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 motherfucker 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.