Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 (5 page)

“Fuck, no,” Austin said. Rafi focused on him, ignoring the body heat he could feel pouring off Denny’s legs. “Crew kicks ass.”

Vincent shot him a withering glare that had no effect. “What he’s trying to say is that rowing doesn’t have that cultural tradition of hypermasculinity that you find in football or basketball, so there are marginally fewer assholes.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m a fucking tower of hypermasculinity,” Austin said loftily between tamale bites.

“Yeah. Sure. That’s what we all thought when we caught you on your knees in the boathouse,” Denny said.

Rafi didn’t know where to look and waited to find out who was more embarrassed, Denny at having said such an outrageous thing, or Austin for having been called out. Turned out, no one was. Denny wiggled his eyebrows at Austin, then grunted when Vinnie punched him in the shoulder.

“Shut up. Those assholes who were with us haven’t stopped hassling him about it since.” Protective Vinnie was a glowering thundercloud hovering over Austin and glaring at anyone who wanted to tease him. Given how much hassling of his own Vinnie had already done to Austin, Rafi was a little surprised at how pissed the guy looked. Then Vinnie turned his laser beam of disapproval on the busted BJ Boy himself. “And you. Maybe this time you’ll learn to take guys back to your room. Jesus. I almost had a heart attack. You don’t need to give those guys ammunition, you know.”

“Worth it.” Austin’s shrug was careless, his smile broad. Rafi couldn’t read him well enough yet to tell if he meant it or was faking. Reaching across the precariously stacked plates, Austin plucked a tamale off Vinnie’s plate.

Rafi’s suitemates had tried everything, but were definitely leaning toward the dishes most familiar to them.

Everybody likes tamales. Mangú…not so much. Fuck it. I’ll eat all the plantains.

Austin was still talking. “But yes, if there’s a lingering ‘fags are sluts’ vibe hovering over the team, I’m definitely the reason.”

Rafi already knew he liked the cox best out of the suitemates he’d met so far. But it wasn’t until Austin threw out the phrase “fags as sluts” like he was carrying a fucking flag into battle that Rafi realized he was going to love this guy.

Even if Austin didn’t know where Panama was on a map.

By the time Cash hit the road, Rafi was starting to feel halfway settled in, although he’d surprised himself with how hard he hugged Cash goodbye. All of his belongings had been brought up from the SUV, a ferrying trip that was easy as hell with a team of big dudes with muscles. Even little Austin had carried more boxes than Rafi would’ve thought possible.

An afternoon of settling in with his suitemates didn’t mean he had any other damn thing on campus figured out though.

Monday was a campus-wide day for “getting shit done” according to his suitemates. Hate your roommate? Registered for the wrong class? Lost the combination to the lock on your over-the-summer, dorm-basement storage unit? Monday was the day to straighten out all that. There was no class. Just a shitload of students running from admin buildings to the buildings and grounds office to their advisors’ offices and back again, begging for help. For forgiveness. For the gentle bending of rules that seemed to be the way of life for kids with high expectations their wishes would be granted.

Pretty confident he’d made good choices with his classes, Rafi focused on unpacking and hit a dining room at the dorm next door with Austin and Vinnie and the elusive Bob—who had shown up sometime in the middle of the night, introducing himself the next morning in their common room—for lunch. The entire walk over, he was aware of not texting Denny to find out what he was doing.
Just get through one day. One entire day without reaching out, if only on principle.

Principles got him through three bites of his turkey sandwich, which Austin told him was properly called a grinder.

A fourth tray slammed down at their table.

Right next to Rafi.

He jerked to attention as Denny dragged over a chair and slid into it, squeezing between Rafi and Austin.

“What’s up, Musketeers?” Denny asked.

“Dude, there are four of us.” Austin threw a french fry at him. How a cox could eat such shitty food and stay so tiny was a mystery.

Before he could stop himself, Rafi was correcting Austin. Defending Denny’s casual reference.
Like a boyfriend, damn it. Stop this.
“There were four of them, actually. Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan.”

The entire table stared at him.

“It’s a really good book,” he said defensively. Had taken him forever to read it, because the language was old-fashioned, but there was tons of action. Sort of like a Jason Bourne movie in olden times.

“If you say so.” Austin was skeptical.

“The movie was cool,” said Bob, which was maybe the first time Rafi had heard him speak. “The old one. From, like, the nineties.”

His roommates started arguing about the movie while Rafi tried to stare down Denny, who didn’t flinch.

“Let me guess,” Denny said. “You haven’t checked your email today.”

“I only barely unpacked my computer before bed last night.”

“You need to get your campus email set up to forward to your regular server, my friend.” As if Rafi didn’t know that. He’d meant to set that up before he left Chicago, but the task had gotten lost in the shuffle.

“I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours!”

“Team business waits for no man to unpack. I am to be your guide for all things Carlisle. You are to be my shadow, grasshopper.” Before Rafi could protest, Denny said, “Captain’s orders. Since Coach is down for the count, we’re on basic training this week. No boats. And we can schedule it whenever we want, as long as we get our workouts in. Also per Ted, our fearless leader of the varsity boat, I’m showing you the ropes.”

The calls canceling the morning practice had come late the previous night. Rafi hadn’t admitted to relief at postponing one more new thing, but he’d slept like a baby after learning he wouldn’t be heading to the boathouse before dawn for the first team practice.

“So we have to go to practice together?” Which kind of sucked, but was also kind of awesome, because it was as if Rafi had been given permission to lean on Denny without having to look like he was doing any such thing.

“Not just practice,” Denny said between bites. “We’re supposed to eat together, study together—”

“Jerk off in the shower together,” Austin butted in with what Rafi was almost certain was supposed to be a joke.

“Ha.” He kept his head down, refusing to look at Denny, who had sat up straight at Austin’s teasing words. “As if.”

He spent the rest of lunch with a detailed—an incredibly detailed—porno running through his brain and drowning out everything his roommates said.

Standing in line with Denny at the campus PO had been the most challenging bit of his day, and that was mostly because he couldn’t stop staring at Denny’s mouth, his hands. Rafi ended up calling home to talk to his sisters to stop himself—to distract himself—and got Lola and Mari on the phone while he and Denny waited for their mailbox keys.

Rafi told them everything was fine. He was settling in. Class started tomorrow.

He did not tell them Denny had kissed him in front of a vending machine and Rafi had spent lunch picturing him jerking off in the shower.

Good call all around.

Two days later, he was back in line at the post office, having found a slip of paper in his PO box, alerting him to a package being held for him at the counter. The entire system felt pretty old-fashioned, but he’d already heard students talking about it like it was some kind of Carlisle rite of passage, not getting email or text notifications about packages.

Slips of paper. With notes written on them in pencil.

New England college traditions were weird.

During his call home two days prior, he’d foolishly been honest about some of the things he lacked, and his sisters had clearly mobilized into action instantaneously. The Castro girls didn’t fool around. His mention of needing to find a ride to the Target out on the highway must have generated a tsunami of activity back at home, because the box they passed to him over the counter at the post office was awkwardly huge and heavy in a lopsided way that made carrying it a total pain in the ass.

Leaving his room without Denny at his heels had felt both liberating and slightly scary. As if he might actually fuck something up without Denny there to guide him. Irritation at letting that emotion even touch his brain had led him to heading out without a plan at first.

Rafi walked back to the dorm with a guy he’d bumped into at the counter who looked vaguely familiar and turned out to live down the hall from him. Random conversation had segued into a meal plan discussion that left him sweating.

“Dude. Nobody gets the twenty-meal plan. It’s a total waste of money,” the dark-haired white guy with the half-assed dreads and the weird cork sandals had argued most of the walk back to their dorm.

Fuck
. Rafi lifted his chin in thanks as the guy held the front door open for him and hauled his care package upstairs. He crossed his fingers, mentally, that his sisters had stocked up on protein bars and fruit so he didn’t end up blowing cash on midafternoon snacks at the campus center. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he could stock breakfast cereal and skip paying the school for his morning meal.

How much money had he wasted? He couldn’t remember the difference in cost between the meal plan that included breakfast and the one that only covered lunch and dinner, but the acid in his stomach started churning at the idea of having blown even a part of his limited budget.

Maybe he could still get it changed? Would they refund him his money?

“Heads up.” Denny met him at the door to his suite, heading out at finding no one home, Rafi assumed. They’d met at the library the night before, so Denny could show him where the best studying carrels were. He’d also shown Rafi the most remote stacks in the building, aka the best place to fool around in the library. Denny had stood there, a glittering invitation in his eyes, and Rafi had found himself swaying toward him. All of his willpower had been required to focus on digging in to his first reading assignments, which were key. It was already obvious Intro to Geography was actually going to kick his ass and not be the cakewalk course he’d hoped for. The professor was from Ethiopia and had already made it clear he thought American students coasted through their college careers. “Whoa, why the rage face?”

“I think I fucked up my meal plan.” The words burst out before he had a chance to think about them.

“Oh shit. Do you not have breakfasts?” The panic on Denny’s face almost made him laugh. “Maybe you can get them to upgrade you if you pay extra.”

“Wait, what? I heard breakfasts were a total waste of money.”

“Pfft. Who’d you hear that from? Not a rower.” Denny’s shoulders had dropped back down to their normal, relaxed slouch.

“I don’t know. No. Probably not.”

“Then that person doesn’t know shit. Civilians can skip breakfast, or eat some crappy instant oatmeal in their rooms.” Denny grabbed the package from Rafi’s sisters out of his hands while Rafi messed with the lock. “Rowing gods need protein, and a lot of it. Eggs, bacon, full-fat yogurt, even that damn tofu Bob insists on putting in everything, despite the farts.”

Rafi laughed and the stress leaked out of him like air from a sad balloon. “Okay. Good to know.” The stupid lock gave way at last. He entered the suite, Denny behind him, box in his arms.

“Seriously. Maybe that guy goes for a jog every couple of days and thinks it’s a big deal if he makes three miles. You’ll get more exercise before breakfast than he gets in a week. In a month, probably. You’re gonna work the shit out of that breakfast buffet, don’t worry.”

“You know, I knew that too.” He shook his head, annoyed with himself. It was as if he not only didn’t know how most things worked at Carlisle, but he was forgetting the shit he
did
know.

“Yeah, but you rowed at home with a club, right? Not with a team.”

“So?” He opened the door to his room and took the box from Denny, leaving it on his desk. He’d open it later.

“So, no offense, but people in clubs are nice, yeah? They’re all there because they want to row and have fun and compete.” Denny hovered in the doorway to Rafi’s room, clearly waiting to be invited in to…Rafi didn’t know what. Flop on the bed. Sit on the chair. Close the door and stare at Rafi again like he’d done in the library.

Don’t think about that.

They were still waiting for Vinnie’s brother to bring up the family furniture, but they’d cleared out the dorm-issued furniture, so the suite’s common room was a giant empty space. Austin had threatened to hold a disco party on the upcoming weekend, if only to take advantage of the open floor space.

Nixing that idea hadn’t taken Vincent more than two seconds. He was not dealing with the chaos of a party on his first weekend with class assignments, thank you very much.

“What’s wrong with rowing with a club?” Rafi dragged his attention off the memory of Denny’s
come hither
stare and back to Denny’s explanation of why he wasn’t an asshole for having signed up for the full meal plan option.

“Nothing. But our idea of competing is a tiny bit different from theirs. The club rowers you know do a lot of puking after erg sprints?”

Rafi laughed. “No way.” His fellow rowers back home worked hard to build strength and speed on the rowing machines, but no one had ever vomited on an ergometer.

“That’s pretty much a weekly occurrence here. And if one of our rock stars gets injured and there’s a chance for someone else to move up a boat? Watch out.”

“The competition gets pretty fierce, huh?”

“I’m just saying. The guys on the team will eat your liver for breakfast if they think it’ll give them a better shot at getting a seat in the varsity eight.”

The conversation with Denny settled his nerves for all of two hours, during which he let Denny give him a tour of the campus gym. Rowers only went there during the winter training season, apparently, since practice was held at the boathouse on the river as long as the weather wasn’t absolutely frigid. But Rafi followed Denny through the giant open building, past racquetball/squash courts—he didn’t know what squash was, but Denny was enthusiastic—and basketball courts. They passed through a weight room so clean the machines shone, and he spent the entire time avoiding thinking about the last time he’d touched Denny Winslow. (Knees touching, first meal on campus, with roommates and Cash and Dominican buffet. Hands touching that moment in the vending machine room, Denny’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. Not that Rafi was paying attention.)