Rogue Hearts

by Tamsen Parker

  I get it, I do. She’s pissed and I don’t blame her, but I don’t feel like this is the time for guilt trips and possible blackmail.

  “You’re really fucking mercenary—did you know that?” It is totally not cool that alongside my anger and my worry that I’m actually kinda turned on by that.

  “You bet your ass I am.”

  Yes, this is better. Better than the begging the last time we’d talked. Maybe worse for me, but I like this Jordan way better than the desperate girl who’d almost started crying on the phone with me. It presses all my buttons when women cry. It’s a problem.

  “Okay, but if I get LtG, then we can play? You’ll take us?”

  “You keep up your end of the bargain and I’ll keep mine. I’ll even make you the headliners if I can get all five of you.”

  “Cool, right, okay then. I’ll talk to the guys and get back to you. Shouldn’t be a problem though.”

  There’s noise in the background. Am I on speakerphone? Is there a roomful of people celebrating the fact that Jordan just landed a whale? Let them do what the fuck ever as long as I don’t disappoint my mom and actually grow up into the kind of man I’d like to be.

  “Great. Let me know when it’s done. I hope the rest of the band is as amenable as you seem to think they’ll be.”

  “Like I said, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  4

  It’s a problem.

  Christian’s cool with it, but the rest of them…

  I’d been counting on Zane because of the whole immigrant solidarity angle, but he’s not so sure.

  “Dude, I get it. I’d even write a big fat fucking check to… What’s the name of it again?”

  “Already Home Immigration,” I mutter, feeling like flipping my keyboard or throwing my mic and stand against a damn wall.

  “Yeah. I mean, my whole family’s got their citizenship, but not everyone in the neighborhood does. Some of them are here on visas, and some of them aren’t. I don’t want to bring hellfire down on their heads because we pissed off the wrong people. I know you sometimes have this delusion that everyone’s kind and good and only does their job, but that’s not how it works. People could get screwed because of us.”

  He’s right that my first thought is that he can’t be right. Government doesn’t work like that, law enforcement doesn’t work like that. They have one job—help people. Would they really go out of their way to hurt people who were important to us because we made them mad? This isn’t some dictatorship where people just disappear when they’ve spoken out against the government. That’s, like, in the constitution, right?

  But by the way Teague raises his thick, dark eyebrows at me, and his mouth turns into this funny wrinkle, maybe it does. Sometimes the other guys have to rein me and Nicky in from ideas because we’re not so great at thinking ahead. Maybe Christian hadn’t thought of that because he’s so fucking white. Maybe no one he knows is going to get hurt by this.

  Most of the time, these guys are just my friends. The money and the fame we have makes it easier to gloss over stuff that didn’t matter so much when we were kids because all we knew is that we all wanted to be rock stars someday. It takes shit like this to remind us that when we’re not part of LtG that we’re different.

  I’ll ask Teague last because he’s probably still thinking it through. Sometimes it makes me impatient that it takes him so damn long to figure stuff out, but honestly, it’s kinda nice too. Means I don’t have to think too hard. And hell, maybe Christian will do some of the work for me. It was his idea to get in on that naked calendar for literacy, so maybe he can talk Teague into this too.

  “Nick? What about you?”

  Nicky’s never seemed to care about much of anything at all. He’s a goofball. As long as he’s getting as much attention as he thinks he deserves—spoiler alert, it is all the attention—he couldn’t care less about what else is going on. But he’s looking awfully frigging serious right now. He doesn’t look me in the face, either, but sinks his top teeth into his bottom lip. Well, shit.

  “Nicky, come on. What are you thinking?”

  Which is when he strips his gaze from his beat up kicks and looks at me with a face made out of stone.

  “Here’s the thing, Benj. You’re right. This girl Jordan is right. What she was talking about and the whole rest of the immigration mess is important. But…”

  Fucking A. “But what?”

  “But we’re public figures, man. We stay out of this shit. I don’t feel so good about pissing off a bunch of our audience because they feel like we’re being disrespectful of the current administration. Besides, if we have an opinion on this, people are going to expect us to have opinions on everything. I don’t want to be a full time social justice warrior, man. I just want to play guitar.”

  His words slam into me like a shoulder to the stomach. The hell?

  “What the fuck, Nicky? You don’t want to rock the boat? Are you shitting me with this? You’re the guy who usually wants to capsize the damn thing and would dance on the ship as it went down, probably shoot off some fireworks, whatever it took to get people to look at you, and now you’re telling me you don’t want to fucking rock the boat? Fuck you. Like, fuck you real hard.”

  Nicky is usually the one of us with impulse control problems and the hellfire, short-fused temper, but right now mine is the blood boiling. So from my place standing next to one of the beat-up couches I had shipped up here from Texas, I launch myself over the wagon wheel coffee table and straight at Nick who’s sitting on the back of the couch opposite me.

  We both hit the cement floor that’s only covered by a well-trodden rug, and the air gets knocked out of me. Probably Nick too, because I landed on him. Before we can quite untangle ourselves, someone is hauling me up by my shoulders and holding me back. Must be Teague because Christian isn’t built enough to hold me back, and I don’t think Zane would. Teague is the one of us who usually plays enforcer. He’s enforcing me not punching Nicky’s lights out right now.

  “Whoa, dude, I get how mad you are, but—”

  “You really don’t.” My voice is feral, and I hate the way my throat is getting thick and tears are pricking the back of my eyes. They don’t understand. And Teague can’t possibly get it. “What if Declan was going to get deported? What if they were going to send him back to some country he has no memory of, where he doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t know anyone? What would you do?”

  Teague turns me around and grabs my biceps with his giant hands, looks down at me because he’s too fucking tall. “You’re right. That’s not a problem I have and I bet you’re feeling this in a visceral way the rest of us aren’t because it could’ve been Kevin. The important thing is that it’s not Kevin. I can’t imagine that pile-driving Nick into the floor is going to change his mind.”

  I take my glasses off to straighten them—probably should’ve taken those off before I tackled Nick, hopefully they’re not busted because I don’t have time to get new ones—and before I put them back, I mash my hands into my face.

  He’s right. Violence is not going to help, and now that my initial rage is starting to subside, I can see how maybe using my words might’ve been a better approach. But then there’s a voice from behind him, and Nick peeks around Teague’s shoulder.

  “I dunno, man. I don’t think I got how important this was to you until the back of my head hit the floor. Like, we wrestle—” We grin at each other, and Papa Teague rolls his eyes, because he fucking hates it when we do that. Something about us needing our hands for our jobs and him not wanting us to break them or it being hard to cover up black eyes or whatever. “But you were serious. You don’t lose it often, like hardly ever, so…I’m still worried about it, and Stan is going to fucking kill us, but I’m not going to abandon my bro. Even if it costs us some money and some fans, I really do think it’s the right thing to do. I was just trying to be responsible for once in my life. But fuck that if it means that much to you. Let’s burn this motherfuc
ker down.”

  Nick offers me a hand and Teague rolls his eyes but drops his hands from my shoulders and steps aside, still keeping a close eye on the both of us, and being completely prepared to put us each in a headlock. I grip Nick’s hand and we lean in for a bro hug, complete with massive back pounding.

  Sweet. I’ve got Christian and Nicky. Zane’s a no. Most of the time we all have to agree, but I might call simple majority on this one. And so fucking what if it makes Teague and Zane mad? What are they gonna do, break up the band? Too fucking late.

  5

  One side effect of this whole AHI business has been that I’ve been checking in with Kev more often, which if he’s noticed, he hasn’t mentioned. Or maybe he likes it. He’s a family guy, my brother. Likes to stick close to home, was kinda mad when I left to live in LA. Dutiful son, good brother, that’s Kevin.

  For all the grief I’ve caused him over the years—ruining his stamp collection by licking every damn one and sticking them on his poster of the periodic table, busting his rock tumbler, getting viruses on his homemade computer from downloading too much porn—I can spare someone else’s family the heartache I can imagine if Kevin were to get deported.

  I’ve got a few hours before I’m supposed to be at Teague’s—Christian’s playing a gig with Dylan and Rowan’s gearing up for a competition so Teague and Zane are at loose ends. Nick is…well, Nick’s always a loose end. More like a loose cannon.

  I’m going to use some of it to talk to my brother, to hear him chatter at me absent-mindedly while he goes about his business and remind myself of how fucking lucky we are and that some families don’t have this, but they could because of Jordan and AHI. So I swipe and press and wait while I kick back on my couch, arm wrapped around my ribcage and hand tucked under my armpit. Nervous habit, not an attractive one, but I’ll worry about it later.

  “You’ve reached Kevin Park.”

  “You keep answering the phone like that, and people are going to think they’re getting your voicemail. And you know who’s calling, can’t you just say ‘Hi, Benj’?”

  There’s a weird sound on the other end, like bodily weird, and—what the fuck have I called Kev in the middle of? And why on earth did he pick up the phone? I’m used to this from Nick who will answer the phone in the middle of damn near anything, but not my squeaky clean brother.

  “I don’t have my watch on because—” Aw, hell, another fart noise, and my nose wrinkles, because come on. If you’ve got the squirts, just don’t pick up. “—I’m elbow-deep in a bowl of sourdough.”

  Ah, that would explain it. Breadmaking, Kevin’s newest hobby. He’s a nerd, so he likes tinkering with the chemistry of the recipes and making his own starters and…I don’t know, I’m not the carb scientist. I just like eating the results of his experiments.

  “Cool, cool.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a department meeting tomorrow and I promised I would bring a few loaves. I’ve got labs all day tomorrow so I have to do it now.”

  Yep. Whereas I can pretty much guarantee that I’d show up with something I unwrapped from the nearest grocery store. If I remembered to bring the damn thing at all. But that does get me started on thinking about what kind of sandwiches Teague is going to make tonight…

  “So, did you call for something, or…?”

  “Do I need a reason to check in on my big brother?”

  “No, but you usually have one.”

  More squelching sounds and I can’t help it, I laugh. My universe is absurd right now.

  “Could you just not be twelve for a few minutes?”

  I can picture him rolling his eyes at my immaturity and dragging his biceps across his forehead to get some hair out of his face while his hands and forearms are covered with dough.

  “Mmm, probably not. And what are you going to do anyway, tell Mom on me? But, hey, did she tell you I’ll be home for the weekend? So I hope you’ll save some of that bread. Sourdough’s my favorite.”

  And because he’s earnest to a fault and probably only paying me half of his attention, he mumbles, “Won’t be good by then. I’ll make some more.”

  “How’s your stuff going, besides being the department carb-pusher?”

  “Fine.”

  He perks up a bit, and I can tell he’s devoting more attention to our conversation now. He loves talking about his work, and will rattle on about it forever without seeming to care if I understand all that much of it. Sometimes it makes me impatient, but today I’m just glad to hear his voice and let his reliable chatter soothe my frayed nerves.

  It’s been about ten minutes of him yammering on when there’s a beep telling me I have another call. Pulling the phone away from my ear, Jordan Kennedy flashes on the screen.

  “Heyo, Kev? Sorry to interrupt this fascinating lecture on…”

  “Phylogenetic inference?”

  “Yeah, that. But I’ve got a call coming in I have to take.”

  “Tell Stan I say hi.”

  I don’t correct him or say goodbye as I switch over to Jordan. It’s weird, but I haven’t mentioned the whole AHI thing to Kevin. Like if I do, it’s somehow worth less? I’m not doing this to feel proud of myself or for cookies or pats on the head or whatever. I’m sure my mom will mention it over the weekend though. Hell, I hope she’s told all her friends and the ladies at the nail salon and in her yoga class. She deserves sons she’s proud of. And hopefully this isn’t Jordan calling to cancel and ruin my plans.

  “Hey, Jordan. Everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything with the show is going according to plan, if that’s what you’re asking. And second, I swear that when I get burnt out on this job, I’m going to do something that only requires me to give good news. I don’t know exactly what that would be, but dammit, I’m going to find something because I want people to be happy when they see me pop up on their phones.”

  “I’m happy now, does that count?”

  It’s slipped out, but I’m not sorry. I always like talking to her. She’s smarter than I probably understand but she doesn’t make me feel like I’m not intelligent. She just tells me what I need to know in a way that I’ll understand.

  There’s a beat of silence and it leaves room for the song to start playing again in my head. It’s working itself out more now, and maybe I can get it finished enough that I’ll be able to play it for Zane and he can help me polish it up. Or not. It’s not the kind of thing I can rush.

  “I, um, was actually calling about an accounting matter.”

  She’s put her professional voice back on, sort of. Kind of a fake one, like she’s trying to sound all buttoned up and prissy but is actually teasing me? I like it, a lot.

  “Don’t you have people for that? Like, accountants?”

  She snorts, and I grin. Got her. Didn’t mean it to be quite so funny, but whatever. I like it when I can get her to laugh. Which dammit, someone should because it’s an awesome sound.

  “I do, but some of my staff is actually intimidated by you.”

  “Have you tried explaining that I’m a giant goofball who just happens to not suck at playing the keyboard?”

  “I did, in fact, try telling them that, and yet here we are.”

  “Yep. So, what’s up? I’m pretty sure I donated some money to AHI, right?”

  Maybe the money wouldn’t have made it if I were actually in charge of that, but I’m not. And the people I pay to be on top of that stuff are pretty good at their jobs. Not that there hasn’t been the occasional hiccup, but there’s a reason Jordan’s calling me herself and not just having her people talk to my people. I’d like to think it’s because she wanted to talk to me, hear my voice and my foolish jokes, but I don’t dare hope too hard.

  “You did…twice, in fact.”

  Ah. Right. And now I know what this is about. And the side of my mouth tips up without me meaning for it to. We’re going to play this game, huh? I can play clueless. Hell, sometimes it’s not playing, but this time it is.

  “Oh yeah?
They sent two checks?”

  “No.” I can tell from her slow statement of the obvious that she knows what we’re doing. If I’m doing this right, she’s got a smile on her face too, is maybe shaking her head but fondly because she thinks I’m an okay guy. I’m trying to be. “There was only one check, but it was made out for double the amount that you’d pledged—which wasn’t small.”

  No, it wasn’t, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a bargain.

  “And that’s a problem?” I’m about to snort myself because this is fun.

  When she responds, I can tell she’s just as close to descending into giggles, and what I wouldn’t give to hear that.

  “Yes, Mr. Park. Our billing needs to be accurate and this…oversight is causing us some difficulties.”

  Mr. Park? I’ve gotten kind of used to people calling me that, but I don’t like it. I wave them off and tell them to call me Benji whenever possible because I’m not that guy. Jordan’s teasing me though, and for once I don’t mind. She can call me Mr. Park all damn day if she wants to, and I’d even put on a tie so she could wind it around her hand while she did. Maybe use it to tug me down to kiss.

  “I see. Well, in that case, uh, keep the change.”

  That’s when I lose it. Real hard, and Jordan follows close behind.

  “You’re such an asshole, you know that? ‘Keep the change?’ We’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars.”

  Her Benji impression is terrible and I’m glad for it. I like the way she talks. I get a grip and try to be serious because I don’t want her to think I’m actually an asshole. I mean, I can be, but not about this stuff.

  “No, I know. And it’s not chump change at all. But for me—and you’re going to think I’m an even bigger jackass—it’s a drop in the bucket. It’s not going to make a difference to my bottom line if I double the amount of my donation. But I figured it might make a big difference to someone else. So keep it. Use it to pay off people’s bills or take on more clients who can’t pay. You can do that, right?”