Page 30 of Pack Me Up

Colton sidles up beside me, grinning. “Saint doesn’t like to brag, but he built half of this himself. Fox did the wiring. I did the sound insulation.” He winks. “Cody and Hunter did nothing except argue about which amps were best.”

“We supervised,” Cody says, deadpan, and they all laugh.

Hunter perches on the piano bench, spinning around to face me. “It’s yours,” he says, voice bright with pride. “The whole thing. You can play as loud as you want, as late as you want. Invite whoever. Just… let us know if you’re going to break stuff. We want to watch.”

For a second, I can’t speak. My throat tightens, tears burning at the edges of my vision. I turn in a slow circle, taking it all in, the scent of the pack and the newness of the space.

“Are you serious?” I say, voice tiny.

Fox is suddenly there, at my shoulder, hand gentle on my arm. “You deserve it,” he says, simple as anything.

Saint shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. “You make music. We make space for you here.”

Colton hands me a guitar. It’s brand new. “Try it,” he urges, and when I take it, my hands recognize the weight of it instantly.

The pack arranges themselves around the room. Saint by the door, Colton and Cody slouching against the wall, Hunter back on the bench, and Fox kneeling beside the pedal board, ready to assist. It’s a live audience, and for the first time, I don’t want to disappear.

I strum a chord. The sound is crisp, clean, perfectly balanced. The room eats up the noise and gives it back, a hundred times richer. I play a few more, half a song, then stop because my hands are shaking. The pack is watching, but not judging. There’s no tension, just pride.

Colton breaks the silence. “Damn. Listening to you play-”

“Makes us lucky bastards,” Cody finishes.

Hunter whoops. “Encore!”

Even Saint cracks a smile, and the effect is dazzling, like sunlight on water.

I don’t know what to say. I look at them, one by one, and I’m overwhelmed by the realization: They did this for me. They didn’t just bring me into their home; they made it my home, too.

I set the guitar down, hands trembling, and turn to the pack. “Thank you,” I manage, voice barely a whisper.

Fox squeezes my hand. “Anytime.”

Saint nods, and the others echo it in their own way: Colton with a wink, Cody with a nod, Hunter with a fist bump in the air.

They file out, giving me space, but not before Hunter tugs me aside, voice low. “Tommy will be here any minute. Can I stay and watch?”

I squeeze his hand in return. “Sure.”

Tommy’s voice arrives before the rest of him. “I brought lattes and the good doughnuts,” and then he’s barreling into the room, arms overloaded with a cardboard tray and a paper bag. His hair is even messier than usual, and he’s wearing a jacket covered in hand-sewn patches, safety pins glittering in the light.

He freezes in the doorway, slack-jawed. For a split second, I think the sugar rush finally killed him.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, spinning in a slow circle. “Is this…Is this all for you? No, wait. It’s for us. Oh my god, Britt. Your mates are perfect!”

He drops the lattes on the nearest amp, then sprints around the space, touching everything. He taps on the piano and runs his fingers down the nearest guitar.

I laugh, already less nervous. “They want us to rehearse here if that’s cool with you.”

“Say less,” he says, but he’s grinning so hard it looks like it hurts. “Are these all plugged in? Can I—” He grabs a guitar from the rack, checks the tuning, and launches into the riff from our first song.

Hunter is watching me, really watching, his dark eyes soft and a little hungry. There’s something about the way he leans into the pillar, his curls wild with purple streaks, that makes it impossible to look away.

We set up as we always do, with Tommy on the high harmonies and me on rhythm and lead.

We start with “Homebody Gone”, the first song on our setlist. Tommy’s voice locks in under mine, tight and bright, and the harmonies climb together, higher and higher until they break into a wild, falling melody. The acoustics in the room are insane. Every note hangs in the air just long enough to bloom, then dissolves into the next. The room was built for this.

We run through three more songs, the set getting tighter and more alive with every verse. Tommy improvises harmonies, throwing in new runs and trills, and I throw it back at him, matching every curve and twist. We are, for a moment, the only two people in the universe.