Previously on "Come As You Are" -- Four lifelong friends reunite for their ten-year high school reunion -- professional chef Brenda Lattimore, celebrity video game streamer Sadie Green (nee Bedford), recently engaged ski instructor Michelle Min, and local business owner Collette Hansen. Over drinks and dinner the night before the reunion, the girls discover...
Little Audrey's mother was the worst sort of doting Supermom, and every year she had a painstakingly homemade costume. This year, she wore a papier-mâché pumpkin, capped off with an orange saucepan lid for a hat which kept slipping off to the side. "Jim! My hat!" she ordered once again. "I'll have to start charging you snacks to fix this for you," Jim said...
Chapter Two - The Flop Tiffany's earliest memories are of her as a young boy growing up in the Midwest. To say that her upbringing was difficult would be an understatement. Although not particularly small for his age Tom Robinson was very lithe and almost effeminate in manner. From the outset Tom knew he was different. He began to feel trapped in a body in...
We left the campground about 10 AM and had a 3-4 hour trip ahead of us through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were on our way to Cades Cove which had been an isolated valley in East Tennessee prior to the establishment of the park. We had a reservation for a site in the Cades Cove Campground. The sites were primitive, but showers and drinking wa...
Tracey Prosser had driven to the beach that warm, autumn evening, after completing her school marking. She had taught for 10 years and was aware that her pupils saw her as bossy, but she did not mind that at all. Tracey liked order in her classroom and in her life. However in the past few months her ordered life had fallen apart. Her relationship with fellow...
I was born when my brother, Luke, was six, so there was always a gap between us in everything we did. We were distant enough for years that by the time we started having mutual interests, it was awkward to share with each other. When Luke entered high school, he made friends with Simon. They were inseparable. For a while I was jealous that this new person co...
The following story is fiction and does not describe any real person or situation in particular. All characters are at least eighteen. This is the third chapter to a series based on a very flexible girl in the high school color guard and her college age instructor. I encourage everyone to read parts 1 and 2 before reading this chapter. Nice or constructive c...
The table was covered with empty plates and full wine glasses as the boisterous babble of a long late summer evening wafted into the darkness surrounding the Dexter's pool. I had taken a brief recess to check the Red Sox score on my phone when I was suddenly pulled back into the moment by a question from my wife, Jill. "What do you think, Derek?" "Huh? Wha...
Andy Andy Miller's day had begun as it usually did. Up early, dressing and then going into the room his mom shared with his little sis to say goodbye. His mother worked as a waitress taking the evening and night shifts but she always wanted him to wake her before he left since she wouldn't be home when he returned from work and he would be asleep when she r...
Dedicated to my friend Vickie Tern Author's Notes: M and M Coltsfoot is a work of fiction. The characters and plot represent no known people or actions. The geographical locations in Texas and elsewhere are quite real, however, and described as best as the author can make such description. The same is true of the several universities mentioned in the story...