"Vicky, you shouldn't be doing this. Relationships are about trust. Trust is very important." chanted Vicky to herself as she distanced herself from her laptop. "Don't go and mess everything up by snooping on your boyfriend."
She collapsed on the bed and punched her pillow in frustration. "It's been two whole days and he hasn't even called!" she thought irritably.
Not that she wanted to be the nagging sort of girlfriend, but didn't you have to let the people you care about know if you're still alive?
She'd texted him, she'd tried to call him, hell she'd even sent him an email.
Fine.
She would give him a couple of more days. It was the weekend after that anyway, and if Levi still kept up his vanishing act she was going to visit him at his house on Saturday.
Vicky controlled the urge to check her phone for messages for a whole ten minutes before caving.She couldn't help but smile at the notifications.
Traci has added you to a New group.
Traci has renamed New group to Secret Trio
Traci added David
There was a of message from Traci asking if she had been invited to Daryl Thomas's birthday party on Friday.
She was about to reply that she hadn't been invited and who the hell was Daryl Thomas when Traci pinged her again.
Traci : Never mind. Daryl asked me to bring you along.
Vicky : Who is this guy?
Traci : Your kidding right?
Vicky : No I'm not. Who is he
Traci : He's a senior, not just any senior. He won Mr. Hottie every year he's been in highschool. And he throws the best parties. He's not the brightest bulb in the room, but man is he sexy without the lights...
Vicky : *puking emoji* So I understand that you have a crush on him?
Traci : Oh yes! I had the luck of seeing him shirtless twice in my entire life. If there was such a thing as complete satisfaction it would be seeing him naked.
David : Ladies, this is slightly uncomfortable.
Vicky : Fine! I believe you! Daryl's a total hottie and I'll go with you on Friday so you can check him out again. But tell me if he's a senior, why'd he invite us?
Traci : It's tradition. He always invites his entire year and the year below his. He says that way everyone finds someone to impress.
Vicky : I'm not sure I get his logic, but okay.
David : Frankly I don't either. But there's always greasy pizza, booze and good music. What else does a guy need.
Vicky : Haha!
Traci : Levi will probably take Vicky away and David will rush off with his pierced friends. What am I going to do?
David : Right, I have other friends. Why am I in this group again?
Traci : Because you are our friend too. I understand we're a little less...edgy but everyone should have all kinds of friends.
Vicky : Don't worry Traci. Maybe you'll meet someone at the party! Maybe a senior and you'll fall in love and he'll go to college and you'll have this romantic long distance relationship. You'll graduate and move away to be near him and then one day he'll propose and you'll say yes...
David : You girls are so gullible. Do you honestly think a guy will willingly give up all possible college flings for a high school girl he just met?
Traci : Jeez David, grow a romantic side will ya. We know it's impractical, but a girl can hope right?
Vicky : But David don't you believe in love at first sight?
David : Do you?
Vicky stopped to think. Had she fallen in love with Levi all those years ago at the playground? She didn't even know what love was back then. Had it been the strength of emotion that had led her to him eventually? It must have been, she told herself. It must have been.
Vicky : I think I do. I fell for Levi.
There was a small pause and Vicky thought that she got through to David with her point of view. Unfortunately, she was mistaken.
David : This is whats wrong with you. You are delusional. You think everything is so perfect in this little world of yours. You actually believe everyone has their lives completely sorted out and lives in the lap of luxury like yourself. You never stop to think that maybe there are hardships in life. People can't always do what they want to do. Have you ever considered the possibility that things are not what they seem?
I think love is about working hard, it's not meant to be so easy. Maybe you fall in love at first sight not with what you see first, but with what you choose to see first!
David has left the chat.
Traci : David is such an asshole. Don't worry Vicky, you did nothing wrong. I'll give him a talking to.
Vicky felt her lips tremble as she wrote a feeble yes. She didn't know why but David's words hurt. They cut through her skin like knives and she felt hollow. Rereading the message, she realized he was accusing her of taking things at face value, of not noticing enough, of being too quick to jump to conclusions...
He seemed to resent that she came from money, resented that she believed in love, resented that she...mentioned Levi.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she got out her laptop. If David was saying what she thought he was saying, her world was going to turn on it's head.
There was no way she could wait till the weekend. Snooping was wrong, frowned upon, unethical. But so was lying.
It hurt her heart to think Levi had deceived her all this while.
***
So we are finally meeting the king himself, thought Axky as he opened the door to a huge, mahagony tabled office. The walls were laced with expensive gold embroidered wallpaper and the floors carpeted with red velvet. Axky felt almost sorry to walk over it with his muddy shoes.
But this was supposed to be his evening off, so he made sure he rubbed his feet into the carpet.
A smallish, overwhelmingly ordinary guy was sitting on the antique chair behind a tall desk. It was disconcerting to think someone who looked so plebeian could have been the one giving him all that attitude on the phone.
"Good evening Mr... Axky was it? I take it you wanted an audience with me." said Gavin Walters silkily as he motioned to the chair opposite his desk. "I see you are not wearing a suit."
No Walters, it was your grandma who wanted an appointment with you.
Axky swallowed down the retort in his throat. The man's disproportionate secretary had insisted that he wear a freaking suit for this meeting. The nerve!
Axky had turned up in jeans and a t-shirt. It was nine pm on a Friday, If Gavin wanted a formal date he could kiss his ass.
"No thanks. I'd rather stand. And suits don't suit me ironically." he said easily. "I'll give you a quick briefing of the situation. There have been seventeen attacks on security of Walt Games servers. We have lost data on three servers, but the latest designs and code are safe. We've kept them isolated and offline, so the attackers can't get them without knowing it's actual location."
"Remind me why you are hired."Â drawled Gavin pouring himself a tall glass of neat whisky and offering none to Axky. Even though he didn't drink, Axky found it offensive that the son-of-a-bitch seemed to think he didn't earn his living.
"I am hired to fix your dismal cyber security and plug all loopholes." said Axky clenching his hands so the whites of his knuckles stood out.
"You don't seem to be doing a good job." he said before downing the full glass in one go. He must have a liver of steel.
"That was a sick joke." said Axky with a derisive laugh. He came closer to the desk, bent down and slammed his fist on the mahagony table.
Damn that hurt.
"Look here, you asshole. I don't give a shit about who you are or how you run your company. I continue to work here because you have innocent employees who need the money you pay them. " said Axky firmly. "That said, I am not God. I need a list of the enemies you have. Personal and professional so that I can run a cyber investigation on them."
"That information is private." said Gavin narrowing his eyes.
"It's important for the investigation." said Axky calmly. He was trying really hard not to grab the man's collar.
"I cannot disclose---" started Gavin.
Axky whistled. "Gavin Walters, I want to save your company because you employ 15000 people. Not because I care about you." he said tauntingly. "Now you must know that if you deny me the access to classified information, or fire me and close the organization, I will dig up every single detail about your personal life and present it in court. I believe I have a nice case of attempted sexual harassment from several of your prior secretaries many of whom are willing to testify. I will win the case and you will pay each employee a sizeable sum from your personal fortune as compensation for inconvenience caused in addition to mandatory jail time. Now this is a lovely idea I just gave myself. Nice talking to you, goodnight."
Axky turned to leave a smirk playing on his face.
"Do your worst Axky." drawled Gavin. "Many others have tried and failed."
"Ah yes, but perhaps the others didn't know of a woman you married here seventeen years ago." said Axky as he turned the door knob.
"That information is classified." asked Gavin softly.
"I know." Axky said rolling his eyes.
"How?" he demanded, the whisky clearly getting to him.
Because I am a hacker? Did he really think marriage records could be got rid off so easily? Especially in the digital age?
"That information, Mr. Walters, is classified." said Axky turning back to smirk at the small man.
There was a long pause, broken only by fidgeting sounds from Gavin in the background.
"Mr Axky...you have misled me. Please lock the door and take a seat, I will share what I know." said Gavin, defeat evident in his voice. "For what it's worth, I am sorry I misjudged your abilities.
Axky smiled. No one told him he wasn't good at his job and had the audacity to not apologize.
A/n: I love badass Axky!
What do you think of David's outburst?
Let me know your thoughts :)
I apologize for the late update. As some of you know, I'm currently between jobs and trying to make ends meet. Job hunting is really time consuming and so frustrating. I've been studying for some entrance exams as well, hopefully I'll get in somewhere worthwhile soon!
Thank you for reading, you make me so happy.
Lots of love,
Andy