Stubble Buddy Novels & Stories

The day before the spacecraft launch, I am anonymously reported for concealing a mental illness and lose my qualification to board. After being confined in a psychiatric hospital for three years, my husband, Simon Bergman, who is now a decorated figure in the aerospace field, personally brings me home. "I had no choice but to send you there. I even applied to be demoted just to bring you back. Let's just live our lives well from now on," Simon says. Burdened by guilt for affecting his career, I spend the rest of my life carefully taking care of him and busying myself in the kitchen as a dutiful wife. But before I die, my daughter finds the letter accusing me of having a mental condition—it is written in my husband's own hand. She also discovers decades of correspondence between him and a deceased war buddy's widow named Charmaine Marlowe. In those letters, he writes that to fulfill his buddy's dying wish to take care of Charmaine, he fabricates a false mental illness record and inserts it into my astronaut application. As a result, I was sent to the psychiatric hospital, and my position was taken by her. The glass shatters, and the sharp fragments pierce me, like they are stabbing into my heart. I was supposed to be the one to go to space. But my husband sacrificed my chance so that another woman could have it! I die in despair. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day of the astronaut selection for the manned spacecraft launch. This time, when Simon offers to help submit my application, I refuse to let him.

On day two of Matthew's so-called business trip, I was wiping down the counter when I said, "Auri, play some music." Instead of music, a syrupy voice chirped, "Sure thing, my Baby Moon. Oh, and Matthew, don't forget Bibi's birthday surprise tonight." I froze. The speaker blasted some random playlist, but all I heard was 'Bibi.' Matthew Kein was my husband. So who the hell was Bibi? I called him. "Did you mess with our smart speaker?" A beat of silence, then his fake laugh. "Oh, a buddy dropped by. Probably logged his account in. Why?" I laughed back like I bought it, then hung up. Two taps later, I was scrolling the login history, already hailing a cab to the company tied to that mystery account.

My wife—Nancy Valente—had been "missing" for three months after some fake skiing accident. I spotted her at a bar. She was draped over Finley Bennett's shoulder, laughing like she hadn't wrecked my life. "Good thing you came up with this plan. I almost forgot what freedom felt like." Her crew kept clinking glasses, asking when she planned to pop back up. She glanced down. "Maybe in a week. I'll show up once he's lost his mind." I stayed in the shadows, watching her bask in her little escape act. Then I grabbed my phone and called a buddy at the Vital Records Office.

“Why are you in daze again?” Hillary asked Kath when she caught her staring at the passenger for too long. Kath quickly switched her look elsewhere, like she hadn't done what her buddy had said. "I'm not! I'm not!" she lied, but her companion noticed her holding the square cufflink with a jade stone in it. Katherine Del Valle has been hunting for the owner of the cufflink for 10 years, but while she is looking, she meets a domineering passenger on the plane and tries to entice her. What would happen if she fell in love with him? Can he help her find the owner of the cufflink, or will he be the one to derail her plan?

I dropped off lunch for my husband at the Conglomerate HQ, only to bump into my ex from two years ago. The man who'd ditched me at our marking ceremony to go "take care of his sister." I'd changed my hair, my makeup, everything. But he spotted me in the crowd as if it were nothing. "Elena, I'm back to finish what we started. Happy now?" I felt that familiar knot of doubt in my gut. "Sorry, who are you again...?" He let out a shaky laugh. "Babe, come on. Don't be mad. I didn't mean to leave you hanging. The ceremony back then? Ivy's wolf spirit was too weak. I had to find the Wolf God ruins to pray for her. She's my only sister; I couldn't just watch her fade." "Yeah, the healing took a while. So, I got myself an assignment overseas." "Anyway, I just got her wolf spirit stabilized, and I rushed back to bring you home to the packhouse!" That's when it hit me. This scruffy guy, with the stubble and all… this was my ex-fiancé. No. Did nobody tell him? The night he walked out on me? I married his uncle. Alpha Damian. The Wolf King.

Jade Gold, the youngest daughter of the sword-wielding Gold family, is given a task. Before she can inherit her position in the palace as Imperial Advisor, King Greyson sets her out with a task: and that is to conquer evil and save the world... Only that it isn't that simple. She has to round up a few mercenaries and build her army... Because contending with a few hundred-year-old Witch's adversaries isn't something that any person can do. The optimistic runaway prince, Roc Chadwick and his best buddy Sky Yale, an amnesiac martial artist he saved, are among the finalists for the inexperienced Jade's mercenaries, but what will happen when both men vie for her affections? Will Jade choose to ignore her feelings for duty, or will she be torn between both men? Read on to find out!

During a gathering with friends, my husband, Kevin Graham, was asked a question by his buddy in Froise. "What are you going to do with your lover, who's two months pregnant with your baby?" Kevin smiled while helping me cut up my steak, and he replied in Froise, "Evie doesn't like children. I'll get Kandi Chutnam to give birth to the baby and send them overseas after that. At least I'll have a child of my own." Tears streamed down my cheek as I ate my steak, and Kevin asked nervously, "What's wrong, Evie?" I wiped away my tears and replied with a smile, "I must've used too much hot sauce." However, there was no hot sauce on the table. I was crying because I understood Froise.

When the zombie apocalypse hit, pets leveled up into guardians. Three per person. That was the cap. My buddy dropped serious cash on three Caucasian Shepherds. My landlord dumped his fish and started raising crocodiles. My girlfriend bolted to the zoo and came back with a lion. Me? I had three strays. Bubba—blind. Missy—lame. Snowy—barely a month old. The second the system locked pet slots, I knew I was screwed. I barricaded myself inside with my three "broken" cats and kept my head down. Day one—fear. Day two—helpless. Day three—the cats strolled back in, tails up, dragging something I didn't recognize. Bubba looked at me. "Dad, I bit off every zombie head on the block. I'm solid, right?" I just stared.

Evelyn Ithaca, a single mother, moves with her son back to her hometown in the hope of things getting better for them. She, being a powerful witch, has ‘supposedly' been saving her son's life as he seems to have a terrible sickness only her magic can keep at bay. Things got a little weird for Evelyn when she began to develop feelings for Damon, a young handsome werewolf whom she has eight years on. Their relationship starts up swiftly and is repeatedly interrupted by no one else but her ex, who happens to be the Principal at her son's school...and apparently more. Lucas, her son, manages to get himself into a relationship with Tilda and it is even weirder than his mother's own as the love triangle which he finds himself in happens to have his newly found buddy in it.

After my husband's car accident, I did a checkup and found out he had a malignant brain tumor. Instead of telling him right away, I stuck the report in my bag, planning to wait for the right moment. Guess what? He found it first—and thought I was the one with the tumor. A few days later, I overheard him in his office, laughing with a buddy: "My wife? No looks, no figure, just money—and now she's got a brain tumor. Talk about a win for me. If Rainee hadn't gone abroad, I'd never have married her. Bad luck, huh? At least I dodged the kid bullet. Once she's gone, I get everything." Then he pulled the amnesia card, blamed it on the accident, and started treating Rainee like his wife. He even welcomed her into our house. I smiled and said, "Nathan, let's get a divorce."