Page 46 of Breakout Year

Akiva

“Where exactly is it that we’re going?” Akiva asked the next day, when Eitan was wearing a gleaming button-up shirt that made Akiva feel distinctly underdressed. He hadn’t packed for anything nicer than hanging around Eitan’s apartment.

“You’ll see.” Eitan you’ll see ’d him into a cab, from a cab to Grand Central, and then aboard the Metro-North, the local that stopped approximately once every few seconds as they made their way up toward the Hudson Valley.

“I’m gonna miss the subway,” Eitan said.

“Not as much as the bodega cats. But maybe more than the piles of trash.”

“What’re you going to miss the most?”

Eitan gave him a long look, heated in the bright lights of the lurching train car. “The city’s really grown on me,” he said, after a moment.

Forty-five minutes later, they were still on the train as it wended its way toward someplace Eitan refused to reveal. “It’s pretty up here,” he said as they rolled along.

It was. The leaves were just beginning to turn on the trees, the late afternoon light dappling over the river.

Next to him, Eitan was pointing out the red crowns of maples, the shape of an interesting cloud.

I only get another week of this . If Akiva was writing this story, he’d give it another ending, not a mere amicable parting of ways.

Soon, the train arrived at a station. “This is us!” Eitan said, pulling Akiva up by the wrist. Once they were off the train, Eitan opened a map on his phone and squinted at it meaningfully. “We should be able to walk from here.”

So they walked along a well-worn path to another wing of the train station, this one quaint and old-timey, as if a collectible had somehow come to life. People were milling about on the platform, an analog sign announcing twenty minutes until departure. “Another train?” Akiva asked. “Where to?”

“It’s a luxury train.” Eitan read a list off his phone.

“It features jazz, vintage cocktails, and thematic food, whatever that is. People aren’t supposed to have their phones out—there’s a rule.

Detracts from the ambiance. I thought…” Eitan shifted around, looking uncertain for the first time all day.

“We’ve been out a bunch of times, but, uh, under different circumstances.

I thought you might want to get dinner. As people who sometimes get dinner together. ”

A date, then, in the one place in the tri-state area they were unlikely to be photographed. A place they could sit close, hold hands. Dance . “That sounds good.”

“They have food you can eat. I checked.”

“I didn’t think you’d let me go hungry.”

Eitan’s look from the train returned, this time darker and searching. He leaned close. Whispered, “You’ll let me take care of you?” in a tone there was no mistaking for friends .

And Akiva could refuse or demur or tell him any one of a hundred reasons why this wasn’t a good idea, beginning with the fact that lack of phone cameras had never dissuaded New Yorkers from doing anything and ending with the fact that Eitan was leaving soon.

It would be the level-headed, responsible thing to do, an answer as neat as a cell on a spreadsheet.

He reached for Eitan’s hand. Threaded their fingers together. This time, he didn’t let go.

The train was indeed a luxury train. The first few cars contained leather seats clustered in twos and fours atop burgundy deco-patterned carpet.

Beyond those was a jazz car with a dance floor, then a set of dining cars offering circular booths and views of the Hudson River Valley as the train chugged along.

Half the passengers were wearing period costumes ranging anywhere from late Victorian to the 1960s. Most were older couples, but a group of women in feathered headbands and flapper dresses made a beeline for their complimentary coupes of champagne.

Akiva pointed out a few things—the period-typical doorknobs, the inaccuracies in people’s outfits, the way various chandeliers grabbed the light.

“So you’re saying this place is cool,” Eitan said.

Cool was the exact wrong word. It was incredibly corny, and Akiva was a little embarrassed to admit how much he liked it. “Thank you for doing this.”

That got him the squeeze of Eitan’s fingers through his own. He didn’t let go of Akiva’s hand, even when it meant partially clotheslining various passengers, most of whom giggled as they stepped around them. A few tossed comments their way—the worst they got called was newlyweds .

“Not yet,” Eitan replied laughingly. Akiva would not think about that yet or anything beyond Eitan being normally charming with strangers, though Eitan’s version of charming almost never involved outright lying.

They explored for a while longer, up through the line of cars until they reached a set of sleeper cars. A sign indicated they were closed to day-trip passengers.

That didn’t stop Eitan from opening the first door to reveal a cabin with a narrow bed and a tiny, curtained window. “Maybe next time,” he said, and Akiva put that in the same place as he put that yet , a part of his chest under his sternum and slightly to the left.

Eitan led them back to the bar-and-jazz car, handed him a glass of champagne.

Akiva felt similarly fizzy as he sipped, as he watched people in various period dress attempt various period dances.

The flappers had given up on any of that and were mostly just in a circle, loudly encouraging their bride-to-be friend to cut loose.

“You want to dance?” Eitan asked, and Akiva was reminded of that night at the club, when he could blame all his feelings on vodka and flashing lights.

Of the slot of their bodies together, Eitan’s voice in his ear.

I missed you . Akiva had missed him for the scant week they’d been apart, including how easy things had been when they were just for show.

“I don’t know how to dance to this,” Akiva said, but he got up anyway. The tiny parquet dance floor was slick under his shoes.

It was easier with Eitan’s arms around him, one at his waist, the other at his shoulder. Even if Eitan was the one who was operating on a potentially injured ankle, Akiva was grateful to be held upright.

“You’re good at this,” Eitan murmured.

“Dancing?”

Eitan smiled, lowered his voice. “Being on a gay date in public. I’ve never…” He couldn’t seem to finish the sentence.

Akiva wanted to say that they’d been on many gay dates in public, a whole catalog of them that Akiva had kept meticulous records of, along with their subsequent payments.

But this was different.

Eitan’s jaw brushed the skin on his neck. His body swayed effortlessly to the music. Occasionally, Akiva caught him glancing around as if scanning for reactions from other passengers—to them being two men dancing together, to Eitan being inescapably famous.

“Relax,” Akiva said.

“I just keep thinking—I know we were out before, but if someone says something…this time it’ll be real , you know?”

“It gets easier,” Akiva said, though that wasn’t quite what he meant. “You get used to it.”

“I don’t know if I want to get used to this.” Eitan’s fingers brushed the back of Akiva’s hand. “Everything feels so new.”

And Akiva had lost count of the number of times they’d kissed—on the street for show, in Akiva’s bed before things had fallen apart—but he had to kiss Eitan then, a brief glance of his mouth across Eitan’s.

Eitan pulled back. Tipped his face as Akiva did the same until their foreheads were touching. Eitan’s eyes were shut; lines radiated around them. Akiva wanted to kiss him there, so he did, a tiny nothing of a kiss that made Eitan’s mouth curve up in a smile.

“How did I not know that I was—?” Eitan’s voice sounded caught in his throat.

Akiva ran a soothing hand up his back. “You’re here now.”

Eitan’s smile widened. “I am. We are. Kiss me again.”

Akiva did, another kiss, and another, until people really were looking at them, until he heard the word he most feared from the crowd: Rivkin . “We’ve been spotted.”

“Sure have.”

“You gonna buy everyone a drink to distract them?”

“The champagne is included with the tickets.” Eitan smiled, bright and challenging. “But I have a different idea.”

The second time through the train, Akiva didn’t notice the hardware, the anachronistic costumes, the refraction of light through glass.

No, this time, the only thing he noticed was the frantic beat of his heart against his ribs.

Eitan’s fingers circled his wrist, the cool metal of his sensor ring against Akiva’s quickening pulse.

Up through the cars they went—past more patrons milling around the bar, diners whose forks hovered mid-bite, some of whom whispered Was that…

? as they sped past. Eitan got to the end of the dining car and tugged open the door connecting it to the sleepers.

Hustled Akiva through, then shut it with only a glance back to see if someone was going to stop them.

Halfway down the sleeper car, Eitan wrenched open the door to one of the rooms. “Inside, hurry,” he said a little breathlessly, and so Akiva hurried.

The room was identical to the first one they’d seen: a narrow bed clad in an olive bedspread, a narrow window through which the world outside rushed by. A narrow door Eitan closed and flipped the lock on and promptly pressed Akiva against.

“They might find us,” Akiva said.

Eitan smiled. “They might.” Then he kissed Akiva, deeper than he had when they were dancing, deep enough that Akiva forgot about the consequences of anything other than Eitan’s thigh between his and the solidity of his shoulders and the way he could feel Eitan’s smile in his kiss.

They didn’t have much time—not before train personnel came looking for them, not before Eitan said his goodbyes to New York.

Eitan kissed like he did everything: with a certain insatiable curiosity, and Akiva sucked his tongue and dug his shirt hem from his waistband and groped the thick muscles of Eitan’s lower back.