Page 9 of Ancient Obsession

“Oh, man, a free lunch, too? You’ve had the best day.”

Dave laughed. “I know.”

He released Oliver’s foot and extended his hand. When Oliver took it, Dave pulled him upright again, holding Oliver’s hand tight against his chest as he leaned in for a long, deep, hot kiss. Once they parted, Dave said, “The only way it could get better is if my fiancé agrees to go to a nice dinner with me, followed by some deliciously naughty fun, and then we fall asleep in each other’s arms.”

Oliver kissed him again. “Pretty romantic for a data analyst.”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“All in good time. It will take years to reveal them all. Decades even.”

“Guess I’ll have to stick around.”

“Guess so.”

Oliver pulled his feet off Dave’s lap and sat beside him. “You said nice dinner. Nothing at all against Margie, but her food is every day comfort. Were you thinking of Antonio’s?”

“Actually, I was thinking of someplace new. Ember & Table, over in Creighton.”

“Wow, completely outside of the Hollow, huh? I’m intrigued, but I’m not familiar with the place. What kind of food?”

“I’ve only read about it online, but kind of a French and American comfort fusion.”

“Very interesting. Do we need reservations?”

“They don’t take reservations for parties under six.”

“All right. Guess I should change clothes.”

“Need some help?”

Oliver stood and took his hand, tugging him to his feet and leading toward the hallway. “Absolutely.”

CHAPTER THREE

Oliver arrived at Bishop Point University on Wednesday an hour before his first class. He followed signs and a stream of students to the student union. After a surprisingly short wait in a long line, Oliver sat at a table near a window with his large coffee. He pulled his laptop from his messenger bag and checked some stats for his blog. The numbers for visits and clicks were even lower. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Why should he bother? Nothing was going to make a difference if people weren’t clicking.

Blog posts were no longer a reader magnet. The world today was driven by short, heavily filtered, frantically paced videos. Not only did he not have a new cryptid or paranormal investigation to post about, he also had no following on TikTok. While his involvement with the power-hungry witch and the conjured demon a couple of months earlier had generated some good numbers, it had been half of what he used to receive. Maybe it was time for him to create short video posts about all the creepy things he’d seen. But without actual video evidence and a new spooky situation to dig into, what kind of draw would he have telling what basically boiled down to as ghost stories around a campfire?

Spooky, true campfire stories might be unique enough to grab an audience. He would need to do some digging on TikTok to see what was already out there, because someone somewhere had to have already come up with the idea. But, maybe…

“Hey there.”

Oliver looked up from his laptop. Robin stood on the other side of the table, holding two large coffees.

“Hey. Join me.”

Robin took a few minutes to settle in, leaning their backpack against the window and drawing out their own sticker-decorated laptop. They took a sip of one coffee.

Noticing Oliver looking at the second cup, they said, “I like to stay well-caffeinated.”

“I see that. Are they both coffee?”

“Lattes with oat milk and a triple shot of brown sugar cinnamon.”

Oliver laughed. “That’s…”