Page 40 of Breakout Year

Eitan

Achilles Heel: Rivkin Injury Reveals Cosmos’ Offensive Weaknesses

Eitan woke up with sand at the corners of his eyes, with his ankle giving the particular throb of a healing cut, because plastic cleats were still cleats and these had managed to scrape skin off his shinbone.

With the knowledge that Akiva was sleeping right next door, close enough that Eitan could practically feel him breathing through the walls.

Last night, he’d been out of it enough to only vaguely remember Akiva in his room.

Akiva had shown up, bag in hand, and helped him take his clothes off.

Stay , Eitan had said—more than he should have asked, more than he had any right to ask, the painkillers eroding the last small measure of his verbal filter.

It didn’t matter. Akiva had left anyway.

Eitan tested his ankle. He was feeling better.

Or his ankle was feeling better, his head not so much.

He got up. His leg held his weight. The crutches were sitting right there.

He’d been told— ordered —to use them. Gabe had called.

Given him an earful. Promised another earful today when Eitan was quote-unquote less schnockered on painkillers.

He grabbed one crutch, clipped it to his arm. Close enough.

He pulled on a pair of shorts and made his way out to the bathroom, then down to the kitchen, rubbing lingering toothpaste mint into his teeth with his tongue. It was possible Akiva had already left. It was possible Akiva was done caring what Eitan’s breath smelled like.

Akiva was sitting at his kitchen island, laptop open, a steaming mug beside him.

“You found the coffee?” Eitan said, instead of what he’d wanted to say, which was good morning and I’m sorry and you look so good sitting here.

Still, he felt like he’d just discovered a new, previously hidden level inside himself: there was queer as in wanting to fuck men and queer as in wanting a particular man seated at his kitchen island.

Akiva lifted his mug. “This is good coffee.”

I got it for you . Eitan swallowed that. “That’s what the person at the store said.” He busied himself at the counter. His tea should have been in its usual cabinet, but when he searched for it, it wasn’t there.

A moment later, he spotted it—and the electric kettle and a mug—already set out.

There was water in the kettle. The indicator light said it was holding water at the right temperature for black tea.

Eitan would not get emotional about hot water.

Eitan would not crutch himself over and kiss Akiva right at the edge of his mouth.

No matter what anyone said, he had some impulse control.

He made himself tea, tapping two sugar cubes into the bottom of the mug, pouring water, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then dropping in the tea bag. Steeped it for a few minutes, then wrung the bag out against the back of a spoon.

“Thank you for heating up the water,” he said, as Akiva sat there, focused on his laptop screen.

Eitan wasn’t sure about Akiva’s normal typing speed, but the clicks of his keyboard sounded like they were coming slightly too slow for Akiva to be giving it his full attention.

It was also possible that he was casting looks Eitan’s way when he thought Eitan wasn’t looking.

Or it was possible that the last remnants of the painkillers were still amplifying Eitan’s wishful thinking.

Akiva folded his laptop screen down slightly like he didn’t want Eitan to see what he was working on. “How’s the tea?”

“Good. It always reminds me of home, you know?”

“Well, you’ll be back there soon, right?”

“Wow, Goldfarb”—and he didn’t know why he’d started calling Akiva that, only that it felt less immediate than Akiva , a name he’d wanted to gasp out onto his pillowcase and hadn’t gotten the chance to—“such optimism about the Cosmos’ chances in the postseason.”

Akiva frowned at Eitan’s still-wrapped ankle. “Are you gonna be playing?” he asked a little pointedly.

“I feel fine, but it’s up to the docs.”

“What’ll you do if you can’t play?”

Go back to Cleveland, I guess. What Eitan would have said when he was first in New York. He was on the baseball version of a tourist visa. Nothing, technically, was keeping him here. “Not sure. My lease only goes until October.” Ask me to stay. Ask me to stay .

“Now who’s optimistic about the postseason,” Akiva said, but he was smiling. “When are you going to the doctor?”

Eitan glanced at the digital clock on his microwave.

Yesterday, it’d been blinking 12:00 , the product of having gotten reset during a brief power outage and Eitan forgetting to fix it.

Now, it read what looked like the correct time.

“They said to call them today for a check-in, but I’m supposed to see them tomorrow.

” He tried to do a mental inventory of what kind of food he had, gave up, then looked in his fridge.

Two tall clear plastic containers were sitting on an otherwise bare shelf.

“Soup!” he exclaimed, suddenly enough to make Akiva jump a little. “You brought me soup, and I didn’t eat it.”

“It’s okay.” Akiva waved a hand. “Did you want that now?” As if he was going to save Eitan the trouble of pouring soup in a pot to heat it up.

“You don’t have to do this,” Eitan said. “My ankle’s okay.” Though it gave another of those throbs that Eitan was categorically not thinking about.

Akiva pressed his mouth in a line. “I’m your friend. The team is traveling. It’s not a big deal to help out for a few days.”

A few days. More than Eitan had thought he’d get. “Here?” he confirmed.

Akiva’s shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “If you want. Your bed is—your guest bed is comfortable.”

Because it’s actually long enough for you, unlike your bed at home.

Which Eitan would not say, out loud, in case being reminded that they’d been in bed together once changed Akiva’s mind.

If they couldn’t be…more than friends, well, they could be friends.

Friends Eitan could do. “Can Sue spare you for that long?”

“I can edit here,” Akiva said, “if you don’t mind me working.”

“You’re doing me a favor. Besides, I’m probably pretty miserable to be around right now.”

Akiva shook his head. There was color high on his cheekbones, a slight flush of embarrassment. Perhaps Eitan should have put on a shirt.

Eitan would not look at that flush and would not think about inducing it down Akiva’s chest and would not ask what was making him turn that color.

“Thank you. It’s nice having someone.” Eitan panicked momentarily, tacked on a belated, “ Here ,” then attempted to drown this conversation in a gulp of tea.

Akiva’s color deepened slightly. He tapped forward the plastic pill sorter that in the past two days had become Eitan’s favorite thing. “The paperwork said you’re due for another dose.”

Eitan scrunched his nose. He didn’t mind the painkillers—didn’t like them, didn’t hate them, wasn’t sad to be off them—but they’d prescribed another pill that was supposed to help with the swelling that literally turned his stomach. “Okay.”

“The instructions said to take them with food,” Akiva said. “I could make you some toast.”

“Um,” Eitan began, “that’s okay. Toast is fine. Toast is great.” Which it was, even if Eitan had skipped dinner last night—it turned out being in pain was something of a distraction—and his body was growling for something more substantive than soup and bread.

Akiva arched an eyebrow. If he was going to stick around for a few days, Eitan should probably set some ground rules for himself. Rule number one: no blurting out things like, You have really nice eyebrows . “What do you normally have for breakfast?” Akiva asked.

“You don’t have to,” Eitan mumbled. “It’s a—” He said the rest purposefully low, so maybe Akiva wouldn’t hear.

“Eitan, I can go to the bodega and get you a bacon, egg, and cheese. I get nonkosher food for Sue sometimes.”

Akiva had to know that saying Eitan’s name like that—correctly, demandingly, warmly—was a cheat code. If he kept doing that, Eitan would have no choice in trying to give him anything he’d ever wanted. Except he wouldn’t take it, even if you offered. “Yeah, but you don’t have to,” Eitan said.

“I know.” Akiva closed his laptop and moved his emptied coffee cup to the sink. “You need anything else? Ice? To re-wrap your ankle?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“If I asked the team doctors that question, what would they say?”

Eitan gave Akiva a look and Akiva gave him one right back. “Fine,” Eitan said. “Ice would probably be a good idea.” He crutched over to the couch, propped his ankle up on a pillow, accepted the ice pack when Akiva brought it over.

Akiva skimmed a look over him. Eitan wasn’t a stranger to being looked at.

He’d been drafted number one overall, a process that had come with a lot of scouts and team personnel and commentators who had a lot to say about his body.

A risk for Cleveland had been the general consensus: that despite Eitan’s fielding and pitch-recognition skills and bat speed and all the other things his body could do , he’d still been undersized. Still the wrong fit.

Akiva didn’t react other than busying himself with something at Eitan’s end table as if he had the sudden need to organize Eitan’s spare phone charger. The tips of his ears went very slightly red. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes,” Akiva said, “you should take the ice off.”

“You gonna abandon me up here?” Eitan batted his eyelashes a few times. Against the rules, but he was the one writing those.

“No.” Akiva laughed and ducked down like he might press a kiss to Eitan’s forehead, the way he might have when they’d been dating.

But there wasn’t anyone up here to impress and they weren’t doing that, besides.

So when Akiva patted Eitan’s couch cushion a few times, then left like his heels had caught fire, Eitan couldn’t even be that disappointed.