Page 24 of Breakout Year

Akiva

Eitan: I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me. Like on a fake date.

The text came in right as Sue’s PT was finishing for the day. Akiva had dispensed with his emails, his spreadsheet logging. He’d coded Mark’s square purple—a refusal to accept the money, even if Akiva had sent two reminders and was tempted to send a third.

Akiva even dutifully picked his wrists up off his keyboard when fussed at by Miss Linda. For his compliance, she’d also snuck him no fewer than four sugar-free miniature chocolate bars over the course of an hour. Things were looking up.

“What’s got you smiling?” Sue emerged from the hallway, a physical therapist—a big man with the look of a faded jock—hovering by her elbow as if she might fall.

Sue cut a resentful look at him. “I’m too old to be pushed around by medical personnel, Jason ,” she said, even as her hands hung exhaustedly limp at her sides.

Akiva shook his head, both at Sue’s question and at her dropping Jason’s name.

She had a habit of naming annoying side characters after annoying people in her life, one he’d call petty if she hadn’t let him join in over the years.

But Akiva was not going to name an officious 1890s bank teller Jason .

His phone buzzed again. Eitan, adding a string of question marks to his text followed by a pleaasssse.

He’d texted a few times since that night in his car, when Akiva kissed him—a kiss for only the watching eye of Akiva’s driveway light—and Eitan said they’d be better off as fake boyfriends.

As dumpings went, at least this one came with cash payments and a candle Akiva definitely hadn’t spent the last few days smelling.

“You going to answer that?” Sue snatched an elbow away from Jason, then aimed herself to where Miss Linda was waving a piece of paper for her attention.

Akiva folded his laptop and went to intercept Sue.

Signing was hard most days. Right after PT, it was nearly impossible.

Besides, he didn’t want Sue to sign something she hadn’t read through, even if it was probably just the boilerplate medical information release form they made her sign every third session for some reason.

“If you want to sit…” he offered.

For a moment, Sue looked like she might tsk that she was perfectly fine and that if he kept hovering, she was going to disappear him like she did her ex-husband.

(Though Akiva’s Googling revealed said ex-husband died five years ago, survived only by his much younger wife and a mountain of debt. Good riddance. )

Then Sue sat. Grabbed his laptop as if she was merely reviewing story notes.

When he got to the desk, Miss Linda slid him the paper—yes, just a medical release.

Akiva couldn’t technically sign it on Sue’s behalf, but he could offer her a thicker marker from his pack.

She gripped it as she swiped her signature across the page.

He returned the form to the desk, and Miss Linda accepted it and proffered yet another sugarless miniature Hershey bar that she held out but didn’t release into his palm.

“Has he been smiling this whole time?” Sue piped from her chair.

“Sure has. Usually it’s all—” Miss Linda did an exaggerated huff that Akiva supposed was meant to be an impression of him. “But not today.”

“Are you ganging up on me?” For that, Akiva got two almost instantaneous yeses and the final drop of Miss Linda’s candy into his hand.

His phone buzzed. Technically, a conspiracy required three people. Eitan was now the official third co-conspirator. Question marks and begging had been replaced by a photo.

Eitan: It’s rescue dog day at the park!

Eitan, in a team-branded shirt, holding a puppy, who was licking his nose as Eitan laughed in delight.

Eitan: They gave me the smallest one ’cause I’m short. Don’t you think he kinda looks like you?

Because the puppy was a squirming labradoodle with a stern expression.

Akiva smiled reflexively and got a slightly middle school-ish ooh from Sue as if he was being obvious, which he was. He unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth. Sweetness flooded his tongue, along with an aftertaste: a reminder that this whole thing was artificial.

Akiva should answer if only so Eitan stopped texting.

Akiva: Yes, I’ll go out with you on another fake date.

Celebration balloons floated up his phone screen.

Eitan: Do you want a dog? They keep asking if we want dogs, but I can’t have one since I don’t know where I’m gonna be next year and I don’t want to move some unsuspecting dog to Tampa or wherever.

Then a pause, a succession of three dots like Eitan was typing and erasing and typing and erasing.

Eitan: I really thought I was gonna stay in Cleveland.

Akiva pushed down his reaction. This wasn’t real, except for the ache in his chest. He could feel Sue and Miss Linda studying him. Whatever his face was doing, he’d hear about it as he drove Sue home.

Akiva: For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re in New York.

Then he pocketed his phone before he received the buzz of Eitan’s response.

Eitan didn’t tell him where they were going for their date—he just told Akiva to meet him at his apartment building.

Eitan: Wear a shirt you have to iron but if you don’t that’s okay too.

Akiva didn’t trust himself to respond with actual words—like Do you mean I don’t have to iron or I don’t have to wear a shirt? —so he gave a virtual thumbs up and dug out his ironing board.

He met Eitan in the lobby to his building, Eitan chatting with the woman at the front desk like they were old friends.

Akiva didn’t want to interrupt; it felt too much like announcing his presence.

Too much like a real date. So he adjusted the smooth fabric of his shirt collar at his throat.

Waited. Watched Eitan effuse about something—possibly the weather, though Akiva supposed he’d be effusive about the weather too if he worked outside.

So he stood and watched Eitan talk with his hands, the light catching the ring around his index finger. Mid-gesture, Eitan seemed to realize he was being observed. Slowly, he turned toward where Akiva was standing. Smiled impossibly wider.

“Sorry,” Eitan said, “gotta go. My date’s here.” For a moment, he stiffened, as if expecting the woman’s sudden disapproval. This is New York , Akiva wanted to say. No one here gives a shit . Outside a baseball stadium anyway. Inside was a whole different matter.

She only laughed. Told them to have fun. Even her not too much fun was gently said.

Outside, Eitan hailed a cab—“I’m getting better at that!”—then piled inside. Eitan wasn’t tall, but he was tall enough to sit with splayed knees, one of which brushed Akiva’s.

“We could’ve taken the train,” Akiva said as Eitan shifted around, trying to get comfortable.

“All the train stations are too hot, and all the trains are too cold. Someone should really look into that.” He dropped his hand onto Akiva’s knee, possibly a condolence for the city just being like this in the summer.

“We’d be seen on a train,” Akiva whispered.

Eitan nodded to where the cabbie was studying them in the rearview as they were paused at a stoplight. “Looks like he’s seeing us just fine.”

That’s not the point of this . But Akiva didn’t really want to remind Eitan of the point of this right at that second, not with most of his consciousness spinning down to the grip of Eitan’s hand on his knee, casting off all the ways in which this was a bad idea.

Going out turned out to be the nicest kosher restaurant in New York, a steakhouse situated in lower Manhattan where Akiva’s ancestors had once hauled pushcarts. Akiva ran his hands over his cab-wrinkled button-up as Eitan smiled shamelessly at the hostess until they were whisked off to their table.

This time, they weren’t seated in a backroom, but at a padded corner booth with a wide view of the dining area. The arc of the table was large enough to fit a party of four around it, but it didn’t matter, not when Eitan sat close.

He slid even closer as their waiter dropped menus and then collected their drink orders.

The Cosmos had played a day game; Eitan smelled like spray sunscreen and fresh-scented soap.

They were here to be seen. That was what the zeros trailing the ends of Eitan’s cash app payments were for.

So Akiva leaned into Eitan’s space and breathed in deeply.

The ends of Eitan’s hair tickled his cheek, as fleeting as a kiss.

“What?” Eitan asked, but he was smiling.

“You smell like the ballpark.”

Eitan’s smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, and Akiva would not press his mouth there, not for all the money in Eitan’s bank account, not if this wasn’t real. “You must really miss the game, huh?” Eitan asked.

A question Akiva had gotten a few times over the years—from Mark and Rachel during the period he haunted their guest room like a ghost. By Sue exactly once.

She knew when to drop things. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it didn’t feel great either, so Akiva distracted himself scanning his menu without really registering the food descriptions.

Some of the prices were in the triple digits.

He suppressed his instinctive shock. “Not really,” he managed.

“Not even striking guys out?” Eitan pulled out his own menu, frowned briefly at it, then closed it and shrugged.

That sequence gave Akiva just enough time to smooth a wrinkle from the pristine white tablecloth, to nab a breadstick and swim it through olive oil.

“If you asked me five years ago, I might have had a different answer. I miss playing, I guess, but I don’t miss the game.

” He chewed for a second. “Right after I left, a reporter got a hold of me. Wanted to do an article about why I quit. It felt too fresh. Now there’s a part of me who used to play, but that isn’t the person who wakes up in the morning anymore. ”

“Would that be Akiva the model?” Eitan asked.