

When Matteo Romano, a straight Italian guy, convinces his best friend Adrian to pretend to be his boyfriend to keep his ex away, things get complicated fast. What starts as a harmless favor turns into late nights, lingering touches, and the kind of tension neither of them can keep pretending about.

Aethan's Reign is the story of Aethan Valorian and his thousand year long reign over the fallen Cathesan Empire. Witness his rise from exiled prince to powerful Emperor and the slow development of his relationship with the volatile Prince Bhal-Ghor as they strive to build a new Empire from the remnants of the old following a dark age.

Colt's temper got him expelled. Now he's starting over in a small town where he meets Noah, a quiet, bookish boy next door hiding a terrible secret. As their friendship deepens into first love, Colt discovers that Noah's stepfather has been abusing him for years. Desperate to protect the boy he loves, Colt agrees to a dangerous plan. But the guilt of his choices and the friends he's made over the summer may be the only things that can save them both.

A washed-up captain steals an alien saucer, crashes it into a pre-spaceflight civilization, and accidentally abducts a terrified teenage local. Now he's stranded with a hostile hostage, a sarcastic AI, and a teleporter that turns livestock inside out. To make things worse, his estranged husband is tracking him across the galaxy—and the real owners of the ship want everyone dead. A chaotic sci-fi romp about bad decisions, found family, and learning that running from your problems just creates bigger ones.

Poems about my relationship with God

The siege is over. The city is theirs. But for Darien Haskal and his feral Vanguard, the real war has just begun. Raymond of Toulouse has seized the Holy Lance and declared himself God's chosen commander. Baldwin of Edessa plots from the north, hungry for revenge. And somewhere in the Sultan's tent, a prince's back is being carved open to pay for Antioch's fall. The Vanguard marches south alone—extorting coastal cities, hunting spies in the hills, and building a sanctuary for outcasts. Jerusalem waits. But the road is paved with fanatics, betrayal, and the corpses of kings.

Robert, a contract assassin, is asked to kill Senator Elias Hutchinson but refuses, wanting to leave his violent life behind. When another killer is hired for the job, Robert turns against his former employers, battling rival assassins, Chinese hitmen, a persistent Homeland Security agent, and a mysterious newcomer. As the threat from the organization’s leader, Mehment, grows, Robert races to identify and stop his replacement before it’s too late.

Yorkshire, 1901. A baronet's younger son learns the duties of an estate he will never fully inherit. A groom who survived the Boer War tends horses he has known longer than the young master himself.

Between them: the precise distance that rank requires, and everything that accumulates in the space it creates.

Loose Box is a quiet story about two men who never say what they mean — because one has no words for it, and the other already knows.

Johnny Day the top surfer in the California surf scene. He is the top surfer until finds there is more to his life then surfing.