Page 66 of Breakout Year

Eitan

Early April

On Opening Day, Eitan stood on the first-base line, ballcap held over his heart.

The stadium was raucously full. A few days in Philadelphia had shown him that the city was always raucously something .

He liked anywhere with that kind of energy.

He’d said so in his press conference, during innumerable interviews with various media, most of whom asked the same thing over and over: What’ll it be like playing now that everyone knows?

A question he wrestled with as a singer belted her way through the anthem as if reminding those assembled that they were in the town where the country’s liberty had been born.

Somewhere in the park, his parents were standing, his mother’s hand shading her eyes. She always claimed her tears were from the sun, even at night. She didn’t like the anthem, she said, but she liked the idea of it. Maybe the idea was the most important part.

Akiva was with them. He’d taken the train down from their new house, which was close enough to Akiva’s synagogue so that he could still walk, but a touch nearer Akiva’s parents’ house than his old house had been.

He and his parents had graduated from the occasional coffee to the occasional family-therapy appointment, which gave Akiva worksheets he didn’t mind and feelings he did but was working through.

It was also close enough to the train station that Eitan could get himself to the ballpark if he didn’t want to drive the whole way or take a car service.

“Won’t you hate having to go back and forth like that?” Akiva had asked, as if he somehow wasn’t worth an hour’s commute.

“Not if I’m coming home to you.” A declaration that had made Akiva flush and call Eitan a ridiculous sap and kiss him all the same.

Still, they had an apartment in Philly for when he had a day game after a night game or for when Akiva wanted to come down. “This feels like an excessive amount of space for two people,” Akiva had said, then promptly proceeded to fill it with books.

He’d accompanied Eitan to spring training and spent six weeks getting freckled in the heat while Eitan played scrimmage games.

The books were coming along; he’d read passages to Eitan then stop halfway through, frown, and commence rewriting.

Eitan would listen to them again when they came out, voiced with the practiced diction of an audiobook narrator, but he doubted they could sound any more perfect than coming from Akiva’s mouth.

On the field, the anthem ended; the mayor declared it was time to play ball .

Eitan jogged across the diamond, taking his position at third, toes scuffing the chalk line.

He greeted the umpire, received an amicable nod in response.

On the mound, Philadelphia’s starter was warming up.

He was a ground ball guy, and his and Eitan’s conversations had begun and ended with how Eitan might go about fielding third base.

Still, he wasn’t unfriendly, just intense in that particular pitcher way, and he spent most of his time outside the ballpark on a fishing boat and quote ignoring all that social media shit . Eitan could work with that.

Around Eitan, the crowd was restless in the stands, eager for the start of the ballgame, for the commencement of the season that wouldn’t begin until the first real pitch.

The ballpark had relatively shallow foul grounds, and he could hear the swell and dip of spectators’ conversation, their hopes, their speculation.

The question hovering over every fan at the start of the season. Will this be our year?

Eitan’s contract went for three years, technically, but he had an opt-out at the end of each one.

An escape hatch , Gabe had called it, in case Eitan decided Philadelphia was not the city for him or he wasn’t for it.

When he’d asked Akiva if the uncertainty bothered him, Akiva had said, “Who’s uncertain? ”

Eitan knew it was too soon to think about anything else. They’d been together for less than a year, living together for only a handful of months. But the fans weren’t the only ones wondering if this year would end in the presentation of a ring. He’d started looking at options, just in case.

On the mound, the pitcher declared himself ready. The first batter strode into the box. Boos rained down. Eitan wasn’t sure if it was particular bad blood with him or just a generalized bad opinion of the Atlanta team. Still, it felt as if the stadium spoke with one voice.

From the response to Eitan’s signing—a frenzy of social media posts that he’d mostly tuned out other than the rainbowed highlights Gabe sent him—it was impossible to predict if they’d do the same to him.

Eitan didn’t have to wait long to find out.

The batter, clearly eager to get the season underway, swung at the first pitch, sending the ball screaming down the third-base line.

Eitan nabbed it, jumped up, made the transfer, and chucked it to first. A clean maneuver and throw that the speedy runner beat by a half a step.

There was a murmur of disapproval from the stands, a shout that held the vague shape of a slur.

Eitan’s shoulders stiffened. Heat crept up his neck.

He’d hoped it wouldn’t be like this, but the possibility had always been there.

Now that he was experiencing it, no amount of rainbows on social media could wash that away.

Then came another voice, louder, a woman with the full force of a Philly accent who probably pronounced water with a d in the middle. “What the fuck did you just say about him?” she demanded.

The guy murmured something back at half volume. Shame, maybe, or just the desire to avoid a fistfight.

The woman was undeterred. “That’s our guy. Don’t talk to our fucking guy like that.”

Eitan couldn’t look back—the next batter was already up—but he permitted himself a single glimpse at what looked like a minor skirmish. Security wasn’t yet intervening, but a few other fans were calling for people to stop fucking yelling and watch the game being played on the field already.

That sounded all right to Eitan. So he leaned forward, weight on his toes, and watched the adjustment of the batter in the box, the shifting sea of grass in the diamond, ready for whatever happened next.

Akiva

After the game ended, Akiva waited outside the clubhouse door with the other families.

“They’re kind of tight about access early in the season.

” Nicole, the first baseman’s wife, was standing next to him, her focus shifting between double-tapping things on Instagram and waiting for the clubhouse door to open.

She’d sent Eitan a text after news of the signing broke and asked for Akiva’s number, then tossed Akiva into the WAGs group chat that had gotten summarily renamed Spouses and Partners .

Akiva had disappointed her by not having his own social media accounts, but other than that, they got along well.

She double-tapped yet another post. “Anyway, they’re being hard asses right now, but they’ll loosen up later. ”

“Do you come to all the games?” he asked.

She snorted. “Eighty-two home games? No. But I try to buy a few of the sections beer once in a while.”

“I could probably swing that.”

Nicole chewed her lip for a second. She had long wavy blond hair that seemed unfussed by product and was wearing the kind of makeup that looked like she wasn’t wearing any.

Nervousness didn’t look particularly natural on her, and Akiva suspected that she was gearing up to ask him something he might not want to answer. “You’re an author, right?” she said.

He wouldn’t truly feel like one until he had a book on the shelf with his name on it, but more and more that felt like a distinction without much of a difference. “I am.”

“How’d you get started doing that?”

I didn’t have much other choice. But that wasn’t true: he’d had a choice and even knowing how difficult it was, he’d make it again if it led him here. “Mostly I sit down, and words come out.”

She laughed. “I’ve been thinking about if I can leverage various brand deals—” she began and then twirled her hair a few more times as she articulated what sounded like a twelve-point business plan for world domination that included a book deal and a limited-run reality TV show.

She was just getting to point number thirteen when the clubhouse door opened and players began to emerge.

Eitan came out a few minutes later, hair wet from the shower, face glowing in a grin. Akiva met him, kissed him once, chastely, then again for good measure, before he drew back.

“You ready to go home?” Eitan asked. Though home in this case meant a ninety-minute drive back to New Jersey. Akiva suspected that later in the season, they’d end up staying in Philadelphia more often than not, but it really didn’t matter where he slept so long as Eitan was beside him.

Eitan took his hand, held it for the walk to the parking garage, dropped it only to unlatch Akiva’s door for him. Around them, other cars were already pulling out.

Akiva was about to climb into the passenger side when Eitan caught his hand again and pulled him close. Eitan made a show of glancing around at the emptying lot. “Kiss me,” he whispered, a puff of breath against Akiva’s cheek.

Akiva laughed. “Someone could be watching.”

“Then let’s give ’em a show.”

So they stood like that, kissing as time slid by, for an audience of no one but themselves.

THE END