Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4

by Amy Jo Cousins

  Rafi opened his mouth to say Sure, let’s go. “Can you guys get it without me?”

  The wounded look again. Like when he’d pulled away from Denny’s hug. The energy in the room kicked downward another notch, as if Rafi sucked out the air merely by talking. He tried to make it better, to explain, though he knew he was bullshitting even before he opened his mouth.

  “I’ve got all this stuff to unpack.” He waved at the suitcases in the corner, a mismatched pile of the oldest, unused ones from his sisters’ closets. He didn’t want to go to Denny’s old dorm, or his new one either, where his belongings were probably neatly organized in a matching set of luggage. Or unpacked already in a room that would look like something from a magazine. “And there’s still a ton more left in the car.”

  Cash turned to face him, putting his back to Denny as he raised an eyebrow and pursed his mouth. Clearly he wasn’t buying it, but equally obviously, he was going along with Rafi. “No problem.” He tossed Rafi the keys to the car. “You rock it out here. We can walk around campus later.”

  Corralling Denny by the shoulder and chattering loudly about how they couldn’t pay him to go back to school again, Cash headed out with his cousin, promising to be back within the hour.

  Rafi pushed his room door shut behind them and leaned against it, head pounding. He eyed his new bed, sorely tempted to lie down on the naked blue-and-white striped mattress and take a nap. He had hardly slept in the motel off I-90 they’d crashed at the night before. The sound of Cash’s even breathing, occasionally sinking into gentle, snuffling snores before smoothing out again, had kept him company.

  He’d never slept before in a bed that wasn’t owned by a family member or a friend. The only travelling Rafi had ever done was taking the bus up to Milwaukee to visit his sister whose husband had a job at one of the old breweries there. And that one trip back to the DR to see his mami, which had been half disaster, half awesome.

  “And now Massachusetts,” he said. “Where I will stand in an empty room and talk to myself. Shit.”

  He’d grabbed one box in particular from the back of their Zipcar when he’d loaded up for the walk here. Now he attacked the twenty-seven pieces of packing tape that held the lid shut, cursing Lola.

  Lola never met a problem that couldn’t be solved with more tape. His sister’s Christmas presents were the family joke, requiring a machete to open.

  His sisters might not be rich, but they weren’t about to send their baby brother off to a faraway school without everything he might need, including a cooler of food he was supposed to share with his new suitemates. Rafi was going to dump that at the earliest opportunity. Nothing seemed more backward than showing up with their weird mix of Puerto Rican, Dominican and Mexican food, like some kind of Latino street vendor.

  He’d felt like shit, accepting that damn cooler. It looked exactly like the one his favorite tamale guy outside the supermercado used, and he bet there were tamales wrapped in tin foil buried inside too. But he hadn’t been able to turn it down, nor the massive pile of “dorm necessities” they’d hunted down at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond and half the secondhand shops in Chicago. Their printed-out lists from the school’s website had been his sisters’ constant companion for the months before he’d left, daily texts flying among all four of them as they shared what items they’d scored on sale.

  Rafi might be the first Castro going away to college, but he wasn’t going to lack for much if they could help it. The packing had happened almost without him, as the weight of all the preparations had sent him into a kind of lethargy that still hung on him like a heavy blanket. He knew he should wonder what was in all of the boxes and bags they’d sent him off with, but he couldn’t work up the enthusiasm yet.

  Hacking through the layers of tape with his house key, he managed to open the box. And then had to dig through his bath towels and sheets until he found the docking station with the Bose speakers. His one extravagance. He’d spent the summer reorganizing his music, making playlists, copying MP3s from his sisters and burning through the iTunes gift cards he got for his birthday.

  “Yes. Come here, mi amor,” he crooned at the tiny but powerful speaker set.

  He set it on top of the bookcase in the corner of the room, annoyed that the shelves wobbled. That would need fixing. He fished his iPhone out of his backpack and pushed it into the slot between the speakers. Without thinking, he pulled up his bachata playlist, and Romeo Santos’s high-pitched voice poured out of the speakers.

  Better.

  Bachata wasn’t even what he listened to at home. More like the music he heard in the street, at neighborhood festivals or street fairs. But now, far away from Pilsen’s colors and food and people who were brown like him, he reached for the familiar dance music without thought.

  Time to unpack and claim this space.

  The dresser’s big drawers ate up his piles of clothing in mere minutes. He folded a soft duffle bag and wedged it inside one of the old-fashioned, hard-shelled suitcases before storing that in his closet. He wouldn’t need it until May. His budget didn’t allow for trips home for the holidays.

  After a half hour, he had to take a leak, and wondered if there’d be a sign on the bathroom door. Or maybe he’d wander up and down the hall, trying doorknobs, until he figured out where it was. Ugh. He opened his door, ready to find out.

  “Whoa.” The word popped out without thought.

  “Hey.” A short white boy with a head of bouncy brown curls that hung down to his chin was bent over across the room. He was dressed like a thrift shop had exploded all over him as he dug through a pile of white plastic bags, pulling out what looked like painting supplies.

  “I didn’t know anyone else was here,” Rafi said. He must have had the music up loud if he hadn’t heard anyone come in. He’d have to find out if it had been too noisy.

  “You had your door shut. Figured you wanted some privacy.” The skinny kid nodded at what must be his own door, wide open directly across from Rafi. A long pole with a roller leaned against the wall next to him. “I got in early last week for an art department retreat. I’m Austin.”

  “Rafael.” So this was the friendly, forgetful one. One of the team’s coxswains, which he could have guessed based on how tiny the guy was. And an art department retreat? Sounded fancy. And expensive. He watched as Austin levered open a lid and poured dark blue paint from a gallon canister into a tray. “Are we allowed to paint the rooms?”

  “Nope,” Austin answered cheerfully before dredging a fluffy roller on a stick through the pan. “Got to paint it white again at the end of the year or pay a fine.”

  “How big’s the fine?” Shit. Last thing he wanted was to get stuck paying for someone else’s mess.

  “Don’t know. My dad hasn’t bitched about it yet, so it can’t be too bad.” Austin’s grin was a knife slicing the air as he turned to the bare wall—he’d dragged the few pieces of furniture in the room together in the middle and draped them with a paint-spattered sheet—and slopped a ragged X of thick, wet paint across the middle.

  “So you’ve done this before?”

  “I’m an artist, man. Can’t live with white walls. Can’t do it.” Austin didn’t turn around, pushing paint across the wall to fill in the space between the arms of the midnight-blue cross he’d made, so Rafi took advantage of being ignored and drifted over to sneak a peek in Austin’s room.

  “You can go in if you want.”

  He jumped. “I wasn’t—” What the hell was he supposed to say? He totally was.

  “S’okay. Go ahead. I don’t leave my sex toys out or anything.”

  Rafi spun and ducked into Austin’s room, hoping to hide himself away before his open mouth and goggling eyes offended his new roommate. Sex toys? Seriously? Is this what rich kids talk about? Because, between the not giving a damn about the fine for painting the room, and the perfect teeth and clear skin Rafi as
sociated with money—not to mention the stereo setup that had crowned Austin’s bookcase, ten times as expensive as his own—he was positive this kid came from money. Regardless of the thrift shop wardrobe.

  The loud voice that exploded into their common room startled him so much Rafi almost dropped the weird statue made of black wax he’d found on the cluttered desk. He’d been trying to figure out if it was satanic or something, and wondering how the hell he was going to tell his sisters one of his roommates was worshipping the Devil between classes—plus smoking pot, if the burnt-herb smell of the room was any sign—when stomping feet and shouting distracted him.

  “Jesus Christ, Austin! How am I supposed to study with that paint reeking in here?”

  “Class doesn’t start until Tuesday. You don’t have any homework yet.”

  “You don’t have any homework. I’ve got prereading for Morrison’s seminar coming out my ass.”

  “Maybe it’ll wash out that stick you’ve got stuck up there.” The words were harsh, but Austin giggled when he said it, and the second guy didn’t seem any more annoyed with Austin than he had been to start with.

  Rafi re-entered the common room to find a tall Asian guy talking to Austin. The newcomer was dressed in khaki shorts and a cuffed button-down fancier than anything Rafi had seen students wearing on campus so far. Introducing himself got him a handshake and a name—Vincent Lim.

  “Right. You’re Denny’s guy,” Vincent said after they shook hands.

  “What?” Oh, not good. Not good at all.

  “Yeah, I pretty much stopped responding to his emails about how awesome you were. No offense.” Vincent was keeping an eye on Austin’s painting, squinting at the color being slapped on the walls as if considering protesting it.

  Rafi didn’t even know if he was offended or embarrassed. Jesuchristo, Denny. You couldn’t keep your mouth shut? He didn’t know what bothered him more: the idea that he was showing up on campus with some kind of claim already laid on him by a guy he’d kissed one time on the lakefront two years ago, or that everyone knew he’d kissed the guy, period.

  “None taken,” Rafi answered automatically.

  “I don’t know why you insist on doing this every year, but don’t expect me to help you finish when you get tired and quit halfway through.” Vincent spoke to Austin’s back before shaking his head and closing himself in his room. The guy definitely fell on the cranky end of the scale.

  “Yes, dear,” Austin called out loud enough to be heard through the door.

  “He your boyfriend or something?” Rafi asked without thinking and then froze in place. He wasn’t going back in the closet or anything, but he hadn’t meant to bring up boyfriends or girlfriends with anyone until he knew the lay of the land. “Sorry. The only people I know who bitch at each other like that are practically married.”

  “Vinnie? No.” But the look on Austin’s face said I wish. “He’s just a pain in the ass. Not really, though. He’s a good guy. The three of us—” Austin circled a finger in the air, looping in the rest of the suite, “—were hoping for a triple, but they went fast, so we got stuck with a quad. Crossed our fingers and hoped Res Life would stick someone cool in the fourth room.” He shrugged. “Got lucky when you came on board with the team.”

  All Rafi heard was the three of us echoing in his brain.

  Three of us. Three of us. Three of us…trailing away into silence as he stared at Vinnie’s closed bedroom door. Shit. He’d figured out his suitemates were friends, of a kind, but he’d thought knowing they were all rowing with the team would make him feel like an insider. Hearing the three of them had chosen to live together and gotten stuck with him by default made him feel more like an outsider than ever.

  “Seriously. Don’t mind Vinnie.”

  He turned back to Austin, who was standing like the Statue of Liberty, except with a roller instead of a torch. “You’re dripping.”

  “Shit. Vinnie’ll kill me. Can you put some water on this? The paint’s latex. It’ll come right off if we get it while it’s wet.” Austin tossed the rag tucked in his waistband at Rafi, who caught it midair.

  We. That was better than nothing. And Vincent was Vinnie. At least to Austin. Good to know.

  “Sure.” He headed out the door into the hallway. There had to be a bathroom on this floor somewhere. Right. He’d meant to look for that.

  By the time he found it, took a leak, wet the rag and headed back to their room, Rafi had decided to make an effort with Austin by offering to help paint. But first, he mopped up the drips. The door to Rafi’s room was still open, bachata music audible in the background.

  “Thanks.” Austin stepped around him to get more paint loaded onto his roller.

  Before Rafi could ask if Austin wanted help, Vincent re-emerged from his room, workout clothes on, still looking more elegant than any college kid had a right to. He scowled again at the half-painted wall.

  “You didn’t edge it first. It’s going to look crappy if you leave it like that.”

  “This is the fun part.” Austin’s voice stayed calm.

  “You know, you can’t only do the fun stuff all the time. You have to do the shit work too.” The mild look Austin shot Vinnie made the latter blush. A reprimand? Or an inside joke? Either way, Rafi felt left out again, but this time he was determined to find his way in.

  “I can help. Do the trim.” When he spoke up, both boys turned to him, Austin’s eyes lighting up.

  “See? He can help.” Austin pulled a paintbrush out of his back pocket and flipped it to Rafi. The guy had never heard of simply handing things, apparently. “Told you we’d get someone cool.”

  Vinnie looked at the ceiling and shook his head. “Whatever. You.” He pointed at Rafi and glared. “Don’t let him make a mess. He never cleans up after himself.”

  “I do too!” For once, the smaller boy got worked up at something Vinnie said. “That’s not fair and you know it. I clean all the time. Leaving a project out while I’m working on it isn’t the same thing at all.”

  Vinnie’s golden skin turned pink over his cheekbones. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “One time I left a mess. And I apologized for that. And helped you with your stupid rock project to make up for it.”

  “It was a geological survey of the campus, not a stupid rock… Whatever. Just don’t get paint everywhere,” Vinnie said, as another blob dribbled off the end of Austin’s roller. “Austin—”

  “Rag!” Rafi’s new best friend shouted, hand in the air without looking at him, as if Austin was utterly confident Rafi would ball up the wet rag and toss it to him.

  So he did.

  “Yes! We are a well-oiled machine, my man.” Austin swiped up the paint and tucked the rag back into his waistband, not caring that the paint-covered end bounced against his shorts.

  Vinnie’s muttered complaints trailed off as he left the suite, saying something about being back after his run. Rafi grabbed a clean paintbrush from one of the plastic bags, and Austin poured him some paint in a plastic cup. Then Rafi parked himself on the floor and started working on edging the baseboard. His unpacking could wait.

  “So where are you from?” Austin stepped around him as he rollered the wall directly above Rafi’s head.

  “Chicago.”

  “No, but I mean, like, where are you from, really? You’re Latino, right?”

  Rafi considered giving a detailed description of Archer Avenue and how it crossed the city grid on the diagonal, but he knew what his roommate was asking.

  “Afro-Latino.” He was dark-skinned for a Dominican, and made a point of claiming that, even if it confused some white people, who didn’t seem to understand he could be both black and Latino.

  “Is that different?”

  “Yeah, being black and Latino is different from just being Latino,” Rafi answered dryly, but didn’t get into it. “My famil
y’s from the Dominican Republic, but I’ve lived in Chicago since I was five.”

  When Austin asked more questions, Rafi gave him the abbreviated version of his mom’s determination to bring up her children in the United States.

  He didn’t tell Austin how she’d moved to Chicago right after Rafi’s next oldest sister was born, returning to the Dominican Republic after giving birth to Rafi to leave him temporarily with her sister. She’d worked her ass off until she could bring her kids up north, one at a time, and had returned permanently to the DR, the country of her heart, as soon as she’d brought Rafi up, leaving him with his four older sisters. Even knowing how desperate she’d been to return home, Rafi had still always resented her a little for leaving him behind with the girls, the oldest of whom had been twenty-five and working shitty retail jobs while the younger ones went to school.

  Some things were private.

  “I went to Panama last summer,” Austin was saying. “My friend Nando’s dad runs the treasury or something. Do you know him? Fernando Ayala?” He paused, roller tilted in dangerous fashion.

  “You’re dripping.” Rafi tried to figure out if Austin really thought all Central Americans knew each other. “No, sorry. I don’t know anyone from Panama.”

  “Huh. But it’s pretty close, right? You should go. The clubs were awesome…” His roommate wiped up the paint, again, and kept rollering.

  Rafi ducked his head and stared at the edge of the paint he was brushing along the baseboard, trying not to make a wobbly line. Austin chattered blithely in the background as Rafi felt his connection to his new roommate evaporating. How was he supposed to explain to this kid, who had been to Panama but had apparently never looked at a map, that there were a thousand miles of ocean between the two?

  “Holy shit. I’m so hungry. Do you have any food?” Man, this kid really did talk nonstop. “All I’ve got are cherry Twizzlers. Though maybe I ate them all last night. I always eat too much junk when I’m high.”

  Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! He’d totally known that was pot he smelled. Back home, he might have been interested in sharing, but all he could think now was how his scholarship would be in jeopardy if he got busted for drugs. Shit. Maybe if he fed Austin, he could mention not firing up in the suite? “My sisters packed up some stuff for me, but it’s out in the car still.”