st. louis

Chapter 1. I was surprised to see his message, shocked really. Seeing his name again after all these years, the memories and emotions came flooding back in an instant. “Hi, this is Marcus, from Herbie’s. Do you remember me?” Of course I remembered him. He was my first love. He had changed my...

Jason and Liam had both lived in St. Louis’s Central West End for years, yet their paths had never crossed until SilverDaddies brought them together. Jason, 62, kept himself in excellent shape—lean muscle from regular gym sessions and long walks through Forest Park. Liam, 55, carried a softer...

I'm Phil, 55 years old, from Kansas City. For years I'd kept this part of myself locked away—married life, kids, the straight façade everyone expected. But lately the wanting had grown louder, impossible to ignore. I booked the Chase Park Plaza on purpose. I'd read enough online to know the...

The summer of 1978 hung heavy over St. Louis, the air thick with heat and the smell of cut grass. Parkway Central’s pool had just closed for the season, and the locker room still echoed with the ghosts of chlorine and teenage bravado. Dale Thompson, nineteen and freshly graduated, stood under...

David Thompson stepped into the dimly lit bar of the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton, Missouri, the soft hum of conversation and clinking glasses enveloping him like a warm embrace. At 62, he was a successful business consultant from Kansas City, in town for his Washington University college reunion...

The Arch loomed over the Mississippi like a silver question mark, catching the late-afternoon sun in a way that made Richard Harlan squint from the driver’s seat of his leased Audi. Sixty-two years old, divorced for eight of them, and still parking in the same underground garage beneath the bank...

Mark smoothed his shirt in his modest St. Louis apartment, a flutter of anticipation in his chest. At 30, he was settling into a new city, a new job at an accounting firm, and tonight, a new social venture. David and Nathan, two guys he’d met at the Jewish Community Center pool, had invited him...