Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4

by Amy Jo Cousins

  “—this stuff is going to come a lot easier to you. Won’t feel like you have to work so hard all the time just to get started.”

  “Man, that would be great. Because I am not handling this stress right.” He shook his head. It was too much to admit that he wanted it. “I don’t know, though. It sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Me, thinking I could be a doctor?”

  “I don’t think it sounds crazy. Hard? Yes. But not crazy.”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. Ever since the idea had gotten lodged in his brain, he’d been picking at it, like a hangnail. Picking and worrying and chewing on it until the whole idea was swollen and sore. “It’s just, after what happened to my sister, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the ways I wanted there to be more options for her.”

  He’d given Bree the rundown shortly after the motorcycle accident, when he’d dropped in to apologize for blowing off an appointment with her.

  “You know…” Bree drew the words out, crossing her arms and looking contemplative. “There’s more than one way to skin this cat.”

  “Gross. What?”

  “It’s not like being a doctor is the only way you have to offer better medical care to people in your community. You could be a community health care organizer. Or…have you thought about going to nursing school?”

  “Be a nurse?” He flinched and tried to hide it, but obviously failed at that because she glared at him. Bree never let him slack on his research, his outlining or his editing. No way was she letting this one go just because it wasn’t for a grade.

  “Yes. A nurse. Why? Do you think that’s a job only women can do?”

  Damn. Maybe she was grading him.

  He knew better than to answer that one in the affirmative. Even if he obviously really did, deep down, because when had he ever seen anyone other than a woman working as a nurse?

  Never, that’s when. Even after spending eight solid days at the hospital, he still hadn’t seen a single male nurse. Reason told him they had to be there. But Rafi hadn’t met one.

  “Of course not.”

  “You know, this might really be your kind of thing. It’s the nurses who do all the real frontline care.” They’d talked before about his frustration at not being able to help Denny enough when he’d first been hurt. And she knew how obsessive he was about Lola.

  “I don’t know…” He let his voice trail away. Bree was the kind of girl—woman, jeez, she’d kick his ass—he could be honest with about most things. But he didn’t think the knee-jerk reaction against applying the word nurse to himself was one of those things.

  “I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of guy to let other people’s opinions of you matter so much.”

  Like he couldn’t recognize a reverse-psychology trick, or whatever that kind of manipulative bullshit was, when he heard it. Besides…

  Rafi barked a laugh. “Yeah, well, I’m a way better bullshitter than you realize. I care too much. All the time.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” Bree opened her laptop and rattled furiously on the keys for a minute. Swung the screen around and pointed. “That guy’s a nurse. He look particularly girlie to you?”

  He stared at the picture of the guy with big arms and a buzz cut, wearing a jumpsuit and hauling a collapsible stretcher across the tarmac to a waiting military helicopter.

  “Pretty sure my sisters would kill me if I joined the military,” he joked, trying to put off the moment when he had to acknowledge that yes, he did have a whole mess on internalized misogyny still roiling around inside him, damn it. And thanks to spending enough time with Bree this fall, he even knew what those words meant.

  “Don’t be deliberately obtuse. You don’t actually think you need to get shot at for four years before it’s okay for a man to be a nurse, do you?”

  He shook his head. No, he didn’t think that, even if he was acting like he did.

  “Of course not. I know you know this, Rafi. You’ve never been one of those guys.”

  He knew what she meant. Dudebros. Guys who might as well be dropping shit on the floor to get women to bend over and pick it up, for all they viewed women, and things associated with them, as lesser objects. And he wasn’t. He really wasn’t.

  Whether it was growing up as the baby brother of four women who didn’t hesitate to jump down his throat at any sign of that’s a girl thing or his own years of getting hounded about being gay in a ninety percent Latino high school—until he snapped and became hella gay for a while, in a spectacularly pink phase of fuck right off that almost got him expelled for starting fights with his wardrobe alone—he’d been pretty sure he didn’t have any traditional gender roles stuck in his reflexes.

  It was pretty lowering to find that you could still have some secret pockets in your soul where the whispering voices passing on society’s judgment were louder than your own.

  Although after the way he’d been behaving all semester, it really shouldn’t have come as any goddamn surprise that he did. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Do that.”

  Bree shut her laptop again and growled at him to get his butt out of her chair and go do something useful so she could help someone who really needed it. But when he snapped a salute and a “Yes, ma’am!” at her, she caught him off guard with the hug she came around the table and gave him.

  “So this is a thing we’re gonna do now, huh?” he asked into her hair.

  “Shut up and go to the library.” She squeezed her arms around his waist.

  He squeezed her back, her tininess reminding him of his sisters, and went to the library.

  On the way there, he pulled his phone out of his backpack and held it in his hand, thumb rubbing over the power button.

  Thinking.

  He turned on his phone and called home.

  “I’m thinking about checking out nursing school,” he said to Mari, after fifteen minutes of catching up on everyone’s updates and shutting down the lecture she so clearly wanted to give about not being able to reach him at all times.

  “Yeah? That would be cool. More school, though.”

  And that was it. No hesitation. No funny look.

  Admittedly, they were talking on the phone, so funny looks were a bit harder to translate, but if anyone could manage, Mari could.

  “You gonna improve the standard of care in the ’hood, ’Lito?” she teased, and he knew she was remembering when he’d pulled her into the hallway at the hospital and freaked out about whether or not Lola was getting the best possible care.

  “Maybe. Yeah.”

  “Good.” Her voice was brisk now. “Somebody should.”

  As if she knew he’d called because he needed to know they would be okay with it, Mari called the rest of his sisters to the phone, bringing in Sofi on a three-way call when it turned out she was at work already.

  They grilled him about what classes he’d need to take at Carlisle to prepare. How much financial aid he thought he could get for nursing school. Whether or not he’d be coming back to Chicago for that or, God forbid, would he have to go somewhere else far from home?

  “Jesus, you guys, I haven’t figured it all out yet. It’s just an idea!”

  “It’s a great idea. I read there’s already a shortage of nurses and it’s only gonna get worse. You’ll always have a good job wherever you go.” That was Sofi.

  “I’m not going anywhere except Chicago.” Rafi could only imagine how hard he’d want to get back home when he was done at Carlisle. And that was another reason he and Denny didn’t fit. Denny wouldn’t want to follow him back to Pilsen.

  “We’ll see,” Nita said, like she was some kind of mysterious prophet, staring at his future in a glass ball full of smoke and dreams.

  The ghost of a touch slid up his spine and he shivered.

  After talking to his sisters, it was almost easy
to drop the idea in conversation with his suitemates.

  Of course, first he had to take his share of the shit they’d been holding in reserve, waiting for him to rejoin the human race.

  “The iceman cometh,” Austin said sourly from where he sat on the low couch, legs spread so he could hunch over the coffee table, an illegal alcohol lamp flaming at his elbow. The black wax monstrosity in front of him was a new piece.

  Rafi remembered how many days it had been since he’d done anything but head directly to his room upon returning to the suite, and admitted to himself that the sculpture was probably only new to him.

  “Hey,” he said. Lamely.

  “Nice to see you too, stranger.”

  Obviously the latest piece wasn’t going well. Either that or Austin was hanging on to some wariness about Rafi’s anger over the pot bust. The way Rafi had been acting lately, that wouldn’t be a surprise. At least Rafi knew how to handle a cranky Austin.

  “Skittles?”

  “God, yes.” Austin threw down the half-formed lump of wax he’d been molding with powerful fingers and bounced up off the couch. “I’m starving.”

  “Shocker,” Rafi drawled, passing over the bag after spilling a few more candies in his palm. He wouldn’t be seeing that one back again. Austin was always starving. The world’s tiniest trash compactor for a stomach.

  They munched and Austin waited, as if he knew Rafi was there, at last, to talk about all the shit that had been going on in his brain. Rafi had to work his way up to it, though, through a conversation that started about rowing. He finagled an update on Denny’s injured arm from Austin, and then finally got around to his confession about this crazy idea that he might go into nursing.

  Austin, of course, didn’t think there was anything strange about the idea at all.

  “Cool. My uncle was, like, the black sheep of the family after running off to join the army for Desert Storm and coming back a nurse.”

  Remembering the first day he’d met Austin, and the story of his friend’s father who was “the head of some government department in Panama”, Rafi suspected there was more to the story than that. In Austin’s rarefied world, there almost always was. “What does he do now?”

  “I don’t remember. The undersecretary of Health and Human Services or something. Or is it the deputy secretary? I can never remember that shit.”

  “For?” Rafi asked, simply to enjoy the answer he knew was coming.

  “The United States, silly.”

  “Of course he is.” He shook his head.

  “You got any more candy?”

  “No. Want me to go get some stuff from the vending machines?” Might as well extend the olive branch right off the bat.

  Austin skewered him with a sharp look. No dummy, his cox. “Indeed I do. You can make up for your horribly antisocial behavior by saving me in my hour of need.”

  “Yeah? What hour is that?”

  “The hour before this stupid project is due, which is not actually until Friday. But I’m hungry now.”

  “You’re always hungry.” But he went back into his room to look for quarters. The last time he’d gone down there, the card reader had been broken and it wouldn’t take paper money either.

  “It’s taking bills again,” Austin called to him.

  Damn, he’d missed that. The rhythms of the suite, where they each knew what the others were on about almost before they said anything out loud.

  There was something else—someone else—he was missing too, someone whose understanding of him made the rhythms of the suite look like playing patty-cake next to a symphony.

  Rafi knew he’d fucked up badly with Denny. Beyond badly. And he wasn’t sure he knew a way to fix it. Or even whether or not he could.

  When he returned with the candy, Austin thanked him. Before Rafi was able to lock himself up in his room again, though, his cox stopped him with that voice of command he normally saved for when they were on the water.

  “Hey. Are we gonna talk about what’s really going on with you, or what?” Austin rapped the question out, pinning Rafi in place like a bug.

  He didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to. But if one thing had become clear in these past two days of thinking long and hard about what he’d done and what he wanted to do going forward, it was that Rafi had to let go of his need to fake it.

  Pot-smoking bust aside, Austin had been a good friend to him since the day Rafi had shown up on campus.

  It was time for Rafi to stop pretending as if he’d been anywhere near as honest a friend in return.

  The next twenty minutes of soul-baring were the hardest thing Rafi had done since coming back to school from Chicago. Austin sat quietly and listened to him talk, not interrupting the stream-of-consciousness dumping of every screwup and mistake Rafi was making in class, on the team and, most importantly—more important than anything else—with Denny.

  When he was done, Rafi felt drained, wrung dry like a racing uni after a dunk in the river.

  “Listen, sounds like you’ve got stress, anxiety and anger management issues,” Austin announced.

  “What are you, a shrink?”

  Austin shrugged. “I’ve been in therapy since my parents split up when I was five. I’ve got this shit down. Do you want to talk to my shrink?”

  “What?”

  “She does phone consultations,” Austin said, as if it were obvious what he’d meant.

  “Yeah, I don’t think I can afford that.”

  Austin rolled his eyes dramatically. “Like she gives my dad a detailed list when she bills him. I’ll tell her to put it on his tab. ’Cause, dude, you need this. We—” He circled a hand around the suite. “—need this. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

  It wasn’t what he’d expected, but maybe being honest had brought him something he absolutely needed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  One phone consult with Austin’s shrink wasn’t going to fix Rafi’s problems like the wave of a magic wand. But the psychologist managed to tease out the details of one particular problem in his life and help him come up with a plan to fix it.

  Having a shrink who was also a college football fan was a bonus for an athlete with scholarship stress, it turned out.

  He was too nervous to call Denny and ask him directly, so Rafi had texted him and asked Denny to meet him at the boathouse on the Monday afternoon before winter break. Coach Lawson had agreed to the session without asking for details.

  Rafi got to the boathouse early, hoping a workout would burn off some of his nervous energy. In the locker room, he’d barely finished changing into his workout gear when: “Look what the fucking cat dragged in. You slacking, Fidel? Or did your whore boyfriend wear you out last night?”

  Before he could think twice, Rafi surged to his feet, chest bumping Boomer back until the rower banged into the lockers behind him. Fuck it. He’d had to do this more than once in high school. Guess it was too much to hope college would be different.

  “Let’s go.” The whites of Boomer’s eyes were visible all around his pupils. “Let’s fucking go, if you’ve got such a problem with me, Booger. Let’s see how much trash you can talk with your teeth knocked in.”

  “Fuck you.” But he could hear it in the guy’s voice. Boomer was backing down already. “You’re not gonna set me up to get suspended for fighting. No fucking way.”

  “You tell yourself that’s why,” Rafi said, voice sharp like a knife. He stayed right on Boomer’s toes. “But you and I both know different. And if you ever say shit about my boyfriend again, I won’t be asking you to go. You understand me?”

  And God, it felt good to make threats. To not give a shit and to defend his man, even if Denny wouldn’t have thanked him for it. Rafi didn’t care. He needed to do this.

  With deliberate contempt, he turned his
back on Boomer and faced his locker to put his shoes on.

  “Fucking cocksucker,” came the muttered voice behind him as he laced up.

  Rafi slammed his locker door as three of their teammates wandered over just in time to hear him say to Boomer, “Wait your turn, asshole. I’m not a porn star. I can only suck one dick at a time.”

  He left Boomer behind him for the gym, where the memory of that asshole sputtering and turning red in front of his friends as they gave him shit powered Rafi through a set of sprints on the ergs. By the time he wrapped up his workout, Rafi was feeling revived and ready to do the hard work of being honest with Coach about the help he needed.

  In Lawson’s office, he exchanged small talk with his coach until Denny arrived, looking wary but cooperative. After exchanging greetings, Lawson and Denny sat and listened as Rafi explained his problem.

  “My, um, anxiety about crew is out of control,” he said, keeping his eyes focused over his coach’s shoulder so he wouldn’t have to look either of them in the eye. “I’m taking it out on…people. Friends. Everyone.”

  He didn’t have to say the words my boyfriend for everyone to understand. Going into too much detail didn’t seem appropriate. “The main issue is that I’m worried my scholarship won’t be renewed if I’m not outperforming my teammates. Having to apply every year is making me focus on that stress above everything else.”

  When he paused, Coach Lawson nodded at him to continue.

  “I spoke to a therapist—” Denny’s head jerked around until he was staring at Rafi. “—and she mentioned that the California state school system recently changed all their athletic scholarships to a four-year model. They wanted to prioritize academic possibilities for their athletes, not pro sports careers, so they decided to eliminate the idea that if athletes weren’t cutting it, they’d be…well, cut.”

  “I’ve heard about that,” Lawson said slowly, tapping a pen against her desk. She pushed back in her chair and crossed her legs. “I thought it was a terrific idea.”

  “I asked Denny to meet us, because I thought maybe he’d have some insight. About how the alumni group runs things.” Here was where it got hard, because Rafi had to admit to what they all knew: that Denny and Cash and their family members had manipulated the system for him. He was embarrassed to admit it, but he was going to ask them to do it again for him. If he wanted to get the things he wanted in life, he needed to figure out a way to stop being ashamed of asking for them. He needed to get damn good at that. “I know his family…I know he’ll help if he can. With the board. I want to find out if I can…I don’t know what? Petition them? To change my scholarship like that too.”