Cosplayed: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Page 10

  I stuck my tongue out at her. “Oh yeah? Well why do you have to be such a smartass bitch now?”

  “Because that’s my job. It’s also my job to tell you when you’re being an idiot, and you’d better listen to me now because I think we all know where not listening got you the last time around.”

  “Fine, oh great and powerful wise one,” I said. “How am I being an idiot now?”

  “You’re letting that girl get away!”

  I looked down the hall formed by all the convention booths. She was getting away, but not at a very fast speed. Even from here I could tell she was having the classic problem of not being able to take more than a couple of steps without someone asking her to take a picture with them. It was a problem I was more than familiar with thanks to my own time wandering the dealer hall in my own costume. I liked to think they were dazzled by all the hard work that obviously went into making the steampunk angel armor from the series, but I was a realist. I knew the real draw was probably that the battle armor was more of a battle bikini and we were pretty girls wearing those bikinis.

  I looked back to Cassie. I wasn’t worried that Hailey was going to get away any time soon. I had time to chat with my friend and figure out exactly what she meant.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Are you forgetting that I just got out of a relationship? Is it really a good idea for me to go after some other girl when I just dumped one? Isn’t that a really bad idea?”

  “What, like you’re worried she’s just going to be a rebound or something? Who cares? This is your chance to get with her, so go for it!”

  “I just don’t know,” I said.

  “Oh my God,” a frustrated voice said from behind the curtain holding up our group’s banner. Lisa stepped out from behind it and put her hands on her hips. “Would you stop being such a melodramatic bitch about this? Do you want to get to know that girl better or not?”

  I stared for a moment with my mouth hanging open. I wasn’t sure how else to react to that. “Um, no?”

  Lisa made a shooing motion. “Then get out there and talk to her! It’s not like it’s the end of the world if nothing happens. This is a con. People meet for the weekend and never see each other again all the time. You’re not a special snowflake. This isn’t setting up some grand romance that’s going to last the rest of your life or anything.”

  “She’s right,” Cassie said. “You’re way overthinking this. Go out there and have your rebound. It’s not going to kill you.”

  “Neither one of you is going to let this go, are you?” I asked.

  “Not a chance,” Cassie said. “And if you don’t go now we’re going to track down the other girls and get them to yell at you too.”

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “Fine! I’m going. Slavedrivers.”

  “Good,” Cassie called after me as I turned to step out of the booth. “And if it turns out she’s not interested in you could you at least talk to her about joining the organization? We do have a spot to fill now that Natalie’s not in the group anymore, you know.”

  I wheeled around and nearly caught my wings on a pole holding up a pile of old toys from the ‘90s being sold at the booth next to us. I gave Cassie a double one-fingered salute as I walked backwards away from the booth. Though not for long. Walking backwards in this thing was a good way to have the entire costume ruined by running into someone.

  “Love you too!” Cassie called after me.

  I wheeled around. This was going to be interesting. Hailey had a head start, to be sure, but I could still see her off in the distance. She hadn’t gotten very far and she wasn’t going to get very far looking like she did in that outfit.

  The only problem? The thing I’d failed to take into account when calculating my ability to get to her quickly if I decided to chase after her? Well I hadn’t thought about how I was in the same damned costume and everyone who wanted to take a picture with her was fixating on me in her wake.

  Damn. I could see them moving in. Pervy guys licking their lips. Girls smiling and looking at my costume with envy. Guys who thought they were professional photographers because they bought a cheap DSLR camera at the electronics store. It was a gauntlet of people who all wanted a piece of me, and they were all going to do their best to keep me away from Hailey.

  I growled and put my shoulders down. It was time to push through the crowds. Phones moved up in front of me on all sides as people asked if they could take a picture, but I went against every instinct honed across going to dozens of conventions in costume over the years and ignored all of them.

  I was a woman on a mission. I was going to get to Hailey before she got out into the convention hall and was lost to me forever.

  Though even then there was a good chance she’d be stopped by people who wanted a piece of her. Or a picture. Some people around me took pictures without even asking which was a big no no when it came to convention etiquette, but with the popularity of conventions on the rise in the past decade it felt like there were a lot of people showing up to these things these days who didn’t know the rules.

  Normally I’d stop and give those sort of people a firm talking to. Let them know exactly what I thought of them taking a picture without even asking for permission. I ignored them this time around though. They could do what they wanted as long as I got to Hailey, damn it.

  Ignoring people was working though. I was getting closer and closer. Hailey seemed oblivious to everything but the people surrounding her asking for pictures of their own. So oblivious that when I came up and put a hand on her shoulder she started by responding to me like she would someone coming up to ask for one of those pictures.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she turned to face me. “But I really don’t want to take any… Oh. It’s you.”

  My heart fluttered at the way she said “Oh. It’s you.” She didn’t exactly sound happy to see me, but at the same time she didn’t exactly seem pissed off to see me either. I’d take that as a win. It meant I still had a chance, at least.

  I hoped it meant I still had a chance.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  Four words that could mean so much. Four words that could strike terror into the heart of someone in a long term relationship. Though in this case I hoped they were four words that would result in something more positive than what they usually meant.

  “Okay, so let’s talk,” Hailey said, her voice carefully neutral.

  I glanced at the people surrounding us. There were a lot of them. It was as though seeing two of us standing together in our costume bikini armor was enough to draw in crowds in numbers that one of us alone couldn’t. I was more than familiar with it. It seemed the more girls we added the more people crowded around, but I wasn’t in the mood for that right now.

  “Maybe we could go do this somewhere a little more quiet?” I asked.

  “Whatever you have to say to me you can say here,” Hailey said.

  Cameras continued to flash all around us. Damn it. This was not a conversation I wanted to have in front of a bunch of cameras. I didn’t want this conversation plastered all over social media, though there was no chance of that not happening now.

  I interrogated my feelings on that for a moment. Why didn’t I want this plastered all over social media? Was it because this was a private moment I didn’t want to share with the world?

  Or was it because I didn’t want this to get back to Natalie? Was it because I still had the feeling that I was in a relationship with her despite the breakup, and so my fear of pictures like this getting on social media was a fear that my girlfriend who was no longer my girlfriend would see them?

  Damn it. I was not going to think like that. I was well rid of Natalie, damn it, and that meant I was going to have this conversation with Hailey even if there were people all around us. Let them plaster it all over the Internet. Let Natalie see this. It would serve her right. The cheating bitch.

  “Look, I’m sorry for how I acted back there. Everything is
kind of weird for me and I’m not sure how to react to things because of all that, but I think you’re pretty cool and so do the other girls and we have a spot open in our group now so…”

  I was babbling. Babbling wasn’t good. Babbling meant I was likely to say something stupid. It didn’t help that I was trying to talk in a whisper, though in practice it was a whisper that was more of a low speaking voice since we were surrounded by the noise of the convention on all sides.

  “That sounds a lot like what Natalie said to me,” Hailey said after a long pause. “She talked about letting me in the group too, but she was talking about all the things she wanted me to do to get into the group. Is that what you’re doing now?”

  I shook my head. “No! No way! I’m not like that. Natalie was… well she did what she did and I can’t help it, but I can tell you we’re better than that and she shouldn’t have ever tried something like that. The girls talked about it and you’re welcome to join the group if you want to.”

  Hailey glanced around at the crowd that had surrounded us. It seemed like no sooner had one person taken a picture than someone else moved in with their phone or their cheap DSLR so they could get a snapshot. And we weren’t even posing. It was ridiculous that people were getting that forward.

  “Fine,” Hailey said. “I might consider it. I’d have to hang out with you ladies a couple of times and make sure you’re cool. And I’m never going to an event where Natalie is going to be there.”

  I blinked. I figured it would be obvious from our conversation that Natalie wasn’t around anymore, but I guess not. It was also nice to hear Hailey say that. If there was any lingering doubt in my mind that she’d gone up to that hotel room with the intention of getting with my ex-girlfriend rather than my ex-girlfriend luring her up there with impure intentions then that sentence dispelled them for good.

  “But Natalie isn’t part of the group anymore.”

  Now it was her turn to look surprised. “She isn’t?”

  “Nope. Kicked her ass out when I dumped her. She likes to walk around like she’s the big girl in charge of everything, but all the girls like me more and I’m the one who controls the bank account and all the PR stuff so there was never really a question.”

  “Huh, how about that,” Hailey said. “So I’d be filling the vacancy she left?”

  “You’re absolutely right. If you want it,” I said. “And I can assure you that Natalie is totally and completely no longer a problem.”

  I meant that in more ways than one. I really hoped she’d pick up on that double meaning, but I couldn’t be sure. The beginnings of a thin smile did start to spread on her face, though, so I figured that was a pretty good sign. Maybe.

  “So is that all?” Hailey asked. She glanced around at the crowd in irritation. It was plain she was ready to get out of here. I was ready too, for that matter. People were so rude at these things these days!

  The only problem was that wasn’t all. There was something else. Something personal. Something I was afraid to ask her because there was still that lingering feeling that I was in a relationship with Natalie even though in my mind I knew we were well and truly done. Something I was afraid to ask her because after everything that had happened lately I was pretty sure she was going to say no.

  Well, there was nothing for it but to grow a pair and get it out there.

  “There is actually one more thing,” I said. “I was kind of hoping that maybe we could hang out sometime? Just the two of us and not with the group?”

  Hailey didn’t say anything. She just stared at me and I found myself thinking about how that must sound given everything that happened with Natalie. Especially if Natalie made it seem like joining our group meant jumping in bed with her. I needed to fix that asap.

  “Not that I’m saying you have to do it,” I added quickly. “You don’t have to ever hang out with me if that’s not something you want to do. I’m just throwing it out there that I’d like to hang out with you sometime. You seem pretty cool and I’d like to get to know you better.”

  I winced at that last line. Talk about a dorky fucking thing to say. The words hung there and I wanted to cringe. With a line like that it would be no wonder if she didn’t want anything to do with me. She maintained that neutral expression for another moment before the barest hint of a smile appeared at the corners of her mouth once more.

  “I think I could go for something like that,” she said. “Did you have anything in particular in mind?”

  I was so caught off guard that I didn’t know what to say. I’d been convinced she wouldn’t be interested. That she would’ve been so freaked out by everything that happened with Natalie that she wouldn’t be interested in anything I was offering. So I didn’t quite know what to say or have anything planned when she suddenly was interested.

  Oops.

  I glanced around, desperately looking for something to do. We were at a fucking convention, after all. Surely I could find something in all the stuff that was on offer. My eyes came to rest on a banner hanging over one end of the convention hall advertising the masquerade ball they held every year.

  Usually I went with Natalie, but for obvious reasons it looked like I was going to be without a date tonight.

  “How about the masquerade?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that a little forward?” Hailey asked, the thin smile at the edge of her lips finally turning to a full blown grin and letting me know that she was only half serious. “I mean we only just met and already you’re asking me to a dance?”

  “What can I say?” I asked with a shrug. “I move fast.”

  “Fine, it’s a deal,” Hailey said.

  Needless to say I felt like I was walking on a cloud of air as I made my way back to the booth. I didn’t even care about all the jerks taking pictures without the decency to ask me first.

  13: Masquerade

  Hailey:

  What the hell was I doing here? I felt a little silly. Sure I’d felt a rush of excitement when Zoey asked me to come out to the masquerade tonight, but with every passing hour between her asking me to go and actually showing up at the thing I found myself wondering what I was doing more and more.

  There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t be here. Jake wouldn’t be happy to see me here. He wanted to go, and he’d seemed really big on the idea of going with me. I had to tell a little white lie that I wasn’t interested in going to finally get him off my back.

  And of course there was the whole thing with Zoey. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. She’d just broken up with her girlfriend the night before. Did I really want to step into the middle of something like that? It felt like it was asking for trouble.

  Yet here I was at the entrance to the masquerade trying to work up the courage to actually step inside. It was a bad idea. A really bad idea. I felt the crippling social anxiety that seemed to hit me whenever I was about to do something like this. Social anxiety that was a big part of the reason why I was still single, thank you very much.

  My brain whispered to me. They were nice whispers. Seductive whispers. Whispers about how easy it would be for me to turn around and go back to my room. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about finding out what was going on with Zoey. If she was really interested in me or not. I could avoid all the unpleasantness if I wasn’t here to experience it.

  No. I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t going to think like that, damn it. This might be unpleasant, but at the same time there was a very real chance that this might be awesome. Sometimes you had to deal with some unpleasant stuff to get through the awesome.

  Oddly enough I took some comfort from being in costume. I felt like I was a different person wearing this costume. I felt like I wasn’t me. That’s what gave me the confidence to even talk to Zoey like I had earlier. Usually I wouldn’t give a second thought to talking to a girl like her because it went without saying that she wouldn’t be interested in plain old me. It was a confidence boost that started from the moment I stepped into the convention
center and people started looking at me like I was something special, and I hoped it was something that would last after I took the suit off and I was back to being plain old Hailey.

  I was doing it again. I pushed those thoughts away. It was time to get down to business. It was time to go in there and meet Zoey and see what might happen. Even if there was a chance it would all end in tears like that anxiety was whispering to me.

  I stepped inside and it hit me just how much everything looked like an old middle school dance. There were people standing awkwardly along the side of the room staring at one another and there were people in the middle dancing and having a good time. Music pumped through a convention hall room that was about as acoustically sound as a middle school gym which meant there were all sorts of weird echoes moving through the room.

  I felt that anxiety starting all over again. A middle school dance wasn’t exactly something I had fond memories of. A memory of Brian Kyle chasing me through the bleachers trying to get me to dance with him flashed through my mind. There were a few guys along the walls who bore more than a passing resemblance to Brian, and it wasn’t a pleasant memory.

  He wasn’t the sort of guy I’d be interested in even if I was interested in guys. I’d known even then that I wasn’t. Not that it stopped him from chasing me. He got it in his head that we belonged together because he was the super geeky guy at our school and I was the super geeky girl.

  I shivered at the memory. Not fun. I chased it away by plunging into the crowd and looking for Zoey.

  Plunging into the dancing crowd looking for Zoey brought up other memories that were both pleasant and unpleasant. Thoughts of Melissa Warren. Achingly beautiful Melissa Warren who was perfect and totally wasn’t into girls. At all.

  I knew because of a disastrous late night experience at a church youth group lock-in that ended up ruining our friendship and ruined me on the idea of working up the nerve to ask girls out for the next couple of years.