22. Blaise

TWENTY-TWO

"Your boyfriend is Blaise?"I hear, and look over to where Jordan is still talking to Halle Manx. For someone who's never read her books, he sure is hogging her time.

"Uh-oh," Jenny, who I've been talking to about the best way to construct wearable wings, says with a chuckle. "Sounds like you're being summoned."

"Sounds like it's time for me to move him along so you can have your turn," I reply. "It was great meeting you. Text if you run into trouble with the modelling wire, and I'll walk you through it."

"Thank you!"

I step away from her and join my boyfriend, who's looking a bit wary. "Uh, yeah. Here he is, actually." He puts an arm around my shoulders.

Halle's eyes widen as she stares at me. "You're Blaise? Wait." She holds out a hand to her assistant, who hands over a phone, and a second later, she's leaning across the table to shove the screen in my face. "This Blaise?"

I blink a few times and pull my head back so I can actually focus. "That's not me—oh, wait, do you mean did I make those costumes?" I can't believe how many people semi-recognize me here, just from those four costumes. It's wild. And fucking amazing. But mostly wild.

"Yes! Was that you?"

Suddenly I'm wary about answering. What if she decides to sue me or something? I know she doesn't have a legal leg to stand on—it's cosplay, and it's not like I'm advertising and selling them using the names of her characters. It was a custom commission based on a basic description. But still…

"It was," I venture warily. I can't lie—enough people know I made them that I'd never get away with it.

She drops the phone and races around the table, and just as I'm raising my hands to fend off an attack, I find myself with an armful of author. She squeezes me tight, and I look over her head at an equally bewildered Jordan.

"Oh my god, I love you!" she cries, pulling back. "Thank you so much! When I saw those costumes… I swear, I came this close to crying." She sniffles, as though she's about to cry now. "It's like you got into my head and saw my characters."

Okay, wow, that's… I put a hand on my chest. "Really? That's such a compliment. I just envisioned them based on the descriptions—you have really great descriptions, by the way. You made it so easy."

"That's the nicest thing you could have said," she gushes. "Do you mind if we get a video together for me to share on my socials? You can cross-post it too. I already shared pics of the cosplayers, and those posts got great interaction."

Coming as this does right on the heels of my thoughts about maybe signing up as an event affiliate to do costumes for next year—something to add to my portfolio, even if I am doing the internship by then—I agree. An author with a line this long has to have a few thousand followers, right? Maybe even as many as fifty thousand. I might be able to get a couple of commissions from this.

"Hope will take the video," Halle says with a bright smile at her assistant, then adds to me, "This is my sister, Hope. She keeps me sane."

"I try," the woman says wryly, scooping up the phone from the table. "Come and stand in front of the banner. Branding, girl, remember?"

Halle rolls her eyes. "I don't need to remember with you to remind me."

We arrange ourselves beside the standing banner that has Halle's name and the blown-up cover of one of her books on it, and then when Hope nods, Halle says, "Yesterday I posted some cosplay pics that blew us all away, and, you will not believe it, but today I got to meet the man who designed and made them!" She slings an arm around my waist. "This is Blaise, and he brought my vision to life in the best way. If you haven't seen the pics yet, I'll link them below—and I'll link Blaise's profile too." She winks. "Oh, and a shout out to Desi, who couldn't make it and had to sell her tickets to Blaise's boyfriend. We missed you, but I'm so glad I got to meet Blaise!"

Hope lowers the phone, and I wait three seconds longer before letting go of the awkward smile I plastered on my face. I hope it doesn't look as weird as it felt.

Halle hugs me again. "I'm so glad I got to meet you," she repeats. "Do you have any other pictures of those costumes?"

I nod. "Sure. Some on dress forms, some on Jordan, who helped me make sure everything had freedom of movement, and a whole bunch I took while I was making them."

"Could you send them to me? Hope—" She half turns toward her sister, but Hope is already stepping forward with a business card. "Send them to the email on there, and Hope will make sure I get them. Thank you so much."

"Thank you," I say genuinely. "You've made me feel great today. I'm trying to get into wardrobe and costuming for film and television, and it's hard. Some days it feels…" I stop. I can't believe I'm unloading on this stranger.

"It feels like no matter how hard you try, you'll never get there?" she asks, and her face is full of understanding. "I remember that. I submitted over a thousand queries across six books before an agent offered me a contract, and that book never even sold. Some of the older ones eventually did, though, which is ironic. So I know how you feel, and I'm so glad I could give you some of the happy you gave me. We creatives need to stick together."

"Not to interrupt or anything, but they're going to kick us out soon and there are still people waiting, Halle," Hope says quietly.

Jordan and I say our farewells and leave, apologizing as we pass all the people waiting. Some give us dirty looks, but others just smile and call out things like, "Isn't she great?"

It's one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had.

The whole drive home, Jordan and I talk about the event. Considering neither of us is much of a reader and when we do pick up a book, it's not romance, fantasy, or a combination of the two, it surprises me that we can fill the time so easily. But it flies by—Jordan has ideas and questions about the planning and management of something on that scale, stuff that his current classes haven't really begun to touch on yet. He's been to his fair share of sports-related events, team open days and games and round robins and a whole bunch of other things I've never heard of, plus the usual career fairs, music festivals, and the like that everyone our age has been to, but this was a new experience for us both.

It had never occurred to me that so many people would be interested in costuming to meet an author. I've seen the scope of things like Comic Con, of course, but those characters are already visual—we see them, know what they look like, the details of their costumes. And of course, they're owned by studios that have no trouble licensing them and mass-producing costumes for anyone to purchase. Sure, there are dedicated cosplayers who'll make their own from scratch, but those aren't the people who hire the job out.

Book characters, on the other hand… I've done a few cosplay outfits for people found on the page, but I never realized how impactful it could be. Seeing so many people dressed up today, talking to Kyra and Helen and especially Halle, really opened my eyes. In a very real sense, this is exactly what I want to do with my life—take someone's written description of a character and bring them to life visually.

I've always known the impact clothing and style can have in conveying personality on the screen. I was mentally adjusting sitcom characters' costumes to better suit the actors' mannerisms when I was a little kid. It was a reflex—she should have a bracelet to fidget with; his collar needs to be wider. But in my mind, books belonged in the realm of the imagination. Unless they were adapted into screenplays, any visual component lived in the mind of the reader. It never struck me that they could also be brought to life this way.

"What are you thinking?" Jordan asks when we finally make it to my place and he's thrown himself onto the couch. "Also, what should we have for dinner?"

"I have leftover chili and cornbread. There's enough for us both," I say absently, frowning at my phone. It's been on silent in my pocket since we left Anaheim, but somehow, it completely blew up in that time. My Insta notifications are insane.

"What's up?" Jordan gets off the couch and comes to look over my shoulder. "Whoa. Looks like Halle posted that video and tagged you."

"I have two hundred DMs," I say faintly. "What the hell? How many people could have seen that post already?"

He takes my phone from me and starts scrolling through. "Well, she's got over two million followers, so probably a lot."

Ex-fucking-cuse me? "How many followers?"

"Some of these are scams, or those annoying sales messages," he says, ignoring the question. "So those can be deleted. But a lot are questions about your prices for commissions." He looks up at me. "What do you want to do?"

I rub my hand over my mouth. I want to take them, of course, but I'm only one person and there's no way I can do them all. Plus, this is a side business for me. My main goal is still the same. I like the idea of bringing an author's vision to life, but designing the same costume over and over again doesn't do it for me.

But the money would get me closer to my goal. It might even get me there a lot faster.

I take my phone back from Jordan and update my profile to say "Currently closed for commissions. Check back soon for updates." That will buy me time to work things out. Maybe I can set a guideline that I'll only do a certain "look" once—like, one of the costumes I did for Halle's character was a dress from a specific scene. Not repeating costumes once they've been done will let me have some variety in interpreting characters. I also need to work out pricing, and a schedule—how many can I take on at a time?

Once I have that clear, I'll be in a better position to reply to some of these messages. It might even weed out a lot of the requests. But this will definitely be good for my portfolio.

"You're going to do it, aren't you?" Jordan says, grinning as he watches my face. "This is fucking epic. I get to be the dressmaker's dummy or whatever, okay? That way when you're famous, there will be tons of photos of me in your early designs."

"It's a dress form," I correct, not for the first time, "and you're ridiculous." I kiss him. "But yeah, definitely. You can be my model." I kiss him again, letting my phone fall to the floor. "Thank you for today. This never would have happened without you." I hesitate. I want to tell him I love him, but is it too soon?

Like always, Jordan knows me better than I think. "You're welcome. You know I'd do anything for you, right?" he says. "I'm pretty sure you're the love of my life."

What else is there to do but kiss him again? "I love you."