Page 78 of Marked By Shadows
“But I thought you were coming back,” Freya said.
“We were all sort of looking forward to your return. Your designs have always been so good we were all motivated to work harder to catch up,” Julie said.
“That’s just it,” I said. “I don’t want you all to look at me and think you need to ‘catch up’ to anything. The passion and originality come from inside.” I put my hand on Alex’s Scooby pillow. “And this was amazing, inspired, and well executed. None of that needed me to be involved. You’re all branching out into incredible things. My amazing thing is my shop, which I love. And I’m sort of into this hot stoner guy who inspires me.”
Alex grinned at me. “Woot. The half-demon is in love with me.” He did a little dance, looking silly and adorable all at once.
“Your shop would be busier if you had the influence to drive people to the website,” Freya pointed out.
“It would probably build hype,” Nicole added. “We still do pictures and stuff, and will do classes and online tutorials to drive business to our new shop.”
“We do okay,” I said. Maybe I’d expand into tutorials down the road, but for now I liked the simplicity of the shop. “I’m happy where I am. Really. You guys are all great. I’d forgotten how much fun this was, even while being stressful.” I looked at the clock, and it was after eleven p.m. “How about we call it a night? Ride this high into a good night of sleep for the convention tomorrow? I’ll do the booth thing, and Freya if you really want an interview, that’s fine. I’ll direct people to the shop website since I won’t be reopening my old influencer one. Hopefully that’s okay with everyone?”
“Works for me,” Alex said. “I love Simply Crafty. If you guys haven’t checked out the website yet, there’s amazing stuff for sale. We should add links too,” Alex said. “For the non-profit and everyone else’s websites. Tutorials and all that. Redirect traffic that might be interested in that sort of fun quirky stuff, as that’s what Simply Crafty specializes in.”
“I’d love to link our Etsy shop to your page,” Nicole added. “We do mostly accessories with a cosplay flair, but that sounds like it would fit.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. I did most of the web work myself. Years of video editing and website building had taught me a lot. The only thing I hired out for was the actual sales platform programming. That part of the site worked like a well-oiled machine now. “If you need help building a sales platform independent of Etsy, let me know. I’ve got a friend who did mine for a really reasonable price. He also maintains that part of it for a small monthly fee. Mostly all I have to do is print off order sheets and pack stuff up. It runs like a dream. Cut out the middleman charging all those fees on every sale.”
“That sounds great,” Nicole said.
“Holy crap, I’m super tired all of a sudden,” Alex said.
“The adrenaline fading,” Chad agreed. “Maybe we should all call it a night. We gotta do the convention tomorrow.”
I nodded and everyone else seemed to be in agreement.
“I’ll talk about the details for the booth cosplay event tomorrow over breakfast,” MaryAnn said. “See you all in the morning.”
I grabbed Alex’s hand and made my way back to the craft room to gather up our clothes. Alex gave the doorway opposite the dining room a wide berth again and I frowned as I studied the space, finding nothing out of the ordinary again. “Everything okay?” I asked him as he gathered up his stuff and we headed toward the back door.
“Nope, everything is good,” he promised.
We stepped down the backstairs and followed the stone path across the dark yard lit only by the small path lights. “Are you mad at me for not getting the books?” I asked.
“What? No. Never.” He held out the computer. “This is for you though. Maybe I should have given it to Chad’s thing too?”
“The software is probably a little advanced for the kids in Chad’s group.”
“That was my thought too.” We reached the door to the cabin and let ourselves in. It took a few minutes to get out of the costumes, putting them up so they wouldn’t get messed up or dirty. The clay nails put on with double-sided sticky tape would have to have new tape added tomorrow, but I found a bag for them so they wouldn’t get broken.
I didn’t bother with anything else, leaving only my undies as I waited for Alex up in the loft. He apparently had the same idea, appearing in the loft in just a t-shirt and his undies. His wild hair making me reach for him. “That was amazing,” he said, curling up with me on the bed.
“A lot of excitement in cosplay. A lot of frustration and hard work too.”
“No kidding,” he said. “I’m glad you wanted to go. It was fun.”
“I’m glad you did it with me, even if we didn’t get to work together.”
“Well now you have fancy software to figure out designs we can do together.”
“Yeah. I’ll have to set it up. Do you want my old computer then? Still works great, even if it won’t run the new software.” My old computer was a MacBook Air rather than a Pro. So it was smaller and lighter. I would miss that about it.
“Sure. It will give me something to research paranormal cats on, other than my phone.”
“Was the cat back?”
“Hung out in the craft room most of the night, perched on the top of one of the shelves. It wasn’t until after everything was done that it got weird.”
