Page 17 of Breakout Year

Eitan

Stars Lit as Cosmos Take In the Town

Eitan was sitting by his stall, halfway out of his uniform and halfway into a postgame victory beer when a clubhouse attendant called his name. “Yo, Rivkin, there’s a guy here to see you.”

“Akiva?” Eitan hollered back. “You can send him in.”

The clubhouse was roiling now that the media had departed following the postgame scrum.

Various personnel trickled in and out. Guys ate the postgame spread, a few like Eitan supplementing that with a beer.

Their manager kept objecting—not to the alcohol, apparently, but because he had a thing about gluten, and proper hydration, and the importance of getting no fewer than ten hours of sleep a night.

As if Eitan could just go home and fall in bed after a game like that.

He was still in his jersey. The Cosmos shower set-up was communal with half-stalls that left everyone ass out in front of everyone else.

Usually, he waited until the team was mostly done in the showers to take his, then to do his post-game dunk in the hot tub.

No one had asked him to, but no one said anything about it when he did. It was fine.

By the time Akiva arrived at his stall, Eitan had managed to undo two more buttons, to peel off a sleeve, but had gotten no further. “Hey, glad you made it.”

“I’m surprised they let me in.”

“I put you on the list,” Eitan said. He pulled Akiva into a sweaty one-armed hug. Akiva’s cheeks went faintly pink. “Sorry, it’s kinda humid in here.”

Akiva did a slow inspection of the room, and Eitan tried to imagine it from his perspective: the ring of wooden stalls, each player with enough space to hang their uniforms and street clothes. The gourmet catering set-up.

“This place is pretty different, huh?” Eitan said.

“From the Fall League? Yeah, just a bit.”

“Have you been here before?” Because they did clubhouse tours sometimes for prospects.

“To Cosmos Stadium?” Akiva shook his head. “Haven’t really had time.”

A surprise given how obsessive Akiva used to be about baseball. “Well, we gotta get you to a game soon.” Akiva’s shoulders stiffened—it was possible that he drew the line at spending a game in the family room with other players’ partners—so Eitan pressed on. “You ready to go?”

Akiva looked down at himself. “Not sure I dressed to go out -out.”

“You look great.” Which he did. He was wearing jeans that made him look tall—well, being a head taller than Eitan made him look tall—along with a T-shirt that rode close to his body.

What Eitan would have said to any friend he was about to go clubbing with.

Except for the flush of heat up his neck, the same one he’d had when Akiva told him to kiss him.

A feeling definitely not covered under contractual terms and conditions.

“Let me go rinse off,” Eitan said. “I’m sure I smell rank.” He made an elaborate show of sniffing himself, then stripped out of his jersey.

“I should probably wait outside.”

“I don’t think the other guys’ll mind.” Though Eitan wasn’t sure of that either—it was one thing to share a dressing room with a teammate who dated men, another thing entirely to have evidence of that fact hanging around.

Akiva fixed him with a look. “I don’t really want to find out if they do.” Then he told Eitan he’d meet him outside when he was done showering.

Forty minutes later, they piled into a club through the back entrance then were promptly whisked up to the VIP section in a private elevator. A bottle arrived without Eitan having to request it, along with an extremely attractive waitress who immediately fell into Williams’s orbit.

Below them, the floor hummed with the beat of music, EDM that always made Eitan want to dance. Everything glowed brighter in the dark—ice cubes, belt buckles, Akiva’s smile.

“Here, c’mon.” Eitan found a section on the padded bench lining the room. There were enough of them in the group that Akiva had to sit close to fit.

Eitan poured a shot and offered it to Akiva, who wrapped his fingers around the glass before Eitan had the chance to let go. For a second, they just looked at each other before Eitan withdrew his hand and Akiva made efficient work of the shot. A drop of vodka clung to his lower lip.

“Way to go, Aki—Ak—Eitan’s friend,” Botts called.

Akiva grabbed at his own hair, possibly checking to see if his kippah was still attached.

Eitan reached over, curved his hand around the back of Akiva’s head, feeling for the metal clip Akiva was using to secure his kippah.

There were only two ways to be heard over the beat of the music—shouting and whispering—and Eitan needed his voice for the game they were gonna play in the impossibly distant time of tomorrow.

“All good,” Eitan said, voice low. He didn’t move his hand immediately.

Couldn’t seem to. He’d touched other guys’ hair before, he was sure of it.

He just couldn’t think of when. He wanted to take strands of it between his fingers.

He wanted to lean in and trace the tip of his nose up the tendon of Akiva’s neck to catch the scent of Akiva’s shampoo.

He wanted to do a lot of things and sitting here, in the dark, it was impossible to tease those wants apart: if this was about Akiva or men in general or the loneliness he felt when other players flinched away from him.

Akiva should shake his hand off, for both their sakes.

Finally, Eitan forced himself to withdraw, ignoring the inquisitive tilt of Akiva’s expression, the way his tongue casually drank the remaining vodka from his lip.

“How was writing?” Eitan asked, because it was polite to ask how someone’s day had been after spending it apart and because he wanted to know.

He pictured Akiva at a writing desk, fingers clicking agilely over the keys, drinking coffee and frowning.

A romantic thought: a job where the biggest injury risk was a blister or repetitive stress.

“Not bad,” Akiva said. “I wrote an outline.”

Something that hadn’t occurred to Eitan that he might need. “An outline?”

“I like to know where I’m going with a story. You look surprised.”

“I figured you just sat down and, I don’t know, words came out.”

Akiva looked at him for a second then started laughing—not the closed-off little laugh he’d had on their date, but a full-bodied thing. “ Words come out . Yeah, sometimes that happens. Mostly it doesn’t or only the wrong words do. There’s a difference between writing and telling a story.”

Maybe it was the shot spilling into Eitan’s bloodstream, or the adrenaline from their win, or being partitioned off from the rest of the world, insulated by the swell of good feelings and his teammates’ laughter. Whatever it was, Eitan leaned closer. “So what makes for a good story?”

Akiva’s tongue swept across his bottom lip like he was returning for another sip of vodka. “That’s a big question.”

“I read your book,” Eitan blurted. “Your boss’s book, I mean. I couldn’t sleep, and I stayed up way too late.” And then I bought two more before I even finished that one .

“Oh.” Now Akiva really did shift away. He looked over the profusion of cups on the table then selected his water and drank deeply.

“It was good,” Eitan said. “I mean, I liked it.”

“Yeah?” Hesitant, like Eitan was holding some part of him.

“I wasn’t expecting that twist.” Eitan lowered his voice even more, as if his teammates were going to yell at him for spoiling a book that none of them probably knew existed. “Or, uh, the scene on the train…”

Technically, he’d known Akiva for a long time.

Years of interrupted friendship wasn’t enough closeness for, I nearly jerked it in a clubhouse bathroom because of your book.

Because of you . Eitan needed to break away.

Move, drink, let himself be photographed pretending to feel a certain way.

A dazedly drunken thought that finally— finally —released him back to his own section of the bench. “We should dance.”

Akiva took a long drink of water. “Sure.” He got up. Eitan might have had control over his hands, but he couldn’t stop himself from staring at the narrow cut of Akiva’s waist.

“You’re not wearing your tzitzit?” Eitan asked. Are you afraid someone’ll say something?

“Oh, they, uh, get caught on stuff at a club.” Akiva adjusted his shirt, revealing a flash of his lower belly divided by a trail of hair a shade darker than what was on his head. I could kiss him there . Fuck. Eitan had either had too much to drink or not enough.

He sloshed vodka into a glass. Tomorrow he’d be fielding with a hangover.

He took the shot anyway. Took Akiva’s hand, unnecessarily, not thinking about the vulnerability of his work-softened palm as they went downstairs.

As Eitan did what he did best and threw himself weightlessly into whatever came next.

Some amount of time later, Eitan returned to himself.

Sweat had gathered between his shoulder blades, at the brim of his upper lip.

For some reason, his hand was on the small of Akiva’s back.

He was talking—he had the sense he’d been talking for a while—words falling out the way they did even when he was sober.

His mouth was very near Akiva’s ear. Their hips pressed together as they danced.

Something slotted in Eitan’s brain just then, a sense of things falling into place. How much he wanted to be here dancing. How much he wanted to feel the ripple of Akiva’s muscles under his fingers. How this felt right the way things hadn’t in a long time. Maybe ever .

He said something again or tried to. His lips made brief contact with Akiva’s earlobe. Not even a kiss. A nothing. Except everything within him said, Do it again.

Still, Akiva pulled back, then traced a hand down Eitan’s arm to grab his wrist.

Finally, we’re getting somewhere.

Until Eitan found himself being dragged to the edge of the dance floor.

“Wait here,” Akiva commanded, then he manifested two cups of water from…somewhere, one of which he shoved at Eitan. “We need to head out.”

“I’m good,” Eitan said. Now that they were standing still, the room stopped spinning. Mostly. “I’m sobering up.”

“I think people got whatever pictures they’re gonna get.”

Pictures. Right. The point of this. This was practice .

Akiva’s shirt was sticking to the narrow lines of his body.

Eitan couldn’t seem to stop looking at him.

You can either do that or ask out Akiva for real, but you can’t do both.

You can’t tell him this is just for show then try to kiss him.

And fuck, for once, Eitan knew the good decision was also the right decision .

“You okay?” Akiva asked, like he could tell Eitan had gotten lost in his own head.

“Yeah, just a little distracted.” By you.

Akiva laughed. “I’ll take you back to your place.”

“You don’t—” Eitan cut himself off before he could say have to, but Akiva seemed to hear it all the same.

“Do you not want me to?” Akiva’s eyebrows furrowed. Eitan wanted to kiss that little wrinkle between them or possibly the curve of his mouth. How did you not know? some part of himself seemed to be shouting, one Eitan wanted to douse in more vodka rather than answer.

“I have a bed,” Eitan began, then quickly amended. “Extra bed. Guest bed.”

That got the momentary shutter of Akiva’s eyelids. It was possible he was trying not to laugh. It was possible Eitan was being drunk and needy, that he was hoping for something that wasn’t really there.

It didn’t matter, not when Akiva wrapped a hand around Eitan’s arm. “Well, I’m sure Dave can take our picture getting into a cab.”

But he dropped Eitan’s elbow as they left the club and hailed a taxi, when the only flashes Eitan could see were those of the streetlights above them and the glint of Akiva’s small smile.