Page 26 of Breakout Year

Akiva

Eitan kissed him again outside his apartment building, then by the subway entrance as Akiva began his train journey home. Later that week on a walk through Central Park, Eitan’s fingers held loosely in his.

At a bookstore, when Eitan handed the clerk a matte black credit card and told Akiva to get whatever he wanted, even if Sue got more free copies of books than she could ever reasonably read, most of which she foisted off on Akiva.

Still, he bought a stack and Eitan took him to a nearby cafe and listened to Akiva gush over various authors and books he’d read and books he wanted to read and asked the right questions in the right places.

When other customers were near enough to be obviously eavesdropping, he held Akiva’s hand across the surface of the wooden table. Eitan moved constantly; this time that restlessness manifested as minute strokes over Akiva’s knuckles with the pads of his fingers, leaving his skin sensitized.

Eitan cleared his throat. When Akiva shook himself out of his haze, Eitan was smiling. “You were telling me about—” He nodded to the book on the table, as if Akiva had dropped the thread of conversation mid-sentence. It was entirely possible that he had.

So Akiva talked. When the morning crowd cleared out, Eitan peeled his fingers away and pled that he had to be at the ballpark and that Akiva should have another coffee and sit and write if that was what he wanted to do. Akiva did. His hands were less empty with a keyboard under them anyway.

They kissed again as they watched an amateur baseball game, seated on the long metal benches at a Manhattan rec field that was tucked against the Hudson River.

By now, Akiva was used to Eitan sitting close.

This kiss was a brief, appropriate press of their mouths, if not for the rub of Eitan’s thumb against his neck, stroking his pulse.

“You know, some of these guys played pro ball.” Eitan nodded toward the field. “And a bunch played in college.”

Akiva had been vaguely following the game—there was a digital scoreboard being operated by a volunteer.

Its display was always a pitch or two behind what was actually happening in the game.

Mostly, Akiva had been following the swell of cheers from players and accompanying groans from the opposing team: baseball stripped down to its simplest elements, the potential for a win or a loss volleyed between sides.

On the mound, the pitcher couldn’t find the billboard-wide strike zone, even aided by an umpire who’d declared loudly that he needed to be out of here to pick up his kids.

Akiva’s hands had that same feeling from the café—that emptiness, but of a slightly different flavor, one that could only be cured by holding a ball with exactly a hundred and eight red stitches.

He rubbed his palms against his jeans to dispel the feeling.

“Is that right?” he asked belatedly.

“I don’t know if their rosters are final,” Eitan said, “but maybe they’d make an exception for someone with pro experience.”

Oh, so that’s what this was about—Eitan trying to goad Akiva into playing. Akiva moved down the bench, a distance that could be just buddies , and Eitan glanced at the newly cleared space between them.

Maybe people will think we’re having a couple’s fight . But no, Akiva had given up playing a long time ago. He was there to do a job. So he slid back and accepted the sprawl of Eitan’s hand across his thigh like an apology.