Credits rolled. So went another sappy romantic comedy, the third one I’d consumed in as many days. Me. Mister Sensitivity. I’d like to be able to say I didn’t know what was going on with me, but I hadn’t reached the point of lying to myself. Yet. I tapped a key and the tablet went dark. It was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. A fuzzy orange sphere shimmered on the glass tower across the avenue, drenching my office in...

The lit windows looked golden and inviting as my rig rumbled toward the little house at the end of the street. The place wasn’t much to look at and the neighborhood had seen better days. But fresh paint and flower boxes dripping with blue pansies made it feel cheerful and homey.Colleen’s eyes flitted anxiously over my shoulder when she opened the door. “I told you never to come here without calling first,” she hissed. She...

“Hi sweetie!” Margie lifted onto her toes for a peck on the lips before breezing past me with an armload of groceries. I scratched my head and peered up and down the street before closing the door and trailing barefoot after her. “Thought I’d make you something healthy tonight.” The brown paper bag was half empty and water was drumming the stainless steel sink by the time I twirled a chair and straddled the seat. I folded...

Residing between an abandoned amusement park and a seedy strip club, the Parkside Motor Lodge and Cocktail Lounge did its best to distance itself socially from its neighbors. Turquoise script displayed its name in flickering neon while letters that glowed in icy blue and blushing pink promised that every guest would enjoy refrigerated air and the convenience of in-room adult movies. Time and an abiding disappointment in i...

A mottled carpet of leaves flew off the blacktop in the rear view mirror and then fluttered back to earth like butterflies descending on a field of sage. Just another hour, he thought. Brady turned his baseball cap around and depressed his right foot, the force of acceleration driving him deeper into his seat. With a push of a button, fresh air rushed into the cabin to the hum of a sliding glass panel. Brady didn’t know t...

Griff crouched low on the balls of his feet and rocked side to side. A single, clear bead rolled off his chin and darkened the scuffed, brick-red surface between his shoes. He looked up. With a loud pop, a ball spun quickly in his direction and dove sharply toward the ground in front of him. One jab step and an upward swing of his powerful left arm caught the fuzzy sphere at the height of its bounce and sent it screaming...

Gideon tried to walk the straight and narrow path. He rose early for work each morning when there was work to be had. He did his best to busy himself with those things that decent people do. It’s not that trouble had never found Gideon. It had. In fact, trouble had been a constant if mostly unwelcome companion for nearly all his twenty seven years. He had designedly sought it out in those heady, joyful, angry days when he...

Hope crossed her arms tightly across her chest and stared out the conference room window. It was barely nine in the morning and the day was already shit. Sheets of rain pounded the thick glass loudly and the swirling storm clouds reflected her black mood.A gentle shiver vibrated through her body. She never seemed to feel completely dry when she was in Seattle. She never felt warm. Fifty stories up, fuzzy red and white lig...

“Well, it’s over.” Roger Jones tossed his keys on the table near the door. “She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore.” Roger slouched his way into the living room, hands in the pockets of his chinos. His roommate sat on the couch wearing a grey sweatshirt and a pair of plaid boxer shorts. “Sheila? Now there’s a shocker,” said Dennis between slurps of breakfast cereal. “Ohhhhh… Roger, honey, I’m sorry,” call...

Fitz lay crossways on the bed, arms extended upward with a magazine in his hands. Too tired to read, he flipped through pages of advertisements and looked at pictures of refugees. It had been a tough week. Shit, it had been a tough year, he thought. Fucking clients, fucking auditors, fucking pissant bureaucrats… At least having a couple of beers with friends tonight had relaxed him. Becca and Sam always threw a good party...

Thomas Flynn dropped his backpack and looked around as he walked into the third floor walkup. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled halfway up his forearms and its tail draped over the seat of his jeans. “So this is your grandma’s place?” He heard a scuffle behind him and turned in time to catch a flying teenage girl in his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist as she struggled to shed her blouse. A moist, wa...

I’ve never spoken to anyone about what happened that summer, the summer in Italy . Not Cathy, my closest friend. Certainly not my family, although I tried so, so many times to find the courage to tell my sister, thinking, hoping she might understand. But she wouldn’t. My husband? No. It would kill him. It would be the end of us. Not even him. My brother… there, I said it. My brother. God, my little brother. What happened...

I’ve never spoken to anyone about what happened that summer, the summer in Italy . Not Cathy, my closest friend. Certainly not my family, although I tried so, so many times to find the courage to tell my sister, thinking, hoping she might understand. But she wouldn’t. My husband? No. It would kill him. It would be the end of us. Not even him. My brother… there, I said it. My brother. God, my little brother. What happened...

Matthew F. X. Fitzgerald’s morning erection hovered over the sink as he leaned against the vanity. A pair of brown eyes stared blankly back at him from the mirror. Blink. He popped the toothbrush into the brass holder and wandered down the hallway, trying to tuck his stiff joint back into the fly of his pajamas. Damn annoyance, he thought, a waste of good wood. He wondered what his wife had gotten into so early on a Sunda...

Jennifer’s new underwear made her feel sexy and confident. It was almost a shame that she would be expected to remove them before long. She could barely stand the mixture of anxiety and anticipation as the elevator rushed her to the twentieth floor. It had been exactly a week since her last visit to the grand hotel in Boston’s Back Bay. She arrived that evening as a naïve coed and left as an expensive call girl. Jennifer...