Chapter Text
A thing nobody bothers to warn you about when opening a yarn shop: the number of sweet-mannered local ladies who are actually vicious, coldhearted thieves.
"Hello, Mrs Chamberlain," Stede greets her at the till, trying with his entire will not to sound too icy. That's happened before and made her cry huge pitiful fake tears, and the resulting shock and accusatory looks at Stede from the other customers allowed her to make off with a hundred pounds' worth of two-ply qiviut. Adding insult to injury, she's actually wearing said plunder around her neck in a depressingly beautiful lace cowl right now as if to taunt him. "So that's two pounds nineteen for the Stylecraft—what a pretty colour—and those four balls of Kidsilk tucked under your coat there, that'll take it up to a total of forty-two fifteen. Would you like them in this bag too, or are you comfortable carrying them in your armpits?"
If her glare got any nastier he'd be catching fire about now. Sullenly, Mrs Chamberlain dumps the balls on the counter and lets him pack them in the bag alongside her failed decoy acrylic, jabbing her debit card into the reader almost hard enough to bend it.
"So nice to see you again," Stede lies through his teeth with his most pleasant smile, slipping the receipt in with the yarn. "Do visit again soon."
The bell jingles ferociously as she slams the door on her way out, and Stede sinks into his chair, groaning, rubbing his face into his hands.
"That makes it three-two to you, boss," Oluwande says over his shoulder from where he's restocking the rack of crochet hooks. "Nice one."
"Not sure what's nice about five theft attempts in one month by one person."
"Well, only three were attempts, really. Two were successful."
"Yes, thank you, Olu. Did you see what she was wearing? The cheek! Walking in here literally wearing stolen goods around her neck!" Actually, Stede is getting more and more steamed up the more he thinks about it. Like he doesn't have enough problems with the floundering business as it is without having to worry all the time about sticky fingers and vanishing stock.
"You could just ban her?" Oluwande suggests.
"Ban the president of the WI?" Stede sighs. "Not likely. We really can't afford any kind of boycott, but particularly that demographic if she ever starts bleating to them about the meanies in the yarn shop. We'll just have to keep an eye on her. Maybe shift the really fancy stuff behind the counter?"
"Yeah, that could work." Oluwande turns, studying the wall behind Stede. "Make a feature of it. Vicuña up there, qiviut that side, maybe the more expensive cashmere? I mean, she's still got her pick of the whole rest of the shop, but it'll get her usual targets off the floor."
It seems such a shame, though. The number of people who have been lured in by Stede and Lucius's extravagant window displays bumps up and up every time they rearrange, and he gets such a rush of delight every time he sees someone running merino or silk through their fingers for the first time and suddenly needing to know how to use it, wear it, love it as he does. The idea of ruining that experience because of a tiny handful of pilfering scoundrels is miserable and probably not really worth it, but it is worth considering at least. He's not sure how many more of these encounters he can take. He's already balancing on the knife edge between persevering with this folly and giving up altogether.
"Let me think about it," Stede says glumly.
He gets back to the sample he's knitting for the window when Oluwande goes for his lunch break, letting the stitches and the click of the needles be the comfort for him that they always are—that they have been since he was a child, teaching himself to make wonky hats and socks out of a library book in stolen moments because his father never would have allowed him to waste time on something so frivolous and common. The winding cables and the even bumps of moss stitch flow from his needles, the garment growing slowly row by row another few inches before the bell above the door tinkles again, digging into Stede's concentration and making him glance up.
"Good afternoon," he says, automatic smile pasted on his face before he even makes eye contact with the customer. But the eye contact makes the smile feel easier, genuine, for maybe the first time today, and a tingly little explosion of something sweet and lovely races up Stede's spine.
This is new. He's never seen anyone like this in his sleepy little seaside town before.
"Hey," says the newcomer. He has kind eyes. "Listen, man, I know this makes me a cheeky bastard, you can say no, but I'm moving in next door and they're still fucking about with the electric. Would you mind if I charge my phone for a minute?"
"Oh—no, of course," Stede says. He puts his needles down, gesturing for the man to come around the counter. "There's a space down here."
"Mate, you're a lifesaver. One of the moving vans is missing, I'm hoping it's just weird little confusing country roads and they've not fucked off with all my stuff. Still waiting for a call back." He bends over to push his charger into the plug socket—and Stede averts his eyes hastily, because those leather trousers tighten scandalously over his backside with the movement—then swipes some loose bits of grey hair out of his face when he rights himself and offers his hand to Stede to shake. "I'm Ed."
"Stede. Lovely to meet you. Would you like a cup of tea while you wait, or do you have to get back?"
"No, I can stay, at least til it's juiced up a bit. Tea would be great, man, thanks."
Stede points him to the drinks machine in the corner with the sofa and armchairs, watching Ed pour an unholy number of little sugar packets into his mug. His hair, tied up in a bun with a leather cord, is coming loose and falling out in a few places where new strands are growing in, curling against the back of his neck. Stede hasn't touched someone's neck in an absurdly long time, but he very much wants to touch this one just to feel those fine pretty hairs.
Yikes, he tells himself. Grow up.
"This place is awesome," Ed says, actually sounding almost awed. He's got his hands folded around his mug, hiding most of the words 'I NEED A HUGe amount of yarn' with his fingers, while he wanders around the displays. "All these colours! Shit, look at this stuff." He leans in close to inspect a basket of tape measures in the shape of seashells, some wooden sock blockers decorated in pyrography with sailing ship motifs, then a Fair Isle jumper on a vintage dress form knitted in a not very traditional colourway of cream and various teals and turquoises. "Do you sell these?"
"Oh—no, not really, they take so long by hand, nobody wants to spend six hundred pounds on a jumper. It's more to show off the yarn, people like to see how it looks in a finished project."
"This is fucking fascinating, man." Ed sets his mug down on the counter and reaches for the jumper, then hesitates and glances over. "Sorry, can I touch?"
"Please. That's what it's there for."
Ed lifts the sleeve gently, fingertips running over the corrugated ribbing at the cuffs and up the stockinette colourwork. "Look how tiny these stitches are."
His raptness is intoxicating in a way it really shouldn't be. Loads of people are impressed by fancy colourwork and three millimetre stitches. It doesn't usually make Stede's stomach tumble like this when he gets complimented on his work.
"I love this yarn," he says, coming around the counter to stand beside Ed and look at the jumper. It's oddly precious to him, this one—the first thing he knitted to display in his new shop a year ago, all in his favourite colours as a nod to the brand new 'Seaglass Yarns' sign outside—and the fact that Ed went straight to it makes him feel quite pink and flattered. "It's a bit scratchy, proper Shetland wool, but it's warmer than almost anything and hard wearing enough to last forever if you take care of it."
"Fuck, shows what I know," Ed says with a self-deprecating sort of grin. "I kind of just assumed wool is wool."
"Not at all! Here, feel this." Not really thinking what he's doing, Stede thrusts his arm out at Ed, who gives him an amused sort of look and gently strokes his fingertips from Stede's elbow to wrist as ordered. "Merino. Still from sheep, but so much finer and softer than the Shetland. And, you know, not all yarn even is wool from sheep. This one"—Stede grabs a skein of rich aubergine-coloured yarn off a nearby shelf—"is a rather exquisite cashmere."
"A rather exquisite cashmere," Ed echoes softly. Again he hesitates a moment, then brings the skein to his cheek and touches it carefully to the bare skin above where his grey beard starts. "Beautiful. That colour, too."
(This is probably the moment when Stede falls in love, or at least something very close to it.)
He's wearing all black. Those leather trousers, a cap-sleeved little t-shirt that doesn't quite touch his belted waist, an aged leather jacket. Stede imagines him in something softer, knitted, a splash of colour to enhance his shadows—a plain, classic saddle-shoulder in pure cashmere, or something striped and fuzzy in silk and mohair, maybe—and feels a tiny bit faint.
"It's nice to have a neighbour at last," he says before Ed can start rubbing his face like a cat on something else and send Stede into a full nervous breakdown. "We were all starting to think that place was cursed."
"Shit, mate, don't say that," Ed chides him with a little laugh, picking up his mug again for a sip. "I fucking hope not. I've poured my life savings into buying this place."
"I did the same," Stede admits. Doesn't bother to detail all the tedious, horrible rubbish about being disinherited in disgrace after the divorce. It's not as though going from rich and trapped to poor and free was a drop in living standards, everything considered. More of a sideways step into the unknown. "It's lovely here, mostly. I couldn't be in the big city again, not now I've lived by the sea. Can I ask what your business is?"
Please, not another coffee shop. He can't take Jim's fury one more time at competitors barging in on their territory.
"Would it shock you if I told you leather goods?"
"Ha! Well, no, I suppose it wouldn't," Stede says, relieved. "You're quite, you know, leathery."
Ed's leaning against the counter now, looking at Stede like he's another one of the fascinating little fancy tools he seemed so charmed by before. "Suppose I am, yeah. So that would make you—"
"Woolly?" Stede interrupts, wrinkling his nose.
"I dunno." Ed regards him for a second. Takes another sip of over-sweetened tea. "I wanna say silky."
Thankfully Stede is rescued from the indignity of having to reply to that while his brain's leaking out of him by Oluwande returning from Jim's place with Stede's mocha and muffin, and also the mysteriously missing van finally pulling up at the kerb outside with a screech of tyres and an argument between the three men in the front seats that's loud enough to be heard through the shop windows.
"Well, best go and check my shit's all still there," Ed says, retrieving his phone and charger. "Cheers for letting me use your power, Stede. Guess I'll see you around?"
"I guess you will," Stede agrees, opening the door for Ed and already thinking rather a lot too much about which jumper he might wear tomorrow to look both absolutely delicious and like he's not even trying. Of course Ed's probably married or something because that's just the kind of luck Stede has with men, and even if he's not taken there's no denying he is way, way out of the league of an awkward divorcé quite newly out of the closet who only has one hobby and three friends. But it's a brand new year and sometimes nice things happen, so what would be the harm in dreaming a little bit?
"It's not another cafe, is it?" Oluwande asks warily. "Jim's gonna flip."
"Not this time. 'Leather goods', apparently."
"I don't wanna know, mate."