Page 77 of Marked By Shadows
We were on the same page. “What if I pick the machine to donate?”
“Okay, then I’ll do the pattern book set,” Nicole said.
I was a little sad for a moment, not getting to give those things to Alex. But again, reminded myself I could give him whatever he wanted. Hell, he could probably pick stuff for himself and buy it if he wanted. He was not helpless even if his finances weren’t as solid as mine. “Okay.”
So I picked the sewing machine and she grabbed the bundle. Some of the items left were a couple convention ticket bundles, with fully funded tickets to several conventions across the USA, a Cricut cutting machine and a batch of supplies for it, and bulk fabric supplies from several apparel lines. They really had gone all out in their prizes for our little group. We returned to the others and I searched for any disappointment on Alex’s face that I hadn’t picked the book bundle, but there was none. He smiled at me and kissed the tip of my nose after I set the machine at our feet. We would do our giveaways after everyone picked prizes.
“Third place winners, goes to Chad and Julie for Hagrid and Hermoine,” Freya announced. I found that a little odd since Freya and MaryAnn’s outfits had a bit more polish than Chad and Julie, but maybe that had just been my opinion.
Chad and Julie made their way to the table. Chad picked one of the fabric supply sets, and Julie took the Cricut bundle. “I’m giving the fabrics to the non-profit,” Chad announced without ceremony. “It will help keep the kids in projects for a while.”
“That leaves Freya and I last,” MaryAnn said. She made her way to the table, picking up one of the last apparel sets.
“Did you guys do that on purpose?” Julie asked suspiciously. “Make yourselves last?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Freya said serenely. “Why would we do that?”
“’Cause you were the ones to get all the prizes for us,” Jonah said. “I wondered why your costumes were a bit less polished than usual.”
“We worked hard on these,” MaryAnn defended, putting her hands on her hips.
“The L on your hat is made from paper and colored with a crayon. Girl, that is not normal for you,” Jonah remarked pointing to her green hat.
Freya waved her hand like it wasn’t important. “What’s important is that everyone had fun. It was great to see such imagination and determination from all of you. I can’t wait to have you all on my channel for an interview.”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“I thought we were just doing the booth thing tomorrow,” Julie said.
“And I’ll be having a little show with everyone featured on my YouTube channel,” Freya said.
“Can you use the pictures of us and not do an interview?” I asked. The last thing I wanted right now was to be back on the YouTube influencer stage.
“Don’t you want to show off your costume? I thought it would be a great introduction to your new influencer page. And you can do a tutorial with the fancy new sewing machine you have.” Freya said, seeming confused.
“Oh, about that.” I picked up the sewing machine and offered it to Chad. “I picked this so I could donate it to your non-profit. I wanted to make sure you still had a choice too, or else I’d have left it for you.”
Chad gaped at me, shock looking very real and funnily Hagrid on his face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I don’t need any of this stuff. But your non-profit sounds amazing. I would have loved having something like that when I was a kid.”
“And this stuff is for your non-profit too,” Nicole added, handing over the bundle she’d picked. “Lots of patterns and books for them to try. I can buy any of this myself. Would rather give all this to you guys.”
“Really, you guys?” Chad seemed lost for words and his eyes suddenly became glassy with tears. I grinned and threw myself in a hug at the giant man with a soft heart. I wasn’t normally a touchy guy, but the night had filled me with emotion. He hugged me back and then accepted a hug from Nicole too. “You’re all amazing, and jerks too, but amazing. You have no idea how much this will help.”
“The clothing line I’m picking is going there too,” MaryAnn said, “but Chad and I already discussed that.”
“I look forward to talking with you all about the non-profit on my channel. We can even open up a fundraiser,” Freya added.
“Do we have to go on YouTube?” I asked.
“I thought you were going to return to doing influencer stuff?” Freya asked.
“Yeah, about that,” I said slowly. “I’m pretty happy with my shop, the tours, and the tiny bit of cosplay I do. Influencing is a lot of stress and judgment I don’t really want or need. It also takes a lot of time video editing, photo editing, responding to comments, a lot of which are just rude. Those are things I don’t want to spend time on.” I looked at Alex wondering what he thought. We hadn’t really discussed it either way. He supported whatever I did, no matter what I did, and I loved that about him. “I’m happy with what I have. I don’t need to be in the spotlight for any of it. In fact, I prefer not to be.”
The group stood in what seemed to be shocked silence for a minute or so. But Alex’s smile was huge and he kissed me on the nose again.
“I will support you in whatever you choose,” he promised.
