Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4

by Amy Jo Cousins

  Denny shook his head, grinning, as Rafi jumped up and grabbed the backpack. “I’m really worried I’m going to underdeliver here. Especially after that.” He waved at the scuff marks where Rafi’s knees had pressed into the dirt.

  “Don’t worry, guapo.” Rafi pressed a fierce kiss to Denny’s mouth. Handsome wasn’t even the right word for how hot Denny was. “I got faith in you.” He strode back to the path.

  The trail eventually leveled off as they walked next to a small river, Denny forging ahead of him and holding on to the thin, whippy branches so they didn’t smack into Rafi. It didn’t take long before the scratchy background noise Rafi was hearing resolved itself into the splash of water on rock.

  “Here we are,” Denny announced as the brush between them and the river thinned. They’d arrived at the waterfall. Rafi pushed past Denny to get a better look.

  “Be careful.” Denny’s raised voice carried over the rumble of the water crashing onto the rocks of the streambed.

  The fall wasn’t particularly impressive in size, at least not as far as the amount of water pouring over the lip of rock at the top, but it was tall. Thirty feet, maybe, and the spray from the skinny stream of water splashed everywhere, coating all the rocks and shrubs and the trail itself with a slick spray.

  It was no Niagara, but it was a damn waterfall, and that was pretty fucking cool. He definitely needed a picture of this. He took another step forward and reached back to find the pocket with his phone.

  “Whoa,” Rafi shouted as he slipped on the rocks, whipping out an arm to grab a tree branch. The skinny bough bent low under his weight as he hauled on it, trying to stay upright. He kicked until he managed to catch some traction on the wet stones, feet spread wide apart, and then wobbled back and forth at the hips, heart racing. “Holy shit.”

  Picking his way carefully across the slick bank, Denny made his way over to where Rafi stood, muttering under his breath. “I told you, be—”

  His left foot shot out from under him.

  Denny duplicated Rafi’s move, throwing a hand up to grab a branch, leaves falling as his grip stripped them free. But there was no recovering from his fall, and Rafi watched as the entire weight of Denny’s body yanked on that twisting hold as he slid down the bank.

  A roar erupted from Denny as he flung out his free hand, clutching at the ground. The thin branch slipped farther through his other fist. Rafi lunged.

  He wrapped his fingers like steel around the wrist of Denny’s free hand and pulled.

  Denny’s slide down the bank halted.

  Rafi had a split second of relief at realizing that Denny wasn’t going to end up in the river, before Denny started screaming. His arm hanging on to the branch was held at a strange angle. A wrong angle.

  Denny closed his mouth, choking on the noises that still tried to escape. His face paled, his skin under Rafi’s fingers growing suddenly slick with sweat. The muscles of Denny’s throat flexed as he swallowed again and again.

  “Hold on.” Rafi kept his grip tight on Denny’s good arm, scooting back until he had his feet solidly under him on dry ground. “Okay. I got you. You can let go.”

  For a moment, it was as if Denny couldn’t make himself.

  Rafi kept his voice low. Soothing. “Let go, Denny.”

  At last, Denny opened his fingers, the branch whipping out of his grasp and bouncing back up into the air with a whistle of dry leaves. His arm dropped and his eyes rolled up. Denny screamed, and the sound ripped Rafi in half.

  Deaf over the rush of panic in his own ears, Rafi pulled Denny away from the riverbank. Before he stopped moving, Denny was turning his head and puking. Rafi let go of his wrist and Denny flopped on the ground, angling away from the sour trail of vomit.

  Rafi shrugged off his backpack and dug inside it, pulling out white paper napkins. He knelt next to Denny and swiped the soft paper across his lips and chin, cleaning him off. Denny spat into the dried leaves, and Rafi wiped his mouth again.

  “Did you break it?” Rafi asked, eyeing Denny as he pulled out his cell phone and called Austin, knowing he was the one least likely to be able to ignore a ringing phone, even with a hangover from hell.

  “Dislocated. I think.” Denny was breathing hard, panting with his mouth open. Rafi peered around him, spotting a protuberance under Denny’s T-shirt that definitely looked like a bone poking out in a place no bone should be. Fuck.

  Austin answered his phone. “Hey, wilderness boy. Heard you’re wrestling with Mother—”

  “We’ve got trouble. Denny’s hurt. I need you to come get us. We took a trail that starts about a mile from the house on the other side of the road if you go left at the bottom of the driveway.” Austin started asking questions, but Rafi didn’t have time for that. “You need to find the keys—”

  “Fuck.” Rafi startled as Denny’s curse exploded over his words. “I’ve got the car keys.” A stream of fucks flew from his mouth.

  “Shit. Denny’s got the keys.” Rafi bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep himself from yelling at Denny for not thinking to leave the car key behind. No time for that.

  “I can walk.” Denny managed to get the words out, grinding his teeth on the pain.

  “You’ll have to, down the mountain at least.” Fuck, this nature bullshit was ridiculous. What the hell use was 911 if they couldn’t get to you? Rafi held the phone away from his mouth. “Unless we can call, what? Mountain rangers with, I don’t know, rescue gear they can use to carry you down.”

  “I can do it.” Denny pressed his lips together. “I’m not sitting here in the mud, waiting for the EMTs to come and haul my ass to town. With my fucking luck, they’ll know my aunt and uncle, and someone will end up calling my mom.”

  Rafi knew there’d been a stretch of awkward communication between Denny and his mom after he’d come out. He’d spent longer than originally intended in New Orleans on his internship, partly to give himself and his parents some space to get used to the new status quo. But Denny’s mom had eventually bounced back to her old self, which meant helicopter mom from hell—in the nicest possible way—if Denny didn’t squash her every move to micromanage his life from a distance.

  Still…

  “You know you’re gonna have to call her,” he said to Denny, who grimaced.

  “I know. But if I find out how bad it is first, maybe I can talk her off the ledge before she hits DEFCON 1.” Rafi opened his mouth to argue—his sisters would absolutely kill him if they weren’t his first call when he was injured—but Denny kept talking. “My legs aren’t broken. All I have to do is get down the big hill and I’m gonna get some killer drugs.”

  After a moment, Rafi nodded and Denny beckoned for the phone. Austin’s high-pitched yap poured out of the speaker until Denny reassured him that he was not, in fact, going to faint, die or otherwise expire before they could rescue him.

  “Get Vinnie,” Denny instructed, voice tight with pain. They were all runners, but when he wanted to, Vinnie could outpace them with ease. “Have him run to the trailhead. He can meet us there and run back to get the car. I definitely need to go to the hospital.”

  By the time Denny finished giving Vinnie better directions to the trailhead and hung up, Rafi had pulled a long-sleeve T-shirt out of his pack and started folding the fabric of the shirt to make one long piece of cloth from cuff to cuff.

  “That looks official,” Denny said. Rafi could still hear the tension, like grit, under his calm words.

  Rafi nodded, eyes on his improvised first aid. “I think you’re gonna need a sling if you want to try hiking back down.”

  Denny pushed himself to an upright sitting position with his good arm, hissing as he moved. “Feels like I might pass out right here.”

  “Yup. That can happen.” Rafi held his voice to a cheerful, bantering tone, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary was going on. Keeping kids calm when t
hey were hurt was a skill that worked on adults too. “I’ve seen kids hit the ground from one yell to the next when the pain gets too bad.”

  “So, you know what you’re doing, huh?”

  “I take a CPR and first aid class every summer to keep my certification current. I’ve never done any of the wilderness stuff, but I can make a sling.”

  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.