Page 19 of Glow

Where we are going is better? Wally’s hurt, worried tone broke Dan’s heart. His cryptid side hadn’t harmed anyone, and yet here they were, fleeing in the middle of the night.

Yes, Dr. Jeffries said it would be safe. People in Fox Hollow understand being able to change forms. They know that shifters aren’t monsters. Dan hoped it was true.

What about Quinn? We like him. It would be good for us to have a mate, Wally ventured.

Guess I’m having that conversation with Quinn sooner rather than later, Dan said.

He’d gotten the impression that Quinn was accepting of differences from their conversations. The reality of regular shifters didn’t seem to bother him. I’m not a fluffy kitty or a cute puppy, or even a wolf. He’s never seen anything like Wally before. I’m not sure there is another cryptid like him. Can Quinn handle it?

Dan tried to push the question from his mind. He turned the music up to drown out his thoughts, although he didn’t feel like singing along. For the first fifty miles after he left Dover, Dan checked his rearview mirror compulsively, but there were few other cars on the highway at this hour, and none of them appeared to be following him.

When he got gas, he splashed water on his face and downed an energy drink to stay awake on the long drive. Wally remained quiet, and Dan did his best not to let his concerns spiral.

Everything he needed was crammed into his car to start a new life in a small town he had only visited once for a couple of days. He had never done anything so impulsive, and he teetered between a sense of freedom and utter terror.

I couldn’t stay in Dover, and there wasn’t anywhere else to go, he reminded himself. At least Fox Hollow has shifters. Maybe it really will work out okay.

After a couple of hours, Dan parked at a rest stop and snagged a couple of hours of sleep, worried he might nod off. That helped and meant that he had a good chance of finishing the drive in early morning daylight.

Just after sunrise, his phone rang.

“Quinn? What’s up?” Dan did his best to sound casual.

“Are you okay? If you left right after you called, you should have been here by now. I got worried,” Quinn replied.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just pulled off for a quick nap. I’m less than an hour out,” Dan replied.

“How about breakfast when you get here? I came into town to surprise you and help you unload the car,” Quinn said. “Do you have a reservation at the hotel?”

“Wow. That’s very nice of you, and yes, I’d love to do breakfast. Bear Necessities?” he suggested. “And I already reserved a room when I checked out.”

“That’s where I am now. They open early. I’ll see you when you get here. Take care.”

Quinn’s thoughtfulness pleased Dan. He suspected that park rangers regularly got up early, but coming into Fox Hollow wasn’t part of Quinn’s daily routine. Dan welcomed the help moving his belongings into the hotel until his rental was ready and looked forward to seeing Quinn, even if his new boyfriend didn’t fully understand everything involved in Dan’s late-night escape.

Dan rolled into Fox Hollow and yawned, glad he was meeting Quinn for coffee. He pulled into the Bear Necessities parking lot, unsurprised to find the café already busy.

Quinn waved from where he had already staked out a table and had a coffee cup in front of him, so Dan got in line and went to join Quinn as soon as his order came.

“You look very perky for this awful hour of the day,” Dan jokingly groused as he sat down.

“Did your drive go okay?” Quinn asked, and Dan figured he was tiptoeing around the real questions he wanted to ask.

“A surprising number of people are on the road overnight,” Dan stifled a yawn and took a gulp of coffee. He decided it was going to take more than one cup to keep him functioning. “Lots of trucks. They must be nocturnal.”

“If it’s their usual schedule, they probably are,” Quinn replied. “I have to get up in the wee hours sometimes if I’m checking on animals that only come out after dark. It’s a whole different world.”

Dan took another long drink of his coffee and realized Quinn had stopped talking. “What’s wrong?”

“I heard the podcast,” Quinn said quietly.

Dan’s heart raced. “What?”

“The one with Chet and Phil about the Dover Demon,” Quinn replied.

“How?”

“I knew you went to Dover, Massachusetts. Something dire had to have happened to make you change plans and drive home in the middle of the night, so I checked for new headlines from that town. There wasn’t a fire or any other kind of danger, but the only new link was to the podcast, so I logged in. Given the timing of when it originally aired, and your text to me about leaving, I figured the two had to be connected.” Quinn didn’t ask the question that hung, unspoken, between them, but he met Dan’s gaze looking for an answer.