Page 70 of Marked By Shadows

“One of those?” Alex asked. I didn’t think he could put more meat on his pizza and still call it a pizza.

“Big ideas, insane ideas that somehow you make happen against all logic.”

“That’s him,” I agreed, choosing an olive oil and garlic-based sauce. “You can have cheese,” I told Alex. “You don’t have to skip on the cheese because I do.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe. Do we get more than one of these?” He held up his eight-inch round plate.

“We can,” Chad said. “Just have to ask. I usually eat three.” He patted his belly. “The crust is so thin and crunchy, they are divine.”

I loaded mine up with chicken, basil, and a half dozen veggies before making my way to pop it in the oven. Freya was on oven duty, adding pies, and taking out completed ones to pass them off.

She patted me on the arm. “You’re staying for cosplay?”

“Yep. We’re both pretty excited. It’s been a long time.”

“Years since we had this much of the group together,” Freya agreed taking my pie from me to add to the oven.

“And the last one?” I asked. “MaryAnn said you’re planning on traveling a bit.”

“Expanding the vlog. Starting a cosplay around the world book,” she agreed. “Everyone seems to be heading in different directions.”

“Girl, you went out of your way in prizes this year!” Jonah said as he entered the kitchen to retrieve his finished pizza. “A Tula Pink machine bundle? That machine is worth eight grand!”

“That was MaryAnn’s doing,” Freya said.

“The clothing line I’m working with offered it. They are giving away two more at the event, but since we’re all for the most part, influencers, they gave one to us. Only caveat is that they ask we use some of their products and display some at their booth,” MaryAnn said. She got her pizza and headed to the dining room.

Alex and I grabbed bottles of water and followed them to the table to wait for our food. Along the front wall of the dining room a table had been set up covered with prizes. The Tula Pink sewing machine was there, along with a couple iPads, a MacBook Pro, some cosplay design books bundled with patterns, and a stack of fabric bolts. Freya really had gone out of her way this year.

“Wow!”

“What’s a Tula Pink?” Alex whispered to me.

“She’s a fabric designer, quilting mostly, but the machine is an embroidery machine.” I couldn’t recall him playing with one at the convention, but he’d been more focused on the space of the mid-arm, and Tula’s machine was nice, but had only a thirteen-inch neck rather than the eighteen-inch neck the machine we’d bought had. “Her machine has some really cute custom stitches, like rabbits and cats and even cat food bowls.”

“What? No way,” Alex leaned in to look at the side of the box and the example of the stitch. “Oh those are cute. And a year worth of fabric supply. How much is that? Like a year’s worth for me is probably less than it would be for you the fabric hoarder,” Alex said.

“I think there’s a certain amount of yardage, overall it’s not a bad machine. And I like a lot of Tula’s prints. I’ll point out her stuff to you tomorrow when we go back to the convention.”

“I think I like the one we got better, but I can fight hard to win if you want. Well, all this stuff is pretty amazing. A MacBook, I could use that. And those design books look interesting.” Alex examined everything. “Even a few gift cards for some places that sound like fabric shops?”

“Right?” Jonah said. “I don’t need any of that, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to work my ass off to win it.” He sat down with his pizza.

“Oh crap,” Alex said doing a little hop and racing back to the kitchen where Freya was waiting with our pizza. “Sorry,” he said. “Just wowed by everything so far.”

She smiled at him and patted his hand, then handed him his pizza. “I think you’re going to love Iron Cosplay. It’s all about thinking on your feet.”

“Well, ma’am,” Alex said, his southern drawl sounding really heavy in that moment, “As an ex-military man, one of the things I do best is think fast on my feet.”

I got my pizza and headed back to the table, Alex in tow, the group chatter rising up around us. Everyone was starting to sit and eat, and talk about the upcoming cosplay. Everyone except Melissa.

“Anyone seen Melissa?” I asked. “She okay?”

“Haven’t seen her all afternoon,” Nicole said.

“Police came by earlier,” Julie added. “She went with them.”

“Did they find Byrony?” Alex asked.