Tin Toys

By Hollis Shiloh

Mark would recognize that robot toy anywhere. It used to belong to his childhood buddy, Bren.  

Is this really Bren, all grown up?

For Mark, meeting Bren again brings up old memories … and new feelings.  Will tin toys bring them together … or keep them apart?

approx. 6,000 word - sweet gay romance short story

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spare Words Press
• Release date: Jan 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386050285

Book preview

Tin Toys

by Hollis Shiloh

Mark stared down at the tattered cardboard box filled with Japanese-made tin robot toys from the 1950s.  He lifted one of the robots — not in good condition, but it could have been worse.  He turned it over slowly, heart pounding.

Yes.  That scratch that had stripped away colorful paint, revealing the silvery tin beneath.  He recognized that scratch.  It rolled back the haze of forgotten childhood.  The robot was familiar as only a child's toy can be.

He rubbed his thumb over it gently for a moment.  Then he raised his eyes slowly, trying to calm his frantic heartbeat.  The man who'd handed him the box — that man would've been a boy twenty years ago, same as he.  Six or seven.  Just little. 

He'd always shared so nicely.  Toys he'd inherited from some relative, a big box of toys.  A lonely little boy, and Mark's very best friend in the world, before he moved away the next year.

Funny, he'd barely glanced at the man with his hunched posture and mumbled question about how much the toys were worth.  He was used to giving free estimates, especially at a trade fair like this that had lots of casual buyers and sellers wandering through.

This guy, though.  Mark's spine prickled. 

Bren.  This was definitely Bren.  It was short for something longer, like Brendon or Brent, but he'd known the little blond boy as Bren.  His very own little buddy.

He remembered putting his arms around the other boy and kissing him on the cheek.  It had felt natural at that age, nothing to be ashamed of, before the fear of being gay took over and kept him away from the love he longed to give, in friendship or in crushes. 

Oh, but those had been some hard years.  It had taken time to adjust