Page 97 of Pack Me Up

She tries a few scales, her fingers flying up the neck, and already she’s nailing it. The notes are clean and quick.

“You’re getting good at this, scary fast,” I confess.

She stops, lets the bow drop to her knee, and looks at me for real. “Instruments have always come naturally to me. Piano, drums, guitar, strings. It’s the only thing I was ever good at.” She shrugs, but the smile is proud.

“You’re good at plenty of things,” I say.

She scoffs, starts running the bow again, this time working through one of Oli’s songs that’s been stuck in my head for weeks. I watch the way her arms move, the way her back straightens as she gets into it. Every measure, she looks more and more like herself, the raw edges smoothing out, and the caution dropping away.

“Instruments came easy,” she says, keeping her eyes on the fingerboard. “The rest of life, not so much.” Her thumb shifts on the bow, and I notice one of her bond marks on her wrist.

She changes key, launching into a run of quick, ugly scales that sound a little off. She grins at my wince. “Sorry. There’s still a learning curve.”

“I like it,” I say. “It’s real.”

She keeps playing, the notes looping into something more complicated, half-improvised and all hers. The sound fills the space, bouncing off the aluminum walls and catching in the fuzz of the blankets. I let myself melt into it, the hum of the bus engine and the swirl of her music creating a cocoon around us.

Brittney shifts, pulling her knees up, violin balanced perfectly. “My parents used to make me play for their friends,” she says. “Like a trained monkey at dinner parties, fundraisers, or whatever they wanted.” She doesn’t stop playing, but the music goes sad, a lull in the tempo. “I’d do it and everyone would clap and then forget I was there.”

She glances at me, reading my face. “It’s lucky they didn’t ruin music for me completely.”

“It’s lucky for everyone. The world deserves to hear you,” I say, and she laughs, soft and small, but the sadness lingers.

The sun’s gotten lower outside. Late afternoon light seeps through the tinted windows, gold and syrupy, turning every thread of her hair into a halo. She squints against it, but doesn’t move away. The sound of the violin blends with the light, everything in this moment vibrating at the same frequency.

She finishes the run, lets the bow fall slack, then props the violin in her lap. For a second, she just breathes, allowing the quiet in.

I watch her, the way her chest rises and falls, the way she hugs her own arms, trying to contain something too big for her ribs. The bond is a warm ache in my chest; I can feel it thrum between us, even when we’re not touching.

She tucks the violin away, careful not to smudge the finish, then shifts closer to me on the nest. The air is thick with her scent, toffee and hazelnut. I’m not an alpha, not even close, but I can still feel her pull and the gravity of her need.

She leans into me, shoulder to shoulder, and I let my hand brush hers. She doesn’t flinch.

Time blurs in the nest. I don’t know how long we sit there, ten minutes, thirty, maybe longer, but every second feels stacked on top of the last, building a wall around us. The rest of the bus is silent. I can hear my own heartbeat and Brittney’s breathing.

I watch her. Not in the way an alpha watches prey or a rival, but in the way you stare at a photograph you know by heart and still find something new every time. Her knees are pulled tight to her chest, arms around them, with her hair spilling over her face in messy waves. There’s a little groove between her eyebrows when she thinks too hard. I want to smooth it away with my thumb.

I look down at my leg. The bond mark is there, reminding me how Brittney feels about me.

It still doesn’t feel real that she picked me. Alphas are supposed to claim, supposed to take, supposed to hold the world together with their will alone. Betas like me are backup singers, backup plans, the sturdy, invisible glue that keeps things from flying apart. Not the center of anything, let alone the center of her.

But there it is. Her mark on my skin, my scent tangled with hers, the bond humming in my bones every time she’s near.

I feel her watching me now. I look up, and she’s leaning closer. She’s searching my face for something, maybe a question, maybe an answer.

She moves closer, the weight of her settling next to my hip. The nest is big enough for both of us, but she makes a point of not leaving any space.

She reaches for my hand, her fingers cool and dry. She traces the mark on my leg, then wraps her hand around it, covering the raw spot. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really. I like it.”

She studies me, something unspoken in her gaze. “I like it too.”

We sit in the glow of it, the truth of the bond, until I can’t stand the distance anymore. I reach up, brush a strand of hair from her cheek, and let my hand linger there. She closes her eyes, tilts her head into my palm, a sigh slipping from her lips.

I lean forward and press my forehead to hers. Her lashes flutter, and she opens her eyes, inches from mine.

“I love you,” I whisper.