Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 (24 page)

Denny snorted and then moaned again. “Oh, that hurt.” Rafi looked up in time to see his face pale even further as he pushed out a short laugh. “Damn it. It’s you taking care of me again.”

Rafi shot him a quizzical look.

“First last night. Then on the trail. Now this…” Denny’s smile was embarrassed. Rafi’s dick figured out what Denny meant by last night before his brain did.
Yeah, don’t get excited, buddy. Ain’t happening.
Denny lifted a hand to wipe off the sweat that beaded his upper lip, and Rafi’s worry surged, erasing distracting memories of the late-night-bathroom and off-trail sessions. Denny was babbling now. “Not exactly the same, I know. For the record, I totally pick the non-first aid kind, if I get to choose, but I was kind of looking forward to being the one who got to take care of you this time.”

Rafi knee-walked over to Denny, pausing to brush his hand against Denny’s hair. “Shut up,” he said softly. Denny tilted his head to press against Rafi’s palm. For one long moment, they paused, the remote green quiet broken by the splash of ever-falling water. Then Rafi steadied Denny with a hand on his uninjured shoulder.

“This is going to hurt,” he warned, before starting to wrap the sling around Denny’s arm. The low moan that slipped out of Denny as Rafi worked made his stomach twist.

Hurting Denny. He was hurting him. It made Rafi sick.

“Wait. We can immobilize your arm better with a…” Rafi put the sling down and pulled the backpack closer. He knew Denny had put a blanket in there.
Should have remembered that when you blew him, dummy.
After a second, his hands felt soft fleece at the bottom of the bag, and he tugged the blanket out.

The huff of a giggle escaped him at the sight of the pastel-colored wonder that hung from his hand. Rafi bit his tongue, feeling like a jerk. This was no time for laughter. Denny looked up and grimaced.

Rafi lifted the blanket higher. “This yours?”

Cartoon penguins wearing red-and-green-striped hats and scarves made snowmen on the light blue background.

Denny’s whitened face flushed the tiniest bit pink. “I wanted a lightweight one. Plus, everything else in the closet was a wool afghan.”

Rafi didn’t know why that would make a difference.

More pink. “I’m sensitive to wool. It’s, um, really itchy.”

They stared at each other. Rafi cleared his throat. “I’ll keep that in mind. For the future.”

After swiftly folding the blanket to make a thick pad, he slipped it between Denny’s arm and his chest. Then he finished cradling his arm in the sling, doing his best to keep a ninety-degree angle at the elbow. Finally, they were ready to start walking.

He’d never been so conscious of how walking downhill jolted the body with every step as he was once they hit the steeper portions of the trail. Getting Denny to lean on him was a battle. What Rafi really wanted to do was pick him up and carry him, but there was no way he could manage that on this trail, piggyback or in his arms. But not being able to do more, as Denny struggled to keep his teeth clenched on cries of pain, was killing him.

When Denny’s face was slick with cold sweat, Rafi made him stop for a minute. He helped Denny drink from one of their water bottles, then stood in front of him, rubbing his hand up and down the arm that wasn’t hurt. Denny’s skin felt cold under his palm.

Anxiety pushed nonsense out of Rafi’s mouth. “You’re gonna be okay. I got you,” he murmured over and over again.

Denny tipped his head forward until his forehead pressed into Rafi’s shoulder. His words were muffled but Rafi didn’t have any trouble understanding them. “I know you do.”

They started walking again.

A hundred yards from the road, Vinnie met them on the trail, loping up the dirt path at a swift jog. Having another person around let some of the tension fall from Rafi’s body. He dropped back a step as Vinnie took over supporting Denny, and stared up at the branches above them.
See? The leaves are still pretty damn colorful. Past peak viewing season, my ass.
His eyes stung and his throat tightened, but he didn’t pause for more than a moment before following Vinnie and Denny down the trail.

He’d seen tears on Denny’s face, but hadn’t spoken of them as they’d shuffled through Denny’s pain. There wasn’t any reason for Rafi to cry, though. That was ridiculous. Especially now that their friends were here to help. Everything would be fine. But the rush of relief weakened him, and he had to slash the back of his hand across his eyes as they emerged onto the side of the road, where it turned out Bob—beautiful, wonderful, silent Bob who could talk his way into anyone’s good graces when he wanted to—had borrowed a neighbor’s car and was waiting to take them to the hospital.

If he and Denny had stayed gone for most of the day, fucking and eating protein bars and listening to skinny waterfalls, the amount of shit their friends would have given them upon their return would have been major. Would have been epic. Even if they’d picked every last leaf and twig out of each other’s hair and done their best to avoid stubble burn in visible places—an impossibility given how much time Rafi had wanted to spend kissing Denny—the teasing would have lasted all weekend and into the week beyond.

But no one said a word when Rafi crawled into the middle of the backseat so Denny could brace himself against Rafi’s body for the trip to the hospital. Or when he left the rest of their friends in the waiting room at the ER and stayed with Denny through the ridiculously long wait for a doctor.

And Rafi didn’t give a damn if anyone could see by the way he held Denny’s hand that they weren’t just friends anymore.

Chapter Eleven

“Your ass is dragging.” Denny stood over him, and all Rafi could think was how awesome it would be if he managed to row until he puked, because he’d try his hardest to do it on this motherfucker who would not quit yelling at him. “Drop, push! Drop, push! Drop, push!”

Rafi wanted to shout
Fuck! You!
but couldn’t waste a breath. His vision narrowed into a tight focus on his hands, knuckles white where he gripped the erg handle.

“Stroke!” As if Denny were a fucking cox, chanting the stroke on the river, instead of this vicious asshole shouting in his ear.

Return, catch, pull, slide. Return, catch, pull, slide.

“Last five hundred.”

Rafi’s eyes stung from the sweat. His legs burned and his arms were starting to shake. Denny’s commands were a drone he wanted to ignore but couldn’t, his voice driving the push of Rafi’s legs, the smooth, hard pull of his arms.

“Hundred meters! Come on! Get it, boy. Final six.”

Steam rose from his skin, visible in the chilly air of the workout room.

“Easy! Way ’nuff, way ’nuff.” The blessed command to stop.

Rafi saw him click the stopwatch—i.e., the stopwatch app on Denny’s iPhone—but couldn’t hear his time over the roaring in his ears. His heartbeat pounded so hard he felt it in his fingertips as he dropped the pull bar. His face was on fire, sweat pouring down his temples until it ran across his cheek and down his jawline and dripped off his chin.

He worked really hard at not puking.

A towel dropped on his shoulder. He dragged it with a weak arm across his face, and then back again when the sweat kept coming. Fuck. He’d sure as shit need to wipe down the erg when his fascist dictator of a trainer let him up off it.

The aftermath of Denny’s dislocated shoulder wasn’t pretty. He was under strict orders not to do anything more strenuous than use a touch-screen phone—and that only to make calls, thank you, not play Plants vs. Zombies or Clash of Clans—for the rest of the semester. And even after he could use his full range of motion, he wasn’t supposed to train for months, making it unlikely that Denny would be back in a boat for the spring season.

Rafi knew Denny was frustrated as hell. And he was taking that frustration out on this new plan. He was determined to drive Rafi’s training to new heights, until Rafi was so good, Coach Lawson would have to give him a jump up to the varsity eight. Rafi had been on the team now long enough to know that that goal wasn’t realistic for this year. He was good, very good, but he wasn’t good enough to hang with the top juniors and seniors. But Denny didn’t want to hear any of that.

On a good day, Rafi could swallow his protests and go along with Denny’s plan. The guy had been rowing for years longer than Rafi, and he knew what he was doing. Rafi’s time on the 2000m was dropping week by week. On a good day, distracting Denny from his unhappiness by training his own ass off was an easy choice.

Today was not a good day.

“Not bad. Your best sprint yet.” Denny’s praise was never overblown.

“Don’t call me
boy
,” Rafi muttered the words into the towel.

“What?”

“You called me
boy
.” He hated bringing it up, but he couldn’t deal. “Not today.”

“Okay?” Denny’s voice rose, though, questioning.

“Shitty day. Some asshole in the library gave me a hard time about keeping a book he wanted. Called me
boy
.” He drawled like a good ol’ Southern boy, even though the jag in the library hadn’t been from the South as far as he’d been able to tell. But mimicking some kind of old slave master expressed his read of the situation pretty damn clearly. “Can’t deal right now.”

Unlike Rafi, when Denny flushed, the bright pink flags flew so brightly you could probably see them from space. “Aw, shit, Rafi. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. You know I’d never—”

“I know,” he answered shortly, embarrassed he had to talk about it at all. He went out of his way not to bring it up, the little shit he ignored most every day. Nothing major. He didn’t expect to run across anyone at Carlisle who’d flat out use the N-word to his face, but there was plenty of crappy stuff regardless, and it didn’t matter if it was deliberate or not. Heads turning his way in class every time something came up about African Americans, as if waiting for him to tell them What Black Folks Think about any fucking thing. Or maybe that day it would be What Latino Folks Think, because some of them had finally figured out that he was both.

“I didn’t know. I’ve said it before.” Denny screwed up his face, guilt written all over him.

“I know. I don’t give a shit most days. Doesn’t mean anything. Just…today was a bad day.”

“Well, fuck. How am I supposed to know the bad days from the good ones?” Denny swung his good hand through the air. “This is all I can fucking do now. Try to help you train. And you’re telling me I can’t even do that right.”

Great. Now Denny was frustrated and angry, and frankly Rafi didn’t feel like ceding any of his pissed-off territory. The memory of that jerk in the library still burned, and he hated that he couldn’t blow it off like he normally did. He knew he could bitch about it the next day during his session with Bree at the writing center, because he wouldn’t even have to say more than three words before she’d get it. It was so much easier to vent to another brown person than it was to explain all the fucking subtle ways assholes could fuck up a good day before you blinked twice.

“You’re doing fine,” Rafi said. Denny opened his mouth, clearly ready to press for more answers. It was as if he’d turned all of his energy toward this new training push, because he couldn’t find any other way to take care of Rafi. And he sure as shit wasn’t letting Rafi do any caretaking of his own. Rafi spoke over the start of whatever he was going to say. “Just fucking listen, man. I’ll tell you when I can’t deal. Or, you know, call me an asshole. Or a lazy motherfucker.” He tried to pull up a worn grin. Thought he mostly succeeded. “Ain’t nobody reservin’ those for me. I hear Coach shout that shit at you all the time.”

Denny laughed shortly, then grimaced, looking down at his arm in the sling. “Not fucking lately.”

The slight elevation in mood leaked out of the room like someone had stuck a pin in a balloon.

“Yeah, it sucks.” Guilt from that whole weekend still tromped in heavy boots through Rafi’s heart. That morning, they had barely moved past him taking out his embarrassment and frustration on Denny by yelling at him after their coach had called. Then Denny’s shoulder was wrecked, and Rafi learned that nothing mattered except helping Denny stop hurting. He knew that if he hadn’t gone recklessly close to the edge of the river and slipped himself, then Denny wouldn’t have come over to make sure he was safe. Denny would never have gotten injured if it weren’t for Rafi. And no amount of heroic getting him down the mountain or post-hospital aftercare was going to make up for Denny being out for the rest of the year. Or for good, maybe even, because the doc had said there might be weakness in that joint forever, although that arthroscopic surgery he’d had was supposed to be the best possible treatment. No way to tell.

Rafi had never been so glad Denny came from money like he had when the ER doc listed the treatment options. Denny hadn’t had to do much more than wave his insurance card at the man before they started arranging a surgical consult at some high-end sports medicine group in Boston. He’d gone ahead with the surgery almost immediately, but had missed nearly two weeks of class between a scheduling delay and choosing to spend the first chunk of time after surgery at his parents’ house.

There’d been an argument about that. Denny had described how he was going to need help with things like dressing and bathing and figuring out work-arounds, and Rafi had been ready to go. It had killed him to be back at school while Denny was in the hospital, wanting to drop everything to help Denny however he needed. But Denny hadn’t been interested. They spent Halloween arguing because Denny didn’t want Rafi be the one to help him tie his shoes and wash his hair, opting instead to go home to his mom for that awkward phase. For all the times he’d offered to help Rafi in the past couple of months, he didn’t hesitate to shut Rafi down when the tables were turned and Denny was the one who needed help.

When Denny had let slip that his ex-boyfriend had offered to take time off work to come stay with Denny—information that felt more like a slap than a slip—Rafi had had to grit his teeth to keep from protesting. Knowing Denny and his ex were still in contact with each other was one thing. Putting up with that guy trying to step in and do what Denny wouldn’t let Rafi do was maddening.

By the time he came back to school, Denny’s tension had ratcheted up a few more notches from frustration and pain that had only mellowed and not disappeared. His first day back, Rafi had met him at his dorm and tried to stay with Denny during the nap he needed after the draining drive to campus. But the two of them barely fit on the narrow college beds when no one was hurt. Denny had managed to find a way to sleep with pillows wedged in a half-dozen different places, and Rafi’s attempt to squeeze in on the edges had resulted in enough painful maneuvering that Denny had told him, nicely, to please go away.

Even in the gym, like now, Denny only made room for him around the edges, forcing Rafi to focus on his own performance and not what Denny needed. Moments like these, when Denny acknowledged what he was losing in training time and experience, were rare.

“Shit happens, man.” But Rafi knew it cost Denny to say it. Could see the tension pulling Denny’s spine straight and lifting his chin. Nothing casual about his posture at all.

“Still sucks.”

“Sure does.” Denny dropped his hunched shoulders. Dropped his head forward and rolled it left and right, like someone trying to ease the ache of tight muscles in his neck. “You know what’s the worst?” he asked, voice lighter, glancing at Rafi through the blond hair that was growing too long and hanging in his eyes now.

“What’s that?”

He wiggled his fingers where they stuck out from the end of the sling he was supposed to wear 24/7 for another three weeks. “It’s my jerk-off hand.”

Rafi groaned in sympathy, bending forward a little as he tugged his feet out of the straps, immediately doing math in his head at a frantic rate in an attempt to distract his stupid brain from images of Denny jerking off. Twenty-seven seconds too slow on that 2k. That was only about a second faster on every hundred meters to beat Ted’s time. What was seven into twenty? Around three. So, 1.3 seconds faster per hundred.

Nonsense. Meaningless crap, because he needed to pick up most of that time in the first explosive burst of rowing that powered the beginning of a race, before settling into a race pace. But anything was better than remembering the taste of Denny’s skin where Rafi had bitten his shoulder. The sound of his breath catching in the dark. The way he’d reached back with one hand and wrapped his fingers around Rafi’s neck. The feel of him, hot and hard, in Rafi’s hand as he’d stroked Denny until his back arched and Denny had gasped out loud.

I offered, damn it. I offered every day when he first got back, and he bit my head off every time.

He dragged his mind away from the memories, determined to avoid another hard-on in the workout room. He’d been embarrassing himself way too frequently lately, a fact that Denny had either not noticed or was ignoring. Denny’s physical therapist had given him instructions on what kind of gentle back and shoulder massage would help reduce his discomfort, a task Rafi had leaped on when Denny had mentioned it. But having his hands on all that bare skin was torture when nothing was going to come of it. He really had offered to get Denny off, because hell, who wouldn’t feel better after an orgasm? Endorphins, man. But Denny had flat-out turned him down, claiming that everything hurt no matter what he did.

Rafi had gone home those first nights and showered in the dark, jerking off under the heavy spray until he leaned against the wall, worn out but still frustrated, wondering how long it would be until they got back to normal.

Of course, the problem was they’d never had a chance to figure out what normal would look like for the two of them. He’d worried about how people—teammates, suitemates, whoever—would react to learning he and Denny were together?

Not a problem. There was nothing to learn, damn it.

Although this was the first time Denny had mentioned anything sexual, even as a joke, since the accident. Rafi let himself consider for ten seconds that maybe the ice between them was thawing, before slamming the door on that fantasy.

Get a grip, Castro. Before you’re running on the treadmill with a hard-on. Again.

“C’mon. You can finish up the workout with me,” he said, sighing and moving over to a treadmill to finish his last cooldown circuit.

Denny glared at the row of exercise bikes, then dropped his shoulders and trudged on over. “Yeah, I guess.”

Rafi turned his back while Denny settled himself on one of the recumbent bikes, knowing he hated using it. But with only one arm free, Denny’s balance was wonky, and the first time he’d fallen off one of the ellipticals, Rafi had yelled at him until heads turned.

“Do you want to fucking injure yourself all over again? Be out for good, instead of a season? What’s wrong with you?”

Denny had taken his hand, levering himself to his feet with a curse, and then pushed past him with a slam of his good shoulder that set Rafi back on his heels and left his arm aching. Pissed off was Denny’s general state of being lately, despite focusing most of his energy on this killer training strategy.

“You’re gonna be in that boat if I have to tie your hand to the fucking oars,” Denny had promised him grimly. And shit, Rafi wasn’t even one hundred percent sure he cared that much about rowing anymore. Between classes kicking his ass and figuring out what he could manage to do to help Denny without him noticing, he was halfway to throwing his hands in the air and shouting
Fuck it
.

Then he’d remember that they probably didn’t let you keep your rowing scholarship money if you quit the rowing team, and he’d roll out of bed at 5:00 a.m. again, heading over to Denny’s dorm to grab him before practice, because the least he could do for the guy whose arm he’d fucked up was save him the walk over to Rafi’s dorm to haul his ass out of bed. It was ridiculous that Denny came to practice at all, but he insisted on it. Riding in the launch or hanging out at the boathouse, he was determined to be there.