Monday, April 19th, 2021

Rowan

We have three days until Luis's coronation, at which point we will have no peace until our honeymoon and will be assailed with more chaos when we return. So Luis and I took the semester off and have jam-packed our schedules with everything that we will need to do for the next few months. We spend Monday morning making decisions for our new home.

The sort of communal living of Tillamook Camp Pack has its benefits, but also its drawbacks. Primarily, most of the living arrangements in the packhouse are designed for one person or perhaps a couple. There are only thirty units with two bedrooms, and only five units with three bedrooms. Pack members with large families are left to find other housing, or share the bedrooms they do have. We are also discovering that there are some considerable accessibility issues with the packhouse as some members of our population grow older. We are getting some elevators installed, but that is just a salve on the deeper issue.

Maria's final major act as alpha was to solve all of these problems once and for all. This final act is an enormous project, completely unprecedented in the pack's history, and it will also be Luis's first act as alpha. Both of them are beyond proud to break ground on this project. Tillamook Camp Pack will become something of a village. Not a town like Fuse; we don't quite have the population for that. But a neighborhood, at least. Paved roads will span the empty field on which the packhouse now sits. There will be two different apartment complexes and dozens of plots for housing. When the project was announced, every single new space was assigned within an hour. Maria and Luis have worked tirelessly with city planners, civil engineers, plumbers, electricians, and construction foremen of the pack to put together a map of the new neighborhood. They have expanded and expanded the plans, redrawing and adding on until the needs of the pack were fully satisfied. Many were happy to remain in the packhouse. Some, like Luis and I, were thrilled at the idea of having our own house. The brilliance of the project is its price tag. The sum is hefty, of course, but everyone hired for it comes directly from the pack, or from their direct families. Much of the work is done at a discount as many of the workers will occupy these spaces themselves. On the other side of the coin, those workers will not have to pay even half of what these homes would cost if they were put on the public market. Construction begins the day after our wedding.

Luis and I sit on the back porch of the packhouse, ignoring the sounds of the excavating machinery digging out the paths of the new roads. With the blueprints of our home and binders full of samples in front of us, we choose countertops and flooring, lighting fixtures, and wood. I'm thrilled by how easy the process is with him. Our tastes complement one another so perfectly. I was adamant about tile countertops instead of marble, to which he immediately agreed. He flatly refused any dark flooring, and was happy to let him choose what he preferred without argument. We decided to keep the designs simple, not selecting any ridiculously eye-catching decor. We choose from a book of samples and jot down our selections before turning them in to the foreman overseeing the homebuilding.

I read somewhere that remodeling is one of the most stressful things a marriage can go through. If that's true, Luis and I passed this first test with flying colors. Next, we go to the dentist. Certainly less exciting, but this was a tip given to us by Maria. She said she was two years into her reign as alpha before she remembered things like dental check-ups.

After the dentist, we go car shopping. I have never owned a car. It has always felt like an unnecessary expense. My mother, as the principal, was always able to take me to school. If I wanted to go out with friends, they could pick me up or I could get a ride from one of my parents. When I moved into the packhouse, I simply borrowed Luis's car whenever I needed to go somewhere. But Luis insisted that we can no longer share. He said that he didn't want me to be stranded if he took the car out to check on one of the pack's businesses or meet another alpha.

A veteran salesman approaches us on the lot as we browse the different makes and models. My eye is drawn to the SUVs and hatchbacks, thinking of the children in our future. Wouldn't it be smarter to get something with a lot of cargo space than something small like Luis's?

"I'm Doug," the man says, offering me a handshake.

"Hello, Doug," I say, taking the handshake. "I'm Rowan. My husband, Luis, and I are looking for something safe and reliable."

Doug shakes Luis's hand, too. "Have you kids already been approved for a loan?" he asks.

I smile. "We'll be paying cash."

Doug's brow furrows. "What's your budget?"

I cock my head. "I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that."

Doug laughs. "Well, remember. I can't make you buy anything. If I had that power, I would be working for De Beers in New York, not a car lot in Portland, Oregon."

I get a good laugh out of this, and decide it's okay to like Doug.

"We were thinking a car, but..." I trail off, looking once again at the family vehicles. "I'm not sure."

Doug catches onto my line of thinking immediately. "Little ones in your future?" he asks.

Luis and I nod together. Doug leads us over to the SUVs. I fall in love with the first one he shows us - a black 2019 Honda CR-V, but I'm careful to keep my poker face.

This one, I say over the mindlink.

Luis is amused. Don't want to shop around?

Why? I ask as Doug talks about the different features of the car. It's perfect.

We take it for a test drive and I feel in my bones that this is my car. Luis steps in to negotiate the price down a bit. Doug offers to have Luis's car driven home for free, so we take off together in my new car.

"I love it!" I cry as we zoom down the highway. Luis is already on the insurance app on his phone, adding the car to the plan. "Thank you!"

"We bought it," he reminds me with a grin, happily watching me drive. "Not me. We."

I roll my eyes at this. Luis has been on Tillamook Camp's payroll for nearly four years, his job title being "CEO Trainee". When he becomes the alpha, he will receive a sizeable salary. It was his money that paid for this car.

"Rowan," he says, following my train of thought. "If you weren't with me, you would have a job of your own and your own money. That makes my money ours." He holds up his left hand. "Not to mention, legally, we now share everything."

I don't know what to say to this. "Thank you," I say again, reaching for his hand. "I love you."

He kisses my hand. "I love you, too."

Our next stop is the courthouse, where Luis fills out the paperwork to change his name.

We thought we could take a copy of the completed form and head straight to the DMV and post office to get his name changed with both of them, but we have to wait until the name change is actually approved. I jot down this note in my phone so we don't forget. Monday night, we sleep deeply.

Tuesday morning, I help Jose sort through the nine million boxes of stuff he ordered for the coronation. There was a shipping delay, so he only just today got the decorations.

Jose is spitting mad about this, cursing under his breath in Spanish every few seconds.

He harasses Kirk into pulling people to help with the decorating.

"Listen, we need the LED lights up in the trees in the area. It must be swept of pine needles. There is a portable stage in the basement, we need to get that out, too," Jose says, arranging stacks of high-quality LED light ropes. The lights are arranged in the shapes of stars and the wires that connect them are small enough to be invisible in the dark. They will look lovely out in the forest. "I need someone sweeping, someone needs to be putting up the fencing around the parking lot, someone needs to prune the garden and- and where's Clareese? She's in charge of flowers for the event center for the banquet afterward. I need-"

"We live in Oregon," Kirk finally exclaims, holding his hands up. "That little fence, the rope lights, the lanterns- we can't put any of that up until the day of, Jose. It'll get blown away."

Jose throws a bag of biodegradable confetti at Kirk.

"I just got my eyebrow pierced, you fuck!" Kirk shouts, clutching his eyebrow.

Zach, who had probably come to this little storage room on the first floor seeking his fiancé, frowns at Jose and reaches to soothe Kirk.

I'm impressed by the sight of him. I always am. I tend to think of both Zach and Ollie as little kids, but they're grown men now. Zach has grown a couple inches taller, his boyish charm replaced with something steadier, more confident.

"Is it okay?" Zach whispers, looking at the piercing.

"Is it?" Kirk asks, making a show of attempting to look at his own eyebrow.

"It looks fine," Zach says soothingly, patting Kirk's shoulder. He turns to Jose. "How can I help?"

Jose takes a deep breath. Kirk and I groan.

After a long day spent ironing out the last of the décor details with Jose and doing my part to rake the edges of the gravel parking lot until it looks neater, I barely have time to

shower before I fall asleep. Luis gets in even later than I do. He, Maria, Josiah, and Chris have been working on the transference of the pack's businesses all day. I would guess it is mentally taxing work, because he is out like a light after he tells me he loves me.

It seems shitty that my honeymoon period has ended before I even began my honeymoon.