Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 by Amy Jo Cousins

right?” he asked, scowling.
    “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