Chapter 29
-:- VICTORIA -:-
Sunday morning, and I’m sweating like something has a leak, while being pummeled by a fierce Stitch. I thought he was the medic and not the torturer!
“You said that out loud, Victoria. I’m not a torturer, but you need some moves that would give you the opportunity to get out of someone’s hold. Let’s start with me coming up behind you, arm around your waist and one around your neck. I want you to try to get out of my grasp,” Stitch nods, giving me the time to object, but I turn my back on him, allowing him to sneak up on me. I roll my eyes at Corey who is standing close by, watching intently.
Without truly thinking it through, I throw my head back, smashing Stitch’s nose. Hearing him grunt and the hold loosen I bend forward, throw my arms between my legs and grab Stitch by the balls. Before I can do anything with them Stitch shrieks, “I give in!” and lets go of me, backpedaling away from me as fast as he can.
Corey laughs with such delight that I look at him and wink. “My momma’s a badass,” he says with such pride I don’t have the heart to tell him not to curse.
“Okay, I’m not risking my balls again,” Stitch smirks. “Tell me five things I taught you.”
Nodding, I give Corey another wink, then turn back to Stitch. “One, hit them in the nose using the palm of my hand. Two, do the wristlock thing you taught me. Three, poke them in the eyes. I think that one says it all. Four, a backward headbutt. I think that worked well, Stitch,” I grin when he grunts but says nothing about his nose. “Five, forward headbutts, you know I can do them also, Stitch.”
“It was a good headbutt,” Corey laughs as he joins the conversation.
Stitch chuckles, but he’s rubbing his nose, which is quite red. I must have hit him as I should have, and if I’d done it harder, I think I would have broken his nose. “She gave a good headbutt, Corey. If you have to do it for real, Victoria, do it even harder.”
“Okay,” I reply.
The next half-hour both Corey and I were put through some grueling training. Corey is lit with excitement the whole time, but I’m on my last piece of energy. I think I may need more cardio!
Corey shows no fear of the routines that Stitch teaches us. He is red in the face, but still has so much drive left that I feel like I’m being left behind. When Stitch has Corey and me sparring together, I’m being careful that I don’t hurt him, but when he gets in a good left jab, I’m rocked backwards and my rib hurts. “Sheesh, Corey, remember it’s me and I’m not your enemy.”
“Sorry, I was trying too hard,” Corey puffs and when Stitch calls it done, I’m more than happy to walk away. I’m using the shower in Drag’s room because Chaos has let his room go now that he has the shared apartment with Target, and is living with me.
Taking a seat in the kitchen and easily drinking a bottle of water, I look at Chaos when he takes a seat next to mine.
“I have the keys to the house, and Heather’s company has been in and cleaned it ready for us to move in. We need to pack our gear ready for the move. All the furniture is with the house, but we can decide what we want to keep and what we are going to replace. I have a new bed for us, and one for Corey. We don’t want to sleep in someone else’s bed.” Chaos boops my nose while grinning. “We can let your apartment go, and that’ll save you the lease cost. If we, and I mean, you, me, and Corey go through each room we can make it ours. Corey may like posters on his walls, making the room his. He’s not had that opportunity before, so it’ll be good for him.”
“I’ll start packing tomorrow when I get home from work. It’s my first day remember?”
“Yeah, you’ll do great working alongside Specs. He’s damn good at what he does. You’ll have a lot of contact with BaronsSecure I would imagine, too. Did you organize what you were doing with current clients?”
“I let them go by handing them to colleagues. I didn’t want to carry on with that after Bethy. I want to have a clean start, away from everything I was doing previously. I will visit Bethy and tell her what I’m doing. I’m going to miss her so much,” I have a tear running down my cheek as I speak about Bethy, and I hope the pain of losing her will ease soon.
“We can move in after the wedding if you think that would be perfect timing?” Chaos asks, and after I consider it I agree.
“Yes, that would give us the week to get things moved and ready. Then, once we’re married, we can go directly to the house. I want us to keep Corey with us the entire time. He is still clinging to us, thinking we’ll leave him. He knows you are his dad now, but he’s still worried about me being his mother. As soon as we can get my adoption process for him completed, the sooner he will have full confidence in us being the family he craves.”
Before we can discuss anything more Corey runs into the kitchen squealing with delight, and as he passes us he throws his head back laughing. What surprises me is Kenzie’s BigDog is chasing after him, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. If I had to describe that dog at the moment I’d say he was laughing. Nobody is taking any notice of the dog chasing Corey and looking at Chaos he’s only grinning at the sight. Must be okay then?
****
Sitting at my desk, I lean forward and examine the line of code on the monitor. I’m not sure that is right? If we want that code to work it needs adjusting. We are working on a system where any sign of infiltration from an outside source would lock up and lock out the attacker. “Specs, this code isn’t right. It will allow the infiltration to happen more slowly than it should. You want it to automatically lock down on the first sign don’t you?”
Turning to respond, Specs points to the monitor. “It has to be instantaneous. I cannot get the code to work as I want. It pauses for fifteen seconds. It’s too long. Anything could have invaded a system at that point.”
“Leave it with me and I’ll work it out,” I squint my eyes and study the code again. But decide it may be easier to rewrite the code from scratch. Any errors in this original coding would be deleted once the new code is running efficiently.
I lose track of time while typing out code. Making sure step-by-step is working as I require before moving to the next portion. I’m shocked when Specs nudges me with a mug of coffee.
“Thank you.”
Specs takes his seat again, “We need to have breaks. Stretch our legs, have the blood flowing to our bodies and brains. It’s one of the reasons I wanted you in here with me. Getting time to do what is healthy for us.”
“I understand because when I lose myself in the coding I can sit for far too many hours. Do you think we should have times we take a break, go for a bite to eat?”
