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

to the attention of the newly formed scholarship committee of the alumni crew group. The last thing he wanted was to sound ungrateful. But to be honest…
    “I get two hundred a semester for books,” he admitted.
    “Jesus. Who the hell planned that budget?” Denny shook his head as they headed upstairs. “The textbook for my astronomy lab alone was, like, a hundred bucks, used. Two hundred doesn’t come close.”
    On the third floor, he followed Rafi down the hall and into his suite, where Rafi headed into his room to grab a water bottle from his minifridge. He hated drinking water unless it was ice cold, and remembering to keep his fridge stocked with refilled water bottles was a daily ritual.
    Denny wasn’t dropping the money talk yet. “But still, that’s not too bad, right? You only need a couple hundred extra.”
    Shrugging, Rafi dug some workout clothes out of his dresser. Denny hovered in the doorway. “I guess. But there’s everything else too.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like hanging out. Stuff.”
    “Stuff. This is college. There are million things to do that don’t cost money, you know?” Denny asked. Rafi figured it must be pretty easy for a guy with money to ignore all the times he spent the afternoon studying at a coffee shop and dropping ten bucks on coffee over a couple of hours. Or grabbed a sandwich from Tailgater’s Deli because he was too lazy to walk back to one of the dining halls. Or went to the movies, or went drinking at the hotel bar because they didn’t card anyone who ordered expensive bottles of wine, although asking for a beer would get you carded faster than you could blink. Rafi had heard about all of that shit, although he’d so far managed to duck out on invitations to join Denny at any of those things.
    Rafi shot him a look. You’re full of crap and you know it. Denny blushed. “I’m just saying. We can do stuff. Free stuff.”
    “Like what?” He arched an eyebrow.
    “Like…” Brow wrinkled as if he was thinking hard, Denny braced his hands on the top of the doorframe and leaned forward. His shirt rode up a little, and Rafi snuck glances at that strip of flat stomach with the barely visible blond treasure trail leading down past the waistband of Denny’s shorts. The silence stretched long enough that Rafi got paranoid Denny had noticed him staring. Whoops.
    This was no time to start eyeing the guy’s package like he wanted to unwrap it.
    “We could…play video games!” Denny sounded so excited to think of something, the words bursting out of him at top volume.
    “I guess.” But Rafi definitely wasn’t excited about the idea, which was kind of a bummer, because video games used to be a super chill way for the two of them to kill some time together.
    Nope. Sorry. The idea of spending hours shut up in Denny’s tiny room, the two of them sprawled out on his bed, because a wooden desk chair definitely didn’t cut it for a Call of Duty marathon—yeah, the idea alone made him restless.
    Like, really restless.
    “You know what I wanna do?” Rafi asked. “I want to go dancing.” God, dancing would be awesome. Talk about a more fun way to get a workout.
    “Well, right now, we gotta go train.” Denny dropped his arms from the doorframe. Rafi told himself that was a good thing as he watched that slice of pale gold stomach disappear. “You can plug your phone in and put on some good tunes. It’ll be almost like dancing.” The workout room at the boathouse had a kickass stereo system anyone could plug into, although if there were more than two rowers there, too many arguments about music broke out, so headphones were the general rule. But on a Saturday night, they might be the only ones there…
    “Yeah, right.” Rafi snorted. But he thumbed up his favorite bachata/merengue playlist before tucking his phone in his backpack. He kicked Denny to the common room while he changed, because there was too much testosterone in the air right now, and then they headed