Page 40 of The Dragon's Emberlinked Mate
There weren’t enough thanks or enough gold for the dragon students who helped with the coding. We’d had a few people run through the app to try to find any bugs that needed fixing. We discovered there were students who loved finding those kinds of glitches. I had a feeling they were also pretty skilled hackers, not that I asked. That wasn’t the kind of knowledge I wanted. Plausible deniability and all that.
Those students spent a week trying to break the app, giving us suggestions and then trying to break it again. They had given us two thumbs up. It was ready.
And that led us to today, launch day. All we had to do was wait for everyone to get here. It was a good thing our home was huge because we weren’t limiting the launch to the three of us and our mates. So many other people put in their everything. They deserved to be here too.
Was it over the top to have a work celebration/app launch in my nest room? Absolutely. Was I going to let it stop me? Not even close.
In a perfect world, we wanted the app to be good to go before the eggs hatched. Somehow we managed that, but barely, if Vexus was to be believed. His last visit, he gave us four days max, and we were on day two.
They needed to stay put for one more evening. If not, everyone was going home and the launch would wait. It might disappoint some people who’d pre-signed up, but so be it. Family came first. It was kind of the entire point.
One by one, everyone arrived. My parents, the computer students, my brother’s mate, Ollie’s mate, my mate, Zane and his mate, and a few others. I hadn’t bothered to dress up and was relieved to see most of the people had thrown on joggers and t-shirts when they arrived. Had we been at the academy, there’d probably have been suits and dresses. This was better.
Chef had made an array of hors d’oeuvres and beverages, and they arranged for it to be set up in the corner of the room for everyone to enjoy. Other than that, the only thing I did to prepare was place a blanket over the nest, giving my eggs privacy.
I wasn’t hiding them or protecting them from danger, not that a blanket protected you, but it gave that vibe. It was more that this time in the nest was a treasure, and I wasn’t sure if they’d want to share that with this many people. Obviously, my family and friends that were in here had already seen them, but the students we were working with were not friends, and it seemed a step too far.
Or maybe my hormones were still a mess and I was overreacting… probably a little bit of both.
Pip had the computer, AKA the powerhouse, ready to go. It wasn’t actually called that, but I had dubbed it so. It was going to be what we did our launch from. The back of it was covered with stickers from all his young, and it kind of brought everything into perspective.
This wasn’t just about the work. It was about family, about our youth, about being the community we all needed.
We sent out an email and text to all who signed up, letting them know that it was going live at 6pm, and now it was clock-watching time. Even with the excitement of the guests, time dragged on, the anticipation building.
After forty-two years, or an hour, the final minute came. We counted down… nine, eight, seven… until finally we reached the moment of truth, one.
I had Ollie press the final button, and there were cheers as every single one of us, looking at our apps, watched, waiting to see how well it worked. I wasn’t sure about anyone else, but for me, that first minute had been filled with fear that it would all crash. My mate must’ve sensed it, his hand never leaving my shoulder.
But it didn’t crash, despite the traffic flowing in.
We’d let the people looking for manny positions set up their accounts early. They’d already had their background checks, their profiles were pretty, all of their resumes at the ready. What this launch did was allow them to be visible and for the fathers and mothers to sign up as potential employers.
There was a ton of activity on the site and on the app. Pip turned the computer around for us all to see. It was impressive.
We didn’t expect the kind of numbers a highly anticipated pop album would bring, but we had a goal set of having at least one dragon from every clan in the country to sign up. And two hours later, we achieved the goal.
That was when my mate put an end to the party. “Thank you for coming, everyone, but my mate needs to sleep, and our eggs need a little less activity so they can get theirs as well.”
Obviously, the eggs themselves didn’t sleep, but our young inside them did. One by one, everybody said goodbye until it was just the two of us left.
He climbed into the nest beside me.
“I’m so proud of you, mate.” He kissed my cheek. “You went from an idea to something that is going to change lives in such a short period of time.”
I wasn’t sure about the changing-lives part, but it was going to make them better.
“I had a lot of help.”
“From people who saw your vision.” That was so on-brand for my mate, to find a way to turn everything into a compliment for me.
“You know I want to be watching the numbers, the stats.” More than anything. Not seeing them was killing me, but my mate had the staff take my phone as well as my work computer away with the dirty dishes.
“I do know this. But let’s say they’re great. What can you do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“What if they’re horrible? What can you do about it?”
