Page 10 of Delivered to My Bigfoots

She nodded, and I could tell she was writing notes even though her arms were out of the camera view. From what I could tell, she lived in a tiny apartment. From wherever her phone was, I could see her tiny kitchen with only one of those small stoves with two burners and the unfolded sofa bed. Neat and tidy but small. Maybe smaller than our living room and our cabin wasn’t huge or anything.

Gods, we hadn’t even asked her if she was single or available. “If you come here, won’t you be leaving someone behind? A boyfriend? A mate?” I blurted.

“No. I’m single.”

Koa slapped my thigh. He hadn’t thought of asking that, either.

“Can you give us a few minutes?” I asked.

“Sure. Take your time.”

I put the phone down and motioned for Koa to follow me. Once we were in my bedroom, I asked, “What do you think? Do you want to do this? Even if she only comes here for the interview?”

He blew out a breath. “Yes. I have a good feeling about it. And like we said, we can maybe set some things straight about sasquatches. That would be nice.”

“So we’re inviting her to stay with us?” I reiterated, to be clear.

“Yeah. Go ahead. I like her.”

Koa didn’t like many people.

We got back on the phone. She was on there, her dark eyes trained on something beyond the camera view. She had glasses on now and was biting that lip. “We would like to invite you here, Druscilla. If you think we are good candidates for your research.”

Chapter Ten

Druscilla

It took some finagling to get the classes I taught covered, but I called in favors and managed to pull it off. Fortunately, I had some extra time before I had to turn in my final draft of my thesis, and I hoped that speaking with Koa and Orion might give me insights that would help me feel better about the final product. Since they weren’t Bigfoots, I wasn’t going to be able to use much of what I learned in the thesis, but I had plans to write a book soon, and maybe they could be a source for that. “Unique shifters” had me intrigued.

I quit the convenience store earlier than I’d planned and sublet my apartment early for summer. After visiting with the shifters, I would fly back and pick up my van and head out again. This would be the last summer I would spend hunting for Bigfoots. At some point, everyone has to grow up and move on, and I had no intention of being an old lady still trying to recreate a seminal childhood experience.

I had job offers, subject only to adding “doctor” to my name, and in the fall, I would accept a professorship at one of the schools and move on with life. Maybe live somewhere with a bedroom since my lease would also expire then and I would not be renewing it.

So many plans.

Over the past few days, I’d texted and talked on the phone with my shifter matches. They were well-spoken and courteous but 100 percent adamant that they would not reveal what kind of shifter—beyond unique—they were. We talked about our lives, their jobs, my jobs, some of our life experiences. Favorite foods and drinks, music, movies…first-date stuff, although we all knew we weren’t going to be dating. Much less mating.

No, we’d agreed on a professional relationship, something I very much appreciated. I had hurried to give them the information before we even spoke because I didn’t want them to feel like I was misrepresenting myself. These guys were hot. They could find a thousand women who’d want them. Both of them. Two…it was almost too much to consider, especially since I had so little experience.

What kind of shifter were they? I packed up my apartment while mulling over the possibilities. Could they be something very dangerous? Not wolves or lions or anything else so everyday. I giggled at the thought of any kind of shifter being everyday, but there were, it seemed, quite a few of those around. And bears. And, surprisingly, according to another grad student who studied them, flamingos.

I’d agreed to go and have an extended visit with these two men who I only knew through an app. There were so many possibilities. Alligators? Not sharks, of course because they would need to be near an ocean instead of in a mountainous region. I would never have thought I’d managed to pile up so much stuff in such a small apartment. A whole row of boxes was piled along one wall, waiting to be taken to storage. I’d never had to do that before, since I always planned to return for another school year.

I probably should have done a lot more sorting of things, but I’d had to do everything to get ready so quickly. Not that Koa and Orion put pressure on me to rush there, but I felt like I’d been cooling my heels for a long time, grad school and summers searching the forests, and I was frankly delighted at the change of scene.

Maybe I wasn’t ever going to see a Bigfoot again, if I ever had to start with. But I was going to fly more than halfway across the country to spend a long visit with two unique shifters who had agreed to share with me first of all what they were, but then allow me to interview them at length. It was an opportunity no research-loving scientist would pass up.

When I left the storage building for the last time, I still had to take my van to yet another storage area. She’d been my home in a way that studio never was, and I felt almost guilty at taking off on a trip and leaving her behind. She looked so forlorn in that parking lot with RVs and boats and covered sports cars, but I promised I’d be back for her as soon as possible. We’d be off again in my final #vanlife summer.

I slept on the sofa bed I would be leaving for the subletter that last night, feeling like I no longer belonged in my life. Considering it really was just a visit, I’d stripped everything away as if I’d never be back. Certainly I had plans for after the trip, but they seemed so remote.

All my musings and philosophizing went out the window once I arrived at the airport to find my flight was delayed. As if I wasn’t nervous enough, I sent text after text to Orion and Koa telling them my revised arrival times. Was it a sign? Should I turn back?

But how? I had nothing left but the van and boxes of things, and I wasn’t going to have a whole lot of extra money to extend my #vanlife. But that only made me feel cornered until I was close to panicked by the time the last flight finally touched down.

Research on dangerous shifters, should they turn out to be such, would make an excellent book. If I survived it. I never leapt into the unknown like this. Without much of a net.

Chapter Eleven

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