49. Viktor
Viktor
The solar panels were a thing of beauty.
Okay, no, they weren’t actually beautiful, but what they represented was. The pack was fully cared for, in every way we could possibly care for them.
I was a little concerned about what Cash would do once the new houses were complete, since there were only so many buildings the pack needed. Cash had been building for years, and at some point, we would run out of new things to build.
On the other hand, there were always fixes to be completed. It was just that once the houses were complete, everyone else would go back to what they’d done before, so he’d be able to tool around at his own pace, fixing clogged drains and other small issues.
The solar panels were my favorite, though.
Not because I cared much about hot showers or stoves that worked on electricity.
What the panels did for the pack was all about other people, while I’d have been satisfied living in tents in the woods.
I’d lived through worse, and frankly, sometimes I liked a cold bath in the river.
It was bracing.
But the way they made Daire proud was perfection.
He watched as they set the last one on our tiny house, and he was proud.
I liked him proud, and he deserved it. Admittedly, I thought he should be more proud of other things, like his mastery of magic and the way everyone in the pack was happier with him around, but in the end, all that mattered was that he was happy.
Daire was proud he’d supplied the pack with something they wanted.
Altair would be thrilled that every house in the new square had a solar panel now, because it meant he’d be able to film his “content” wherever he was, without worrying about running out of battery power or not being able to plug in his lights.
I didn’t understand it, but his work had paid for the pack to eat incredibly well for months now, so my understanding didn’t matter at all.
What mattered was that everyone was happy. Everyone was settled.
I had never imagined such a thing, particularly not during my last years in Russia, but there I was. Home. Happy.
Life was excellent.
Daire turned to me, practically bouncing on his toes as he grabbed my hands. “I think we should go try out the bed.”
“It is the same kind of bed we’ve been sleeping on.”
“Same kind,” he stressed. “But entirely new bed. We definitely need to try it out. Break it in.” He wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled himself up to drop a kiss on my lips.
“Hey you two, get a room,” Leo called from his place on the roof, where he was holding the panel in place while Cash finished his work.
I made a rude gesture at him. “You are standing on top of my room. I refuse to use it while that is the case.”
Aleks laughed, shaking his head as he carried a stack of lumber for the next day’s work over to the next planned build site.
Maybe the last we would need, but I supposed it was time Tommy had a place to call his own.
He’d been waiting, repaying the debt he felt more keenly than anyone else in the pack, for long enough.
As I glanced over to the pile of wood, Drew came running out of the forest, holding something aloft. He rushed right up to Evie and held it out to her, which led to a full five minutes of her exclaiming over whatever shiny rock he’d brought for her approval.
Someday, I thought, Cash was going to have to build them a house, and they would need shelves for all the shiny things he’d brought her over the years.
And a walk-in closet for all the dresses she bought him in return, since it turned out they were the only form of clothing he liked.
Maybe they were young for it, and they would change their minds before things got too serious, but I didn’t think so. The protective way she acted around him was too much like my brothers and I with our own loves, and it was impossible to not recognize.
It was the future, and it truly looked bright for us all.