Page 22 of Marked By Shadows
“Maybe? I might have just made it up. Um, excited?”
“I do find fabric exciting,” I agreed.
“And calming.”
“Yes.” Because was that true or what? I petted the bolts in my hands, finding the texture soothing as well as thought provoking.
“Hoarder,” Alex teased.
“That is the quilter’s way,” the lady at the cutting counter informed him as she took the bolts of fabric and the measurements I wanted. “We call it a ‘stash’ though, not a hoard.”
“Like a pirate stash? I do like the dragon hoard thing better,” Alex told her. He put his hands on his hips and struck a swashbuckling pose with a wide stance. “Arrr, do I make a better pirate than a dragon?”
The lady laughed at him. I smiled and put an arm around his waist. “You can be whatever you want, whenever you want,” I assured him. He let out a deep breath and relaxed into my touch. “Pirate, dragon, merman, whatever.”
“Oh, merman. That would be cool. Didn’t Jonah say something about mermaid scale fabric?” His gaze scanned the shelves again, not finding scales I was sure, because this shop had none.
“There’s a new trend this year in scales,” the lady informed him. “Our shop doesn’t have it, but a few others do. Some with metallics in them. Beautiful stuff.”
“I’m sure one of the shops on the tour will have them,” I said. I thanked the lady and we made our way back out to the bus. Julie and Nicole had a bag of Batiks. No one else seemed to have purchased anything. “None of the shops today will have apparel fabric,” I told Alex.
“You made boxers for me out of cotton,” he reminded me. “I thought a lot of clothes are made out of cotton?”
We found our seats and sat down to wait for the last of the group to return. “True. Cotton is useful. However, it’s also stiff and limiting in regard to costume design and wearable fabrics. The quilt shops feature very specific cottons with tighter weaves.”
“Apparel is a lot of synthetics,” Jonah said. “Makes it softer in some instances, more malleable in others. Like latex—”
“The stuff gloves are made of,” Alex said.
“Yes. Gloves are super thin latex.” Jonah smiled. “Like condoms.”
“We use a non-latex version of those,” Alex said without thinking. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Stupid broken filter.”
I patted his knee. “It’s okay. Latex, whether condoms, gloves, or even fabric, isn’t porous. Which is why the gloves always feel powdery inside, to dry the sweat. What Jonah is saying is that latex is now mixed with spandex or a few other fabrics to make it more breathable, and softer against the skin. Most apparel fabrics are the same way. Jeans are no longer made with denim, it’s cotton and spandex. Even true cotton is mostly used for quilting, as the rest is mixed with polyester. Everything is made to stretch and breathe.”
“Which means you can make a bodysuit out of latex and not feel like you’re wearing a full-body condom,” Jonah said.
“You guys have such weird conversations,” Chad said as he sat down behind us this time. MaryAnn slid in next to him.
“I point this out often!” Alex agreed. “It’s how we find ourselves in conversations about the Scorpion King’s penis and body condoms, and yet sounds completely natural.”
“Sex is natural,” I pointed out. Alex’s cheeks turned pink again. I smiled and leaned over to kiss him. “You’re adorable when you blush.”
“I’m too old to blush.”
I patted his knee again. He could think what he wanted. The bus started up, and we were soon on our way to the next shop.
“So do you hobby, Alex?” MaryAnn asked.
“Micah taught me to crochet, but I’m a newbie. Haven’t done cosplay since before I enlisted. I do find all this stuff fascinating. Not really time for hobbies when you’re serving.”
“Have you been out long?” MaryAnn asked. “Or are you only on leave?”
“Out. Medical discharge,” Alex said, not willing to go into it further. Technically his physical issue wasn’t substantial enough to discharge him. Despite the fact that it made him nearly immobile some days as his hip joint locked up. His mental health problems had gotten him an official, while quiet, release. They didn’t want what Alex had to say to be taken seriously. His recall of monsters in the desert didn’t seem to scare them as much as I thought it should. Not disbelief, Lukas had said to me while Alex was missing. He’d met with Alex’s superiors a few times. They had offered Lukas condolences, assuming Alex was dead, likely by his own hand.
Lukas had asked about Alex’s memories, the death of the soldiers in his group, and that dark day in the desert. The military had brushed him off. But Lukas had discovered that, indeed, most of Alex’s group had died that day. Two others’ survived. One losing an arm, the other seeming to have gone mad as he, like Alex had been for a time, was now in a mental institution. Lukas implied that the military knew more than they let on, and it wasn’t the training exercise gone wrong that they led everyone to believe.
It was something both Lukas and I agreed not to bring up with Alex. He didn’t need the rehashing of the past year. He’d been scapegoated in a lot of ways; made to believe he was crazy. Which frustrated me. He had a good therapist now. Someone who let him talk and didn’t tell him he was nuts. But I knew it was a daily struggle. He rolled between depression, anxiety, and being overwhelmed on a regular basis. Rarely showed it outwardly, but I did try to help him clear his head and focus when possible.