Page 33 of Breakout Year
“Oh here.” Eitan slid a paper cup of coffee over.
“Did you go out for this?”
“Most people don’t drink tea, so I figured you might want coffee.” Eitan shrugged as if the mental calculus was obvious.
“In the future, tea’s fine,” Akiva said. As if their future was going to involve his waking up at Eitan’s apartment with any regularity. “You don’t need to go out of your way.”
For some reason, Eitan’s shoulders stiffened. “Hypothetically speaking, would it be okay to bring you coffee if we were actually dating?”
“Um.” Akiva took a sip of black coffee. It was understandably bitter.
“I meant,” Eitan continued, “did other guys bring you coffee?”
Mostly, we didn’t have sleepovers like that. What Akiva didn’t want to say in case Eitan felt sorry for him. “Sometimes.”
“I wasn’t sure if…” Eitan began and then faded off. “I’m just figuring out this dating men stuff.”
It wasn’t clear if Eitan meant dating men—who he might have slept with but not dated—or dating men rather than women. Akiva glanced around. “No one here’s grading you.” So you don’t have to pretend with me, he didn’t add.
Eitan’s shoulders unhunched themselves. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted milk—I only have oat milk—or sugar or anything.”
“Both is good.”
“The oat milk can get a little sweet.”
Akiva gulped around a sudden lump of air in his throat. “I like sweet.”
Eitan retrieved the milk, the sugar, watched as Akiva applied them to his coffee. After a few sips and a piece of buttered toast—“Don’t worry, it’s hechshered,” Eitan assured him, and Akiva didn’t mention he’d gotten lax about checking kosher labeling in recent years—Akiva almost felt like a person.
“What time do you have to be at the park?” Akiva asked.
“You know me, I like to get there early.”
“I remember.” And it was intimate somehow, to be remembering the same thing at the same time—how in Arizona, they’d sometimes both get to the ballpark hours before practice, Eitan to get his energy out running laps, Akiva to get a sense of the park’s sightlines and features. Some of which might have included Eitan, jogging the outfield in shorts and exercise tights.
Now, Eitan was moving with a certain freneticism: he poured tea into a mug and sloshed some on the counter. Ripped a paper towel from the holder messily enough to leave shreds. Stubbed his toe as he was tossing the shreds in the trashcan. Issued an I’m sorry to the room like he’d somehow offended Akiva.
By now, Akiva was almost ninety percent awake. He got off the barstool, peeled a pane of towel from the roll, and wiped up the tea. It didn’t take a mystery writer to know that something was weighing on Eitan. “You good?” Akiva asked, because that was an easier question than Is this about last night?
“I’m fine—” Eitan began. “Okay, I’m not. I cursed out my meditation app.”
“When was that?”
“Earlier.”
“I must not have heard you.”
“I was whispering because I didn’t want to wake you up.” Eitan plucked another paper towel from the roll and began shredding it. It was the kind with quilting Akiva had to wait to go on sale to afford. “The team scheduled me for an interview to quote, ‘Deflect media attention away from any distractions.’”
Akiva swallowed a mouthful of sweet coffee. Because distractions meant the press conference. It was possible distractions meant him. He shouldn’t feel guilty. He was just doing what he was hired to do. “Oh.”
“I think this interview might go about as well as my last go-round with the media.”
“I liked that press conference,” Akiva said.
“You liked me making a fool of myself?”
“You didn’t.” You were brave. Certainly braver than I was. And Akiva could blame the lingering vodka for making him say, “And you won’t this time.”
