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“Scratch that,” he corrected himself, before leaning in to kiss me some more.
“I know I love you.”
~ 39 ~
HARPER
“Fuck. This.”
Sophia flopped back on my couch, blinking her eyes rapidly. She had a stitching needle in one hand, and the sleeve of my custom VR suit in the other. As she tilted her chin toward the ceiling, I giggled.
“Too much?”
“Why’d you have to make these so ridiculously small?” she whined. “I’m not kidding, Harper. Keeping up with these stitches is nuts.”
“Go ahead and take your fifteen-minute break, then,” I teased.
My friend sighed into her mostly-empty glass as she tilted it back, then drained it. She set it down and began working again.
“We’re almost out of wine, you know.”
I stopped sewing. “Wait. Really?”
“Yeah! We’ve been at this for hours. I’m dizzy. Plus, I think I might’ve stitched one of these sleeves to the pocket of my jeans.” She hissed a stream of hot air through clenched teeth. “I guess we’ll find out when I get up.”
I looked over in admiration at all the work my friend was doing to help me out. She’d volunteered, of course. As long as I bought her dinner, which I had, and kept her plied with wine.
“We’re getting there though,” Sophia said, a little more cheerfully. “So there’s that.”
The past week had been a busy one, in both my work and personal life. I’d spent it fine-tuning the physical connections of my haptic receptors, as well as upgrading the overall appearance of the suit itself. I didn’t see why this was even necessary, because the suit wasn’t even close to an actual finished product. Whoever bought my tech would design their own suit, so the present look of it was meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
But, as Sophia kept pointing out: ‘first impressions matter.’
I hadn’t thought about it initially, but I would need something to present potential investors that didn’t look like a patchwork of rags and wires. And so here we were, pouring over my prototypes with needle and thread. Sophia was surprisingly good at stitching things tight, and tucking wires into seams. Almost better than me.
“Pass me those scissors?”
I leaned forward to toss the tiny scissors onto the blanket covering her legs. They flashed momentarily silver in the firelight from my open stove.
“You’re not supposed to throw scissors,” my friend teased.
“Sue me.”
I picked up my phone, punched through a few screens, then dropped it back on the coffee table. That done, I went back to work. With all the cosplay I’d done over the years, I had some serious sewing chops. I’d made a six-layered steampunk costume from scratch. I’d cut and stitched four different Marvel outfits, three from the DC Universe, and more Disney villains than princesses, including a Maleficent gown with four-foot silk wings that took six solid weeks to put together.
Right now, my haptics system was working great. Once I got it looking great, it was time to make some calls.
“So… how are things with your big beautiful man?”
“Which one?” I asked, then immediately stopped myself.
Oh shit. Did I actually say that?
“There’s more than one?” asked Sophia.
I paused, just a little too long to make up a lie. By then it was too late.
“It’s Jax, isn’t it?” she pressed. “The friend who hates you!”
