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Looking for a steady supply of romance short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Romance Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. From the thrill of a first date to a snapshot tour through an entire relationship, our collection of romantic short stories will give you everything your heart desires.

Romance Short Stories – Page 2 of 10

Always, Harri

Submitted to Contest #317

This sofa was always going to be an opulent purchase. “It’s absolutely, fucking ridiculous, Shell!” That’s what you had said when we first slumped down onto it in the store, laughing. But even though you'd complained at the ‘mad’ price, I knew you loved it really. It does feel ridiculous now - massive - without you sat at the other end. I snap my gaze back into focus. Try to continue reading, through watery eyes and ragged breaths. Your absence presses itself upon my ribcage, jutting between them into my lungs, my heart. How am I supposed to...

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You're Still Here?

Submitted to Contest #317

I can’t breathe. The tears keep strangling me. I keep asking myself why this is so painful. It’s tickling my brain. But, I can’t help it. Magdy’s large hand on my shoulder is my only solace. But I can sense he doesn’t understand. “Enough, Ahmed!” he pleads. “What the hell happened for you to do this to yourself?!” I try to answer, but it’s difficult to speak in between sporadic gasps. Magdy grabs the tissues off the bedside table and hands me two. I press the tissues against my nose and blow. The interruption of blowing helps my breathing ...

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The Archduke and the Bench

Submitted to Contest #317

In a field of artificial grass, locked in the embrace of a grand Imperial palace, is a small, gray bench. If you took a picture of the palace’s marble staircase, you would capture the best angle just in front of the bench on the gravel path. Maybe you would catch the bleeding glow of the sunrise if the frame shifted slightly left. You might even listen for the clop of a hoof, signaling the approach of a horse drawn carriage, and time the shot just as the horses dash underneath the marble leg of their legendary counterpart, the steed of Archd...

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The Cost of Remembering

Submitted to Contest #317

I never went back to the times we had sex. In my mind, I had, of course. But in real life, I couldn’t go there. It felt like a violation. So I went back to our second kiss. It had happened the day after our first kiss, and I barely had time to worry if I would ever see her again. She’d texted me as soon as my key was in the ignition, and I’d checked it fast in the silence of my car. Tomorrow? she’d written, Industry Beach? But that was only in my memory, which was riddled with holes. I couldn’t remember the feel of my car’s interior, for ins...

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The Oyster

Submitted to Contest #317

It was day five of her self prescribed writer’s retreat; she had booked this getaway in hopes of breaking through her current creative roadblock. So far, she had managed to find an amazing cottage, beautiful walking paths and a variety of area coffee shops and diners; sustenance, caffeine and people watching were vital parts of the writing process. Her pen had touched paper only to sign receipts and the extensive writing that had occurred, a few small business reviews. Perhaps a change of scenery was what she needed tonight.The Oyster fit th...

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The Echo Between Us

Submitted to Contest #317

Carlie Sommers didn't believe in ghosts. At least, not the kind of ghosts who rattled their chains or whispered through walls, but she did have a belief in echoes---which were memories that stood around in the corners of her mind. These memories were soft and persistent. One of them was like the smell of Luca's cologne left behind on a winter coat that she hadn't worn in years. She was thirty-eight now, recently divorced, and a proud mother of two: a nine-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl. And still, Lucas was the name she whispered whe...

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What the Glass Holds

N M

Submitted to Contest #317

There—across the street under that green awning, wrestling with his umbrella—him.Elara's coffee cup shatters against the café floor. The sound cuts through morning conversations like a blade—sharp crack, then the scatter-rain of porcelain against tile. Each white fragment catches fluorescent light like broken teeth. Steam rises from bitter dregs pooling around her feet, the coffee dark and spreading.The barista glances up—concern creasing her young face, that practiced sympathy of someone who's swept up a thousand small disasters. The busine...

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Time Walker

Submitted to Contest #317

When I was a child, my mother told me a story about a time walker who was born in the 20th century but traveled through time to find her one true love and settle in the 18th century to live out her days with the man she loved and their children. “How do you know who time walkers are? What do they look like?” I asked. “Their second toe is longer than their first toe,” she answered with a smile. “But, my second toe is longer than my first toe, and your second toe is longer than your first one, does that mean we are time walkers?” “Maybe. It’s...

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Leap Year

Submitted to Contest #317

One year is never enough. Four seasons. One trip around the sun. The cycle continues and it's never enough. Time eludes us, slips away unseen because there is no such thing as time, except there is, at least in how we experience things, and isn't that the same damn thing if it hurts us as much as it does? Time goes on. Time heals all wounds. Time is what destroyed me, ripped away the only love I've ever experienced and took Wren from me. Time doesn't heal, it murders and steals and cheats and lies to us each and every day when we're not payi...

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Fate on Asphalt

Submitted to Contest #317

Pow!! “Aghhh!” The sound erupted from my throat as my back slams against the hot asphalt. The ground feels unforgiving, heat searing through my thin shirt. My mind races, trying to process what just happened. For a moment, all I can hear is the distant hum of traffic, the rushing in my ears, and the sharp crack of my own heartbeat against my skull. I force my eyes open. The world is a blur sunlight slicing across my vision, buildings tilting as if they’ve slipped off their foundations. When my sight clears, I’m greeted not by sky or stranger...

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A Love From Beyond

Submitted to Contest #317

A LOVE FROM BEYONDDedicated to my Uncle Paul, whose singing cello led me into music If you could bring back your loved ones back from the dead, this planet would collapse under the weight of all the souls.But I believe they’re all around us, in the wind and the rain, in the morning gold and the twilight blue. We can’t see them anymore but the veil between the worlds is thin. Every now and then the veil tears open and a soul slips through. How else can I explain what happened to me and those around me, changing our lives forever?It began last...

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Up the Goblin Market

Submitted to Contest #317

Content notice: it's a bit sexy. (I hope.) This didn’t feel like sleep. But the space between getting here, and what came before - all darkness. She remembered her desk, her monitor, the cursor blinking unhelpfully. Imagination and history were one big knot she couldn't unravel. By the monitor, the one in her memory, she saw berry tea steeped so long it was basically syrup. Nothing else. What obsession had drawn her so far in she’d lost the way back? She drew in breath and let it out slowly, holding herself still. When she wrote, it sometime...

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When Time Finds Us

Submitted to Contest #317

Alex had never believed in fate, or punctuality. She was always five minutes late to everything, especially to the charming, old-fashioned coffee shop on Maple Street. One rainy Monday, as she dashed through the door, she collided with a tall, awkward man holding a pocket watch.“Oh! Sorry,” she stammered.He smiled, brushing rain from his brown curls. “No harm done. I’m James.”Over coffee, they chatted about everything, music, history, bad dates. James was a little odd. He wore vintage clothes, spoke like he’d stepped out of a black-and-white...

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A rift in time and space

Submitted to Contest #317

I woke in a haze, strange sounds around me muffled by the ringing in my ears. An unusual smell of stale bread and wet fur shifts around my aching body. I drag myself into a sitting position, forcing my eyes open against the blazing sun. The bright white stings, bringing tears to the corner of my eyes. But the heat—well, there was none. The rays caress my skin like a damp cloth soothing a fever. Relief and exhilaration wash over me as my eyes flutter open. The world before me is like a dream or a game centred on a faraway planet or realm. T...

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Unchanged

Submitted to Contest #317

We hadn't seen each other in five months. That was what we agreed on. Five months, while arbitrary, was what my therapist and I had worked out during our (what felt like hundredth) call about the break. She thought five months would be a fair amount of time for someone to work through something and find a path to recovery. A fair amount of time for me to stop clinging and start breathing without him. Enough time for him to prove to himself and to me...that he could.Standing in the doorway, I didn’t know what exactly I was expecting. Maybe fo...

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RBE | RBE Romance | 2024-03

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