Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 (33 page)

“She told me one of the reasons she left the DR was because she couldn’t live with our dad. She loved him. Just couldn’t live with him.” He looked out over the campus. Bare tree branches shivered in the winter wind, naked. “Turns out he wasn’t so great at fighting either.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t actually remember much about him, you know. I don’t think I yell when I fight because I saw my dad do it when I was little.”

Denny curled his warm hand around Rafi’s neck. It was his weak hand, but Rafi couldn’t tell the difference, which meant Denny was keeping up with his PT. “I don’t think anything’s that simple.”

“But I don’t ever want you to feel unsafe.” That was a big one. He didn’t ever want to cross that line. “And I’m sorry for acting in a way that made you need to step away.”

“I don’t, you know. Feel unsafe around you. I really don’t.” Denny wasn’t letting him off the hook though, either. Talking was a good start, however. Talking was the thing that could get them there. “But I could feel we were getting pretty close to that edge, and I didn’t like it.”

“I understand.” Words were pushing at his teeth.

But…

Wait…

It wasn’t…

Because there were a million ways he could argue about this with Denny. But the point he was trying to make here—the point he needed to make, if they were going to try to find a way forward—wasn’t about telling Denny how he was wrong. It was about listening to him now.

And yes, Rafi felt a little bit like he was a guest on some kind of daytime talk show with a self-diagnosing host. But Denny had already done the brave thing. Had already said the stuff that took balls, and if Rafi wanted a chance in hell at convincing him to stick around, he couldn’t chicken out now.

He kept his mouth shut. And listened.

“And I get what you’re saying about it’s not fair to tell you how to be angry.” Denny frowned and Rafi got nervous. Shit. Maybe this wasn’t working. “Funny. I just remembered a story my dad told once about someone he was fighting with at work. He said he was always going to win, because he could keep his cool in an argument, so the other guy always looked like the one who was out of control. Even when he was making good points, my dad won because he was the calm, cool, collected one who didn’t froth at the mouth. Not that you were doing that,” he added hastily.

For a moment, Rafi wondered if it would be easier to give up. Because he could see how much work they were both putting into choosing their words. Opting for kindness over snark, trying to anticipate in advance if they’d slipped and said something that might cause pain, and correcting themselves along the way.

The whole fucking thing was exhausting.

A lifetime of this? Hell, the rest of the school year sounded like it would be impossible to maintain. Even thinking about lifetime-type concepts when they weren’t even halfway through college was pretty fucking stupid to begin with, because who knew where they’d be or what they’d be doing years from now. The odds of them doing it together were pretty damn slim.

“I’m just saying.” Denny kept going. “It’s possible I maybe push that button on purpose when we argue. And I can try not to do that either.”

“That would be great,” Rafi said carefully. “Because when you shut down, it only makes me want to push at you harder.”

“I’ll work on it.”

“And—” Denny shot him a look, as if to say,
You want more.
But Rafi did. “—I would never tell you who to be friends with, but it would be great if you could make it
extremely
clear to your ex that you are definitely not looking for a nurse. Or a boyfriend. Because, you know, you already have one.”

Denny flushed. He bit his lip. “It’s possible I maybe rubbed that in on purpose when I was feeling shitty.”

“Maybe.” Rafi knew better than to do that same thing right now. “Listen, our fuck-ups aren’t equal. You messed up some, but I messed up way more. And I’m still playing catch up on some of this relationship stuff that you somehow managed to figure out long before I did.”

He must have let some of his jealousy slip into his voice, because Denny’s eyes narrowed at him. “You don’t get to be mad because I went off and found a boyfriend when you didn’t want me.”

“I always wanted you,” Rafi admitted, and felt Denny shiver against him. “And yeah, I’m jealous of every guy who ever touched you. But that’s on me. I was the one who pushed for that to happen back when we first met. I thought you had a crush on me. A boy’s crush.”

“I knew what I wanted,” Denny said firmly, and this time Rafi believed him. “I always did.”

“Well, I’m fucking slow compared to you,” Rafi said, smiling now. “But I got it figured out now. I want you. If you’re still up for it.”

Denny straddled him, kneeling on the bench and smashing himself against Rafi “I’m so up for it we’re about to get arrested for public indecency.”

Rafi laughed and wrapped his arms around Denny’s waist and hung on.

He was in it for the fucking happy ever after, man. Go big or go home, as Cash always said.

Happy ever after might be a little bumpier than anticipated, but that was no reason to give up on it. No reason at all.

Once again, the long run was harder than the short sprint. As much as Rafi believed Denny was happy with him, there was a chill in the air between them on the day before he was heading home for break.

“It’s like he’s waiting to see if I’m gonna fuck up,” he complained to Austin. He’d been roped into holding still, the upper part of a sculpture made, as far as he could tell, from shit Austin had found in the garbage. Austin was working with a soldering gun that smelled up the whole suite and was no doubt illegal as hell, but he only had three hours to finish his project, so Rafi had learned to keep his complaints to himself.

To stop the complaints from their neighbors, Austin had put a wet towel down along the gap at the bottom of the door to the hall. Rafi was willing to bet that was a strategy he’d used before, for other purposes.

“And are you?” Austin arched an eyebrow at him.

“Gonna fuck up?” Rafi felt like growling. “No. I’m not.”

“Then this is the part where you suck it up, cupcake.”

“I just wish I could…I don’t know. Do something to fix it.”

“Yeah, we all know you’re a giant mommy who wants to make it all better.”

Rafi contemplated how difficult it would be to shove this sculpture up Austin’s ass.

“But this isn’t a thing you fix,” Austin informed him. “You know how you show him you’re not gonna fuck up?”

He couldn’t believe he was taking relationship advice from a guy who’d spent the entire year, as far as Rafi could tell, pining after someone who didn’t pay him any more attention than he would a pleasant house pet. “How?”

Austin looked up at his through the safety goggles that strapped down his curly mop and made his eyes look insectoid.

“Don’t fuck up.”

Easier said than done.

The four weeks of winter break had been awful. The entire crew team spent that time training in Florida, but Rafi had asked for, and been granted, permission to stay with his family to help out. He’d had to swear on a metaphorical stack of Bibles to keep up his workout regimen with Aya though, and between the constant, lonely workouts and missing Denny he was a ball of frustration. By the time Christmas and New Year’s were over and it was time for Rafi to head back to school, even Lola was happy to see him go. Back on campus, he powered into his second semester with a triumvirate of priorities: Study hard. Train harder. And above all, make Denny happy.

He’d fucked up too much already to risk doing it again.

Most days, Rafi had it down. He was the king of great boyfriends. He texted. He called. He figured out what would make Denny’s day easier and tried to do it for him, whether that was smuggling him something to eat when he was in his third hour of studying in the library, or blowing him in that same building, because nothing was a better stress reliever, right?

But some days, he had stress of his own, and then the great boyfriend thing started to slip a little.

The panic would bite into him at the idea of not holding up his end of the bargain.

Trying to remember the lessons he’d learned, Rafi didn’t hold back this time. He dumped his worry and anxiety right in Denny’s fucking lap, the second they started overwhelming him.

When he told Denny about Austin’s
don’t fuck up
advice, he’d had to suffer a pillow to the face, tossed from where Denny sat on his bed again, back in his proper place.

“What the hell are you doing taking relationship advice from Austin of all people? That guy’s been sitting on his hands for two years now instead of making a goddamn move.”

“I know!” Rafi shoved his face into the pillow and wailed out his frustration, feeling like a total asshole. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I keep freaking out that I’m going to screw up again, and that makes me crazier, which means I’m definitely going to screw up, and then I start needing to hyperventilate.”

“Dude, you have got to calm down.” Denny scooted to the edge of the bed and sat with his arms braced on his thighs, clasped hands dangling between his knees. “Look, you’ve been trying to be the perfect boyfriend, and that’s awesome. But remember, for me, being the perfect boyfriend means I get to do that for you too. You keep forgetting this goes both ways. I
want
to take care of you right back. So stop worrying about fucking up and talk to me, ask me for help, let me…distract you.” Denny got a speculative gleam in his eye. “Yeah, I am totally willing to distract you.”

There was nothing Rafi wanted more. But he’d had an idea at home over his break, and this actually seemed like it might be the right time to bring it up.

He bit his lip and looked over at Denny. “So, I want to do a thing.”

“Yeah? What kind of a thing?” Denny’s grin was positively greedy. “Because we haven’t talked about this yet, but I’d like to make it clear that my vote is we take turns bottoming. But I go next. No, wait, you go next. Shit, I can’t decide.”

Rafi whacked him in the head with a pillow. “Jackass. A real thing.” Then he crawled onto the bed with Denny, because PT was going so well he didn’t have to worry as much about hurting Denny’s shoulder anymore. And that meant naked time was way easier on their skinny beds. He pushed Denny’s shirt up and over his head, throwing it to the floor.

“Ow. Okay. I surrender.” Denny raised his hand, which did distracting things to the muscles in his bare arms. Rafi tipped his head forward enough to let him take a nibble. A breathy moan slid out of Denny, who arched his back until his dick pressed more firmly into Rafi’s crotch.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Denny rocked his hips.

Rafi rolled on top of him and held him down with hands on Denny’s wrists.

“Ahhh. Now I’ve got you right where I wanted you.”

“Shut. Up.” Denny couldn’t seem to stop pushing up with his dick. “Jesus. Stop distracting me with your cock.”

“This is my new superpower.” Denny snorted and giggled until he damn near shook Rafi off him. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Tell me about your thing.”

Rafi had to gigglesnort at that one.

“Hey! No fair laughing when I’m trying to be serious now.”

“Asshole.”
Whoops.
That was not exactly how he’d meant to lead up to this.

“No. Comment. This is me, keeping my mouth shut.” Denny closed his mouth. Conspicuously.

Rafi took advantage of the silence. “So, I was thinking that maybe we could get engaged. To be married.” Denny’s entire body stiffened under him. Before the shock could wear off and Denny could let loose with any of the hundred protests Rafi fully expected him to have, Rafi bulled his way forward. “I don’t mean, like, we would get married immediately. But we could promise, you know, that that was on the horizon. Eventually. And then you wouldn’t have to worry I was ever going to shut you out. Because I’d be promising you that I wouldn’t. Forever.”

He waited for Denny to say something. For a moment, he remembered that night on the lakefront two years ago, waiting for Denny to speak, because he’d known in his bones what Denny wanted back then.

It was terrifying to realize he wasn’t at all sure what Denny wanted now.

Denny’s big eyes and open mouth seemed frozen in cartoonish surprise. Eventually, feeling ridiculous, Rafi cleared his throat. His face was so hot it burned. “Or maybe this is an incredibly dumb idea.”

With a sudden heave, Denny rolled over him, muscles pushing to move his big body against Rafi’s in the tight space of the twin bed. “You’re not dumb,” he said, staring down at Rafi with narrowed eyes, as if he could push the words deeper into Rafi’s brain with his eyeballs. “You sure do come down heavy on that anticlimactic end of the scale. But, God, I love you.”

Rafi wanted to eat him up, to suck every inch of Denny inside him, for finally saying it out loud. He hadn’t realized how badly he needed to hear the words. “So is that a yes?”

Denny leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I love you, Rafael Castro. All of you. I always have.”

Rafi wrapped his arms around Denny’s ribs so tight he had to force himself to let go a little, always careful still of that shoulder. He pressed his face into Denny’s neck, which meant his ear was still right by Denny’s mouth when Denny whispered again.

“Speaking of questions, was that a no to the taking-turns-bottoming thing? Or was that a yes?”

Rafi smiled and lifted his face, not hesitating any longer to make it clear exactly what he wanted.

“That’s a yes to anything you want, Denny Winslow.”

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About the Author

Amy Jo Cousins writes contemporary romance and erotica about smart people finding their own best kind of smexy. She lives in Chicago with her son, where she tweets too much, sometimes runs really far and waits for the Cubs to win the World Series.

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