Matt's tongue was hanging out even before they entered Loudon County in Perry's Mustang, as well-groomed estate after large country mansion rolled by in gorgeous rolling countryside along the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As an architecture student, he was in heaven. He was wearing a new form-fitting shirt and slacks from Joseph A. Banks and...
"You are the stirring in my loins" James told me on Saturday when I had paired him in the bowling club. "It is alright until you bend over to make your bowl but then my eyes are focused on something other than how many you are going to knock down." I thought he was having a laugh but then I saw he wasn't laughing, it was the look in his eyes and his volati...
I knew before we drove past it to the next lane, where we turned off to where the winery was being constructed, that I'd recognize it. And yet it caught me by surprise when I saw it, the stately manor house with the white columns that gleamed in morning light. Castleton. My grandmother had shown me faded photographs of it, of the family lounging on the steps...
Alphonse waved happily to the captain on shore as he tossed the ropes over onto the dock and pushed the sailboat off into the water, out onto Lake Pontchartrain. The captain had the oddest expression on his face, as if he regretted something or felt guilty about something. And perhaps he did. Perhaps he was worried about the welfare of his boat. Alphonse nev...
The cyclist was racing along the top of the Mississippi levee, anxious to get back into Natchez before the rains hit. Sweating profusely in the humidity and under the blazing late afternoon sun, intent on doing its worst before twilight set in, he stripped his jersey off and wrapped it around the handlebars of the bike. It was almost dusk now, and the storm...
I didn't go to the gym to work out after my class as I'd told my roommate, Trent, I was going to do. I don't really know why I didn't do that. I was just so nervous and frustrated and jumpy that a good workout was probably just what I needed, but my mind wasn't on that sort of workout. My mind was on Trent, and I was just so embarrassed and confused and, yes...
"What? Studying on a beautiful Sunday morning?" Caught by surprise, Matt slipped the letter into the center drawer of his dorm desk and looked up at the door to see that his sometimes roommate, Perry Fitzhugh, was standing in the open doorway, dressed to the nines in his polo outfit. Matt hadn't even known what a polo outfit was—high leather boots rising to...
"I'll show them." Alex thought as he walked along the highway. "I can make it on my own. I'm not just some spoiled rich kid." Alex turned and stuck out his thumb as yet another car sped past him. "Damn! Why won't anyone stop?" He walked on, his belly rumbled and he sighed. All the money he'd brought he had spent. To his dismay his credit cards had been can...
"I know you got somebody in there, Jamal." Terrell said, buttonholing his friend on the steps of the building. "You don't know nothing. You hearing things. Told you to stay off of that PCP shit." Jamal said, bending over to retie his shoe. "What the fuck you doing spying on me anyway, dog?" "Who's spying? I can't walk past your window anymore? Maybe you sh...
Marty reckoned Danver's as a bitch. Not in the way that term is usually applied, but in his own way the old guy was a bigger bitch than his son Eric. Sure, it had been Eric that put out for him, but Danver's showed a special kind of bitchiness. He hadn't accepted lightly an employee interfering with his kin and had thrown him out of a job. Marty should have...