Dreams of Winters Past

A collection of four holiday stories to warm a winter night. The Half-Life of Pumpkin Pie Wil Johnson's holiday season is off to a crappy start: the pie he takes to Thanksgiving dinner bombs, and then he gets word his payment at the bakery didn't go through. When he goes to the shop to pay up, though, he meets Vin Hammel, who invites Wil to a toy-themed holiday party. But when the pair arrive, they find the toys aren't exactly what they expected. Sharing Christmas Christmas looks to be a bust for Rick, who's stuck covering the office over the holiday. But when his neighbor, Steven, invites him to join some residents in their apartment complex who put together gift bags to distribute at a homeless shelter for the holiday, Rick decides to join them and gets an unexpected holiday gift: Steven. Of Holiday Spirits, Wake-Up Calls, and Happily Ever Afters After Guy staggers home after a raucous Christmas Eve with his closest friends, he's visited by a spirit who looks suspiciously like Teddy, the friend Guy's secretly crushing on. Guy needs to learn the lessons of the past—and make the right choices in the present—so his future will be less about one night and more about forever. In From the Cold When Jeff Young walks into the rural Georgia lodge Neal Owens, he's just looking for a room to escape a few frigid late December nights. What he ends up finding is a new friend, a lover, and maybe more, all wrapped up in one hot package. All stories have been previously published.