Cosplayed: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Read online

  As hot as it was outside right now I was glad for those tunnels. It went both ways with air conditioning in the summer keeping things nice and cool.

  “Those jerks,” Jake said, glaring at them. Not that it did any good considering none of them were looking at us now anyways.

  “Why are they jerks?” I asked.

  “They shouldn’t be talking about you like that,” he said.

  “Awesome costume!” some girl passing by said. She was in a Battle Gear Angel Squad T-shirt so I knew she was my people. I smiled and gave her a thumbs up even as I dodged around a crowd of people wearing their convention badges who almost ran into me.

  Even with my wings pulled in that could have been bad. I hadn’t thought about how difficult it would be to walk around with the damn things in a crowd. Like, say, the sort of crushing crowds that show up for conventions.

  Oops.

  Meanwhile I heard some cat calls. I turned around in time to see another group of guys dressed in business suits who really should’ve known better. I extended my arm as though I was going to wave at them and they started hooting and hollering again like they were a bunch of monkeys screaming, but then I flipped them the bird and the hooting stopped before they could get to the hollering phase.

  “Why don’t you assholes shut the fuck up?” Jake shouted at them.

  They frowned but didn’t say anything. They were probably out at the mall getting breakfast before they went to whatever tower they worked in, and the last thing they needed was to get into a fight before work.

  “You should really control yourself,” I said as I grabbed Jake’s arm and pulled him back into the crowd. Having him right next to me like that had the added benefit of keeping people from bumping into me on that side.

  “What are you talking about? Did you hear the way they were talking about you? That isn’t cool,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Maybe it isn’t cool, but I had that in hand.”

  “Flipping them off is having things in hand? Guys like that need to know they can’t treat girls like that,” he said.

  “Please. They could’ve kicked your ass if they wanted to. You need to watch about running your mouth like that or it’s going to get you in trouble someday.”

  Jake settled into a sulking silence after that. Which was just fine with me. I didn’t need him getting into a fight, and not because I was worried about him getting the crap kicked out of him. If he wanted to pick a fight and get in trouble that was his business, but I didn’t want my costume ruined as collateral damage in a fight like that.

  Probably best not to mention that to him though. He might take it personally or something.

  “Hey! Mind if I get a picture with you?” a guy asked.

  Jake glared at the guy but I gave him a warning glance and that was enough to get him to hold back from saying something. Honestly, I wondered what his problem was. We were here as friends and yet he was acting like a jealous boyfriend or something when he should know there wasn’t a chance in hell I would ever be interested in him like that. He needed to get over this, and fast.

  “No problem,” I said, turning up the smile. After all, I was a Battle Gear Angel Squad and that meant I had to be charming and beautiful and ready to defeat evil at a moment’s notice. I hummed the theme under my breath as the guy, he looked like he was only a couple years younger, moved in and tried to hand the phone to his friend.

  “No way!” his buddy said. “I want in on this too! This costume is awesome!”

  The first guy looked at me and then looked at Jake. I could see the wheels turning in his head. I could also see the wheels turning in his head and it was obvious he didn’t like what was happening. I figured I should defuse the situation before he had a chance to get offended.

  I turned that thousand-watt smile on Jake instead. That seemed to calm him down just a bit, but I didn’t think anything of it. He was a friend. Friends helped friends. That’s all this was.

  “Would you mind helping them out and taking a picture Jake?”

  He glared for a moment longer before shrugging and smiling. He reached out to take the guys’ phones and in a moment he’d snapped two pictures and handed them back. He even did it without grousing or acting too pissed off.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad,” I muttered as we continued walking towards the convention center.

  “If you say so,” Jake said. “I think that one guy was standing a little too close to you though.”

  “Are you serious? Neither one of them could get within a foot of me because of these wings. You seriously need to simmer down.”

  “But…”

  I wheeled on him and poked him in the chest. He looked down, surprised, and took a step back. “But nothing. You need to stop acting like a jealous boyfriend. I’m here to have a good time, and part of having a good time is people wanting to take my picture. That’s part of the reason I did this!”

  A strange mixture of emotions played across Jake’s face at that. Almost like he was hurt. I don’t know why the hell he’d be hurt because I told him I liked people taking pictures of my costume. I also didn’t know why he’d expect anything less. He’d been to these cons before. He knew how much I’d wanted to do something like this for years. I couldn’t understand why he was suddenly getting all weird and hurt about it.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s keep going.”

  The only problem? It turned out that saying “let’s keep going” was a heck of a lot easier than actually doing it. It felt like I couldn’t take a couple of steps without someone coming at me and asking for a picture. It was enough to drive a girl to distraction. It was enough to make me wonder if I was ever going to get to the convention center the way people kept stopping me and holding up phones. We even got the stink eye from a security guard at one point who looked like he wanted to chase us away for blocking traffic in the mall, but in the end he satisfied himself with looking me up and down and moving along.

  Dream on, buddy. He was packing the wrong equipment to ever have a chance with me.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity but when I pulled out my phone to look, no watches for me today since those weren’t part of the costume, it had only been about an hour. Still, an hour to walk from one of the parking garages to the convention center was a long time. I’d made that same walk in ten minutes last year when I wasn’t in costume.

  “I’m starting to think you’ll have to take that thing off if you want to actually see anything at the con this year,” Jake said.

  “Yeah? What am I going to wear? In case you didn’t notice this foam armor is the only thing keeping me modest right now,” I said.

  “We could always get you a T-shirt from the dealer hall or something. I’m sure they have plenty of clothes in there that won’t draw as much attention.”

  I stopped at the end of the line leading to ticket pickup. Then a convention worker came up to me and pointed. I turned and realized that I’d moved to the end of a gap in the line the convention workers had created so traffic going back and forth in a cross hall wouldn’t be interrupted. The actual line to get tickets stretched off as far as the eye could see and then around a corner.

  Damn.

  “Why are you making such a big deal out of this anyways?” I asked. “I’m not going to put on some crappy con T-shirt that hasn’t been washed. Not when I spent so much time putting this outfit together.”

  “I just think people should treat you with respect,” he said. “Is that such a big deal?”

  “It is. Now cut that crap out. You’re my friend, not my mother. If I wanted someone lecturing me about wearing this thing I’d call her and show her what her daughter is wearing out in public. Then again it’s not like it would be that much worse on top of her still being upset over the whole lesbian thing.”

  Jake gave a nervous laugh at that. “Yeah, that whole crazy lesbian thing.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Come on. We have our tickets and we have a whole convention ahead o
f us. Let’s go have some fun!”

  As soon as we stepped through the doors into the dealer hall I reached out and pulled my wings back in. I’d had them out for some photos, but as I saw how narrow the halls were I realized there wasn’t a chance I was going to risk getting them caught on something and destroying the whole thing.

  “Good idea,” Jake muttered.

  We moved through the halls and once more I was filled with a familiar feeling of euphoria. There was just something about these conventions that I absolutely adored. It was the sure knowledge that I was surrounded by my people. I was surrounded by friends who could hold an intelligent conversation about whether their favorite bald captain on Star Trek was a bad ass who fought shape shifters from the Gamma Quadrant, a calm diplomat who exuded cool confidence, or a guy who wore a hairpiece and banged green alien women.

  It felt like I was coming home whenever I walked through the doors to the dealer hall. The only difference this year was that I was getting a hell of a lot more attention from people walking the halls than I had in years past.

  “This is going to be awesome,” I said.

  “Yeah, this is going to be pretty fun,” Jake replied. “I always forget about that con ambiance until I get here and see everything.”

  “Excuse me? Would you mind taking a picture?”

  I turned to see a family walking up with a little girl who was in her own Battle Gear Angel Squad costume. Thankfully it was one of the more age appropriate costumes from the series that had been put together for little kids on the Cartoon Network and not the more adult one that I was wearing. I smiled as she came up and held my arms out to give her a huge hug, but I was careful to avoid hitting any part of her costume. I really didn’t want her to hit any of the more intricate parts of my costume. The gearbox on the front of my top in particular had taken forever to get working and I hated the idea of it breaking while I was out here on the convention floor.

  I could get used to this sort of attention. Much better than some of the attention we were getting back in the mall. Then again most people in the convention hall knew how to behave appropriately.

  The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of visiting booths, seeing things that I desperately wanted to buy but didn’t have the money for because I’d just spent a ridiculous amount of money I didn’t have putting together this costume, and stopping what felt like every five feet to have more people take our pictures.

  At least Jake wasn’t acting like a whiny jerk about it now that we were in the dealer hall. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the busy morning if he was.

  Finally after several hours that seemed to go by in the blink of an eye my stomach rumbled as a crowd of girls in Battle Gear Angel Squad T-shirts thanked me for standing still long enough to take a picture. I was about to ask Jake if we could get food somewhere when one of the girls stopped me.

  “So are you with that charity thing or something?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Charity thing? What are you talking about?”

  “They have a booth over on the other side of the hall,” the girl said. “All of them are dressed up like you. Y’know the wings and the steampunk bikini armor vibe. I figured you were out getting attention for them or something.”

  I stared over to the other side of the dealer hall where she’d pointed. I hadn’t made it over there because I’d constantly been stopped by people asking for more pictures, but I was interested in making my way over there now!

  “I had no idea there was anything like that, but you bet your butt I’m going to check it out now,” I said.

  Jake walked up and smiled. “I heard your stomach growling there. Want to head out of the dealer hall and get something to eat? I could go for some junk food right about now.”

  “Maybe in a minute,” I said. “That girl was talking about a booth filled with people dressed in costumes like this. I have to see this.”

  “Are you sure? I was hoping we could have a nice quiet lunch. Maybe talk about a few things,” he said.

  If I wasn’t so distracted I might’ve noticed the hitch in his voice and that might have saved me a lot of trouble down the line, but I was too distracted. It took me the entire morning to make my way across half the dealer hall, but I was determined to make it to the other side in a few minutes rather than a few hours.

  “Come on Jake,” I said. “We’re running through the crowd and we’re not stopping for any pictures. There’s a booth that I have to see over there.”

  Jake sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. One last place and then we’re going for lunch?”

  “Sure,” I said, not even really paying attention to what he was saying. My stomach rumbled again, but hunger could wait. Goodness knows I’d gotten used to it dieting to make sure I could fit into this costume.

  I was a girl on a mission right now. Food could wait.

  4: Meet Cute

  Zoey:

  I leaned against the table and looked down the hall in either direction, but Natalie was nowhere to be found. Damn it. She said she was going off to get a snack and she’d bring something back for me, so why the hell had she been gone for a half hour?

  I knew why I thought she’d been gone for a half hour. I imagined her running into some girl she liked and convincing said girl to go back to her private room the convention had comped for her so she could have a “private photo shoot.”

  I itched to go up to that room and pound on the door to see what was going on, but there was no guarantee she was actually up there. That could just be my paranoia talking, and then I’d look like a first rate asshole if she came back to the booth with food for me and I was off in the hotel staring at her.

  Besides, someone had to be down here at the booth holding down the fort if she was going to be off in the dealer hall doing whatever the hell it was she was doing.

  “Fearless leader still isn’t back with my pretzel?” Cassie asked.

  I turned and smiled. Cassie was a pretty girl, and she always rocked her Battle Gear Angel Squad costume even if she hadn’t gotten around to putting together her wings yet. She was also, unfortunately, as straight as an arrow and married to a very nice doctor who she was head over heels for.

  Didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy looking at her though.

  “She’s not back with my soda either,” I groused.

  “How much you want to bet she’s out there trying to find new recruits for her photography sessions?” Lisa asked.

  “Come on Lisa,” Cassie said. “Zoey is right here. Do you really have to bring that up?”

  I turned and fixed them both with an irritated glance. “Come on. She’s not doing that stuff. She’s just taking pictures.”

  “Sure she is,” Lisa said before disappearing behind our booth to grab some more fliers about the children’s charity we were raising money for at the convention.

  Cassie reached out and patted my shoulder. I knew she meant it as a friendly gesture, but for me it was simply a reminder that I hadn’t felt a touch like that from Natalie in a long time. I wondered if she was touching someone else like that even as I was down here manning the booth. It was irritating that I felt the urge to stick up for her with our friends even when I pretty much agreed with them.

  “It’ll be fine,” Cassie said. “She’ll be back in no time and she’ll have a good reason for being gone this long.”

  “Yeah, sure she will,” I replied, not really believing it. From the way Cassie grimaced and tried to look busy rearranging pamphlets it must’ve been pretty fucking obvious that I didn’t really believe it.

  I turned and looked at the convention. I used to like these things. Natalie had pretty much stolen that from me. I hated that she’d done that. That I spent my time worrying about what my girlfriend was off doing more than I worried about having fun with my friends.

  Damn her.

  “Excuse me, but what is Cosplay Angels?”

  I closed my eyes and forced a smile on my face. I might be irritated with Natalie, but that wa
s no excuse for me to give less than one hundred percent when it came to raising money. This charity was about a hell of a lot more than my social life, and I needed to remember that. We were doing good work, damn it, and I wasn’t going to let a potentially cheating girlfriend get in the way of that.

  I turned to give my usual canned answer and stopped where I stood.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  The girl standing in front of the booth in one of the most impressive homemade Battle Gear Angel Squad costumes I’d ever seen blushed and looked down at my words. I meant it, though. She was seriously sporting a costume that rivaled some of the stuff I’d put together back when I was first getting into the costuming scene. Back before we built a vacuum forming machine so we could fabricate our own plastic parts. The intricate gear work on some of her stuff was impressive, and I wanted to know how she’d put together this steampunk wonder all on her own. It didn’t look like she had any of the familiar kits that were available online, and I should know because I’d helped create a lot of them.

  And the girl in the costume. “Holy shit” applied to her as well. She was perfect. I’d grown used to seeing girls running around in practically nothing with wings attached to their backs. It was part of the costume. Only there was something about the cute innocence that this girl brought to her costume that had my tongue on the floor.

  I closed my mouth. It wasn’t polite to stare. She probably wasn’t even into girls. Statistically speaking it was far more likely that she was dating the bored looking guy standing next to her who kept looking around as though he’d rather be anywhere but standing in front of our booth.

  He wasn’t even ogling me or the other girls in the booth. Then again if I got to walk around with this hottie all day long I probably wouldn’t be impressed with any of the girls in our booth either.