Page 29 of Breakout Year

Eitan drove with one hand on the wheel and the other splayed on the center console.

Akiva wouldn’t have pegged him as a stick shift driver.

But Eitan seemed to enjoy the concentration required to weave through traffic, to register all the stimuli around them: the other cars, the idle construction zones, the music playing diffusely from his stereo speakers.

At rest, Eitan fidgeted and fiddled and tapped his fingers and feet. In motion…

Akiva had twenty-five minutes to catalog all the ways that Eitan drove and fielded third base and kissed and draped his hand, casually but meaningfully, on Akiva’s knee for a fleeting second before he had to shift gears again.

Too soon, they arrived at Akiva’s. “You can just drop me off—” Akiva began, just as Eitan pulled into his driveway and cut the engine.

“Can I see your house?” Eitan flushed as he said it, like by house he meant bed .

“You want to meet my plants?” Akiva said.

“See, I didn't know you had plants.”

“Well, the spider plant is kind of a dick, so I don’t talk about it much.”

Eitan laughed and took that as an invitation, opening his door, spilling out of his car and onto Akiva’s driveway.

He’s just coming in to be friendly. For a panicked moment, Akiva wondered about the last time he’d vacuumed (two days ago, procrastinating writing) or wiped down his kitchen counters (three days ago, procrastinating writing) or did any of the little tasks so much of adulthood was composed of.

Then he remembered the clothing on Eitan’s floor, the picture frame drained of its battery.

Eitan might not judge his relative tidiness—but that wouldn’t stop him from knowing how small Akiva’s life was in sum.

So Akiva climbed out, and unlocked his front door, and tried to ignore the heat of Eitan at his back as they went inside.

Akiva flicked on a light—he’d slowly replaced all the old fluorescents with LEDs to save on his power bill. Something about the wiring always made them come on too bright, illuminating his scant few rooms.

It was warm in here—it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and Akiva could sleep through both if it meant he didn’t have to worry about affording his grocery bill, even if Eitan had been picking up tab after tab.

Still, Eitan was a guest, and it was too warm for guests.

So Akiva flicked on the window-mounted air conditioner and tried not to wince as it rattled to life.

“This place really isn’t much,” he said.

“I’m sure that’s not true.” Eitan shook his head. “No, I know it’s not true.” He slowly turned, perusing the room as if there was something interesting to be found in Akiva’s secondhand couch and slightly warped floorboards. “I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

A statement that caught Akiva like a hand at his neck. “Come meet my plants.”

“Should I? I hear your spider plant is kind of a dick.” But he went over to Akiva’s shelves of plants and said nice to meet you to Akiva’s philodendron.

“You don’t need to impress her,” Akiva laughed.

“Oh, her, is it?” Eitan mimed shaking one of the plant’s leaves like a hand. “I wanted to make sure I was making a good first impression.”

As if inspecting Akiva’s plants on the shelf was the equivalent of meeting his family. That liquid feeling in Akiva’s belly was back, softer than the urgency with which they’d kissed by Eitan’s car, but no less demanding. How impossibly generous Eitan was—with his money, with things beyond money.

He was still examining Akiva’s plants, close without touching, hands clasped behind his back. Akiva suppressed the urge to reach for his hand, to twine Eitan’s fingers with his own. To lead him the thirty or so feet from the safety of his living room to his bedroom and whatever lay beyond.

He was grateful when Eitan made the decision for him and reached for the LED strip lights spanning over the plants, which clicked on and off with a timer, so Akiva didn’t need to worry about them on Shabbat. “Did you install this yourself?” Eitan asked.

“I did, right after I got this place. I’d been staying with Mark and Rachel—my friends from synagogue, who, uh, let me crash with them for a while.

” If Eitan heard his hesitation, he didn’t say anything.

“After everything with baseball and my parents and all the stuff with the money, I wanted a place that was just mine.”

“It looks like yours”—Eitan took an inhale—“it smells like you.”

“I smell like wet socks?”

“You know in Arizona right after it rained? That’s what you smell like.”

Akiva wasn’t sure how he was supposed to stand there in the privacy of his house and not kiss Eitan.

His curtains were open, the windows exposing them to the street.

This late, they’d look like shadows to anyone walking by, like two people who could be anyone.

Better to remove Eitan as a temptation. “Sorry,” Akiva said, “but I really do have to get up early.”

“How much would it be for me to stay over?” Eitan’s flush was back. “I mean, just on your couch.”

“You want to pay to sleep on my couch?”

“No.” Eitan shook his head, less like he was denying it and more like he was reminding himself of something. “That was weird. Forget I said that—my verbal filter is still a work in progress. I should let you get some sleep.” He didn’t move.

“You know, all the pictures of us people have been putting on Insta—they’re kind of unclear that we’re dating.”

Eitan frowned. “Not even when we were kissing at the restaurant?”

“Nope, just two guys having dinner.” Sometimes, when Akiva got stuck writing and needed to get things going, he had a character jump from a moving train. That was what he felt like now—poised, breathless, about to leap. “So we must not be very convincing.”

Akiva braced himself for Eitan’s laugh—that was a line, and Akiva knew it was one and Eitan must know it too.

Does it count as fake if we both know we’re pretending there’s nothing else happening?

Eitan was paying for his time . Nothing else: certainly not the startled feeling of Akiva’s heart as it pounded against his ribs.

Let’s go rob a bank. Let’s run away to Paris.

Anything but confront this thing welling in his chest.

Eitan stepped closer. Put one hand at his waist, another at Akiva’s jaw. “Is this all right?” Eitan asked, as if there was any wrong to be found in the curve of his hand at Akiva’s stubble.

Akiva nodded into the safety of Eitan’s palm, not trusting himself to speak. He wanted to flash forward to five minutes from now to a frantic tearing of clothes. He wanted to stay held here forever and not worry about his work or his bills or even his plants.

“Please,” Akiva said, a nonspecific sort of please , but Eitan heard him anyway, like there was nothing Akiva could ask for that Eitan wouldn’t give him.

Eitan leaned up. Pressed their mouths together. It was just like all the other times they’d kissed, except for how it wasn’t. Eitan’s lips parted under his. He traced his tongue into Akiva’s mouth unshyly, and Akiva could taste Eitan’s laughter when he sucked his tongue.

His hand splayed at Akiva’s waist; this time, there was no frowning over the too-prominent jut of his ribs. He clung to Akiva like he wanted to possess him or possibly be possessed by him, something wholly distinct from the money Eitan kicked over to him after each date.

Akiva’s hand found the back of Eitan’s neck, holding him in place, and Eitan made a noise in his throat—too pleased to be a growl.

“That good?” Akiva asked in between presses of their mouths.

Eitan said something to himself that came out a whisper. Then he leaned away, just long enough to square his shoulders, to get that look of Eitan determination that Akiva recognized from that ill-fated press conference that didn’t exactly seem so ill-fated with Eitan’s arms around him.

“I wasn’t sure I liked men.” Eitan said it all in a rush.

Now Akiva leaned back. Blinked a few times to clear his mind, which could only flash one question. “ What ?”

“You seem surprised.”

“It’s because I am.”

“If it helps,” Eitan said, “I didn’t know you liked men either.”

“In Arizona, you didn’t notice how much I looked at you?” Because Akiva felt like his attention toward Eitan had been as hot and bright as the desert sun.

“I’m told I can be oblivious until something’s right in front of me.”

“And you never just woke up in the morning and thought about how you wanted to fuck a man?” Akiva knew he should be less disbelieving, perhaps a touch gentler, but for once Eitan seemed entirely composed as Akiva felt like he was coming slightly unglued.

Eitan grinned at that. “Not before, no, not in a way I could articulate.”

Before . Fuck. Which would mean… “You came out at that press conference and weren’t entirely sure you were queer?” Akiva’s voice went a little hysterical at the end.

“I thought maybe other people were exaggerating about relationships or whatever. I like my ex. She’s really nice.”

“She?” Akiva asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve never dated a man before?”

“Technically, we’re not dating.” Though Eitan said it with a grin.

“And no, I haven’t.” Which certainly recontextualized all the questions Eitan had been asking him.

“I mean, I didn’t not know. Just, when she and I were together, I thought that was it.

I didn’t want to be some asshole ballplayer screwing around on her.

” Now Eitan was digging a toe into the floor.

“But I thought about it, I guess. Mostly in the abstract.”

Which was something very distinct from what they were doing together now.

“I just—” Eitan began, then bit his lip, visibly recalculating.

“Everyone in Cleveland was like, Why are you making such a big deal over the Pride Night thing? Are you gay or something? Not to the press, but in the clubhouse sometimes. And all I could think was, So what if I am? What the fuck are you gonna do about it? ”

“Eitan,” Akiva said, “that is not a very straight thought.”

“See, that’s what I figured too.” Eitan grinned at that, bright, beaming. “Then they kicked me off the team, and I thought, hell, if you can’t be gay in New York, where can you be?”

Akiva would not laugh at that, except for how laughter was already echoing up his throat.

Eitan—stubborn, determined Eitan, who saw the world for what it should be rather than what it was.

Akiva didn’t know if that was naivete or bravery, but he knew that in that moment if he didn’t kiss Eitan, he’d regret it.

“Technically”—Akiva wound his hand around the back of Eitan’s neck—“we’re in New Jersey.” He pressed his mouth to Eitan’s. There was something joyful in this kiss, something that felt different than all the others. Eitan, perhaps settling into himself.

Eitan pulled back but rested his forehead against Akiva’s. His arms were still wrapped around Akiva, his grip sure. “I think I’m gay in any state.” His face lit with a grin. “Fuck, I’ve never said that before. But I think I am.”

“Think?” Akiva asked, lightly teasing.

“How can I be certain?” Eitan’s eyes were laughing. The creases beside them didn’t quite fade.

Akiva pressed his mouth there, to the lines that would only deepen as Eitan got older, as he became more and more himself, someone who smiled because life was full of things to smile over.

In that moment, Akiva wanted desperately to be one of those things.

In that moment, he wanted to be something Eitan was certain of.