Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 Read Free Page B

discussing this again, Austin,” which sounded kind of uptight, but maybe that was how East Coast guys talked.
    Now the closed door stared him in the face. Were his suitemates antisocial? The kind of guys who were going to flip out if anyone was noisy after nine o’clock at night?
    Or maybe they’re not here, dumbass ¸ he lectured himself as they entered the quiet common room, all of the doors to the individual bedrooms shut tight.
    “Looks like no one’s home. Too bad. We could use some extra muscle.” Cash waited by the door to Rafi’s room, his Res Life letter taped in its center.
    Rafi grunted. Like he was gonna ask some dudes he’d never met before to carry his shit from the parking lot, up three flights of stairs and down that long-ass hallway. The knot in his stomach unwound itself a little though as he unlocked his door and stepped into hogar dulce hogar for the next year.
    Beige walls. Fake wood floor. Long, skinny, bare mattress on a twin bed.
    Maybe not quite so home sweet home after all.
    “Goddamn, this is nice.” Cash dropped his load on the floor and stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips.
    “Nice?” Rafi was careful with the bags and boxes he set on top of the desk. His emotions were too fucking all over the place, obviously, because he couldn’t tell if Cash was being sarcastic or not.
    “Shit, yeah. You got the Cadillac of dorms here, dude. You should’ve seen the cell I shared freshman year. Two guys in a room this size? Bunk beds look like they’re hella fun, but no.” Cash rubbed the top of his head while scrunching up his face. “Maybe they’re cool for short guys, but I had a bruise for the whole year.”
    Rafi couldn’t imagine sharing a room with a total stranger, much less being expected to sleep in a bunk bed like a little kid. “Glad I got lucky, I guess.”
    “To the championship teams go the fucking perks,” Cash announced cheerfully as his phone went off. “The crew team did hot shit twenty years ago, and you rowers get your asses kissed.”
    Rafi froze. He knew that ring tone. Cash assigned different ones to all of his friends and family members. Rafi had spent most of the last couple months dodging that particular caller, and his own phone was off right now in an attempt to delay the inevitable.
    Cash stepped back into the common room as he answered.
    “Hey, cuz!”
    Did he have to sound so eager?
    “Yeah, we just pulled into town. How you doin’?”
    Denny Winslow.
    Rafi grabbed a random duffle and started shoving clothes into the dresser built into the recessed alcove by the door. Who cared which clothes went where? He needed a reason not to eavesdrop on the conversation in the other room.
    “Cool. He’ll be up in a minute.” Cash walked back into Rafi’s room.
    Jerking to a stand, underwear clutched in his hands, Rafi searched the room with his gaze like a man in need of an escape route. “He’s here?”
    Cash cocked his head and stared. “Yeah. That a problem?”
    Rafi felt his cheeks heat and was glad blushes didn’t show much on his skin. “Course not.”
    “Cool. Maybe put your shorts away, though.”
    “Shit.” He shoved his underwear in the drawer, then stood there, hands on the edge of his new—old and beat to shit but new to him—dresser. When the knock came at the exterior door of the suite’s common room, Cash looked to him, but he didn’t move.
    Shrugging, Cash stepped out of the bedroom to greet his cousin.
    Rafi kept his back to the open door, heart thumping and hands sweating.
    What the hell is wrong with you? Not like he’s going to go away without seeing you. Plus, you’ve been waiting for this. Man up.
    Deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth.
    He stood up and walked into the common room, trying to roll a little swagger in his step like he hadn’t been hiding in his room, wondering what it was going to be like, seeing this boy again.
    He kept his eyes on the floor until the very last moment,