Robin doesn't want to be a tutor. Tyler doesn't want to be tutored. So why are their tutoring sessions always running late? *** After an illness-stricken childhood, Robin Erie struggles to free himself from his mother's suffocating embrace. Her plan for him is clear: he's to excel in school, take over his late father's business, and marry a suitable girl of her choosing. Initially, college life offers nothing different from Robin's controlled and monotonous existence. Not until he meets Tyler Caster, a former soccer prodigy who struggles with restraints of his own after an accident took his left leg and made him crutch-bound. Tyler's sweet smile makes Robin dream of freedom and excitement. Through a string of candy-filled tutoring sessions, Robin and Tyler grow close. Very close. Perhaps they're even flirting? Robin isn't sure, but he wants to find out. But he knows he can't let his mother find out about his bond with Tyler, since Robin has started to suspect that her influence over him might be more nefarious than he previously suspected. Will Robin be able to break free from his mother's shackles to explore his budding feelings for Tyler?

Tallulah Horn has decided love isn't for her. Love is for cliche romance movies. It's for the students she counsels on a daily basis. It's for her ridiculously perfectly-matched brother and sister-in-law who wound up head over heels without even trying. But for the sweet Miss Horn? Love is a thing of her past rather than her future. At least, not until she runs into Lance Caster. Literally. Now she can't get his warm, sweet eyes--the perfect cup of tea--out of her head. Lance Caster is lost. After a string of unfortunate encounters, he's been discharged from the army--honorably on paper but not in reality--and is stuck in his childhood home, unsure how to get his life back on track. He never pictured himself working as a security guard on a university campus, but the proximity to a certain peppy counselor isn't without allure. Both Lance and Tallulah are hesitant to avoid the mistakes of their past, but like a pot of tea, their relationship grows stronger and sweeter each moment spent together. But too much fire might spoil the pot, and boiling secrets from the past risk brewing into bitterness as Tallulah's estranged husband steps back into the picture.

||OUTLANDERxVIKINGS|| Greenland 1406: In the dim sunlight of a rare midnight eclipse--when the moon shades the never-setting sun of polar summer--the last Vikings escape Greenland's frozen shores on a longship, leaving doors ajar and fires burning. They don't know where they're going but they know they can't stay. Left on the shore stands Björn the Bearslayer, covered in the blood of his fellow Norsemen. He risked it all for his love Gudrun, a seer who was forced into marriage with Björn's father. Now he's befallen with a curse sealed in bear blood and has become more beast than man. Greenland, present day: After a disastrous break-up, Saga escapes to Greenland, hoping a few summer weeks in the glow of the midnight sun will provide her with the respite she seeks. But instead, a mystical artifact etched with runes pulls her into the saga of Björn the Bearslayer. Alongside charming whale-safari guide Mikk, Saga discovers the truth about the last Vikings in Greenland. As Saga learns Björn's story, she realizes that she is not just a passive bystander to the unfolding narrative but the key to how it ends. Perhaps the beast of the past is still out there somewhere. Will she be able to bring a happy ending to a tragic saga six hundred years in the making and will she mend her aching own heart in the process?

Life keeps handing Tyler bitter treats. At fifteen, his mom leaves him and his little sister to fend for themselves. At sixteen, he focuses on receiving a soccer scholarship to gain the security and independence he so desperately craves. At eighteen, his car spins off a bridge, and he loses his leg and the sports career he fought so hard to build. Consumed by bitterness and despair, Tyler returns to college. The one taste of sweetness in his life is Robin Erie, the shy student-tutor assigned to help him catch up. They bond over textbooks and treats, and studying soon turns to flirting, which evolves to kissing. But when bitter forces try to tear them apart, Tyler must face his fear of getting abandoned once again to find happiness with his sweet crush. *** This is a mirror story to my previous story Sweet Little Birds, telling the story from Tyler's POV, also including snippets of his story before he met Robin.

Araminta was called a witch. Now she's gone. And the last person who saw her is looking for answers. *** A Good Girl's Guide To Murder x Wednesday *** Two years ago, Araminta Green disappeared. Her neighbor and classmate Jordan Thompson was the last person who saw her, walking through a graveyard in the early morning hours. Jordan was intimidated by Araminta. With her pale-powdered face, black lips, spider-web eyeliner, and her love for tarot reading, it was no wonder that people speculated that Araminta was a witch. But Jordan was also intrigued by her dark aura, sensing that she may be as lonely as him. Maybe if he had reached out to her back then, she wouldn't be missing now. When Jordan is tasked with creating an investigative podcast for a college course, there is no question about which case he wants to delve into. With his cat Kiki as his co-pilot, Jordan sets off to answer the question of what happened to Araminta, even as his recordings constantly get disrupted by a cawing crow in the background. Following the trail of Araminta, Jordan discovers truths both about his missing classmate and himself, because while he hasn't vanished he is definitely lost as well. Will he be able to find both himself and Araminta? *** An ONC novella using prompt #81: The town's witch has gone missing and no one is looking for her but her two familiars - a crow and a black cat, plus the teen who has always been scared of her.