Page 41 of Breakout Year
@shootthemoon (9:03PM): Never mind just made mad money on my prop bet. Rivkin forever!!!
* * *
Saturday. A night game. Eitan watched the summer sky overhead. Three stars would make Shabbos officially over. All he got was a slightly dimming blue. They were playing in less than an hour. He shouldn’t be derailed by the crowd already filling the stadium.
“Hey, Williams, is your brain all”—Eitan rocked his head in a way he hoped conveyed scrambled—“too?”
And got a wrinkle of a frown in response. “You good?”
“I thought I was used to everything, you know? This all feels so much bigger than it did in Cleveland.”
Williams nodded. “Your friend coming to the game or something?” What he’d called Akiva a few times. Friend, with a slight question mark at the end. But he asked, and he was standing next to Eitan on the field, and that was what mattered.
“No, he’s not here.” Eitan aimed for nonchalant, ended up somewhere closer to brittle. “I did something that I probably shouldn’t have. Nothing serious. I mean, it might be serious. Could you just tranquilize me until the game’s over?”
“Sure,” Williams said. “It’ll be…” He looked at the crowd already exercising its lung capacity. “It might not be fine, but it’ll be all right.”
Eitan’s heart ticked down a beat. All right he could work with. He sucked in a breath. “Thanks, bro. Guess we’re gonna find out, one way or another.”
Each time Eitan stepped out on the field, he was greeted by a hail of New York opinions about his, well, everything. A few fans waved rainbow signs—maybe for him, maybe just for the general idea—but he waved back anyway. Still, most of the syllables aimed at him were harsher than they were a week or two ago, though the core messaging remained the same: win and keep winning.
So Eitan was antsy at third base, antsy during his at-bats, antsy enough that Bishop, their first baseman, threatened to sit on him in the dugout. After, Bishop turned pale red. Eitan waited for the accompanying flinch. But none came, Bishop holding himself still like he was trying not to react. When he didn’t, Eitan grabbed two cups of water, handed one to Bishop, who took a gulp, then spit a stream onto the dugout floor. And he didn’t move away when Eitan did the same as if that was the end of it.
After the game in which he’d gotten two hits in three at-bats and worked a walk off a difficult pitcher—and the Cosmos had still lost—Eitan raced back to his stall. Grappled for his phone. The little text notification banner sat on the screen. He swiped it with his thumb, once, twice.
Akiva: This sounds like it’d be easier to explain in person.
Having some sense of chill would mean not responding immediately. Eitan responded immediately.
Eitan: I can come to you
The GPS predicted a forty-minute drive to Akiva’s house. Eitan wished it were either longer or shorter: longer because he didn’t know when he’d see Akiva again and shorter so that he was there already.
Finally, he arrived, pulling his SUV onto the little strip of concrete masquerading as a driveway behind an older model hybrid that must have been Akiva’s car. The house was a standalone, on a street of them, sitting all of twenty feet from its nearest neighbor, with an exterior flood lamp that activated as he parked, casting everything in a yellowish glow. This late at night, the street was quiet, leafy and breathing the way that Manhattan usually wasn’t. Eitan rolled down his windows, like he could bring a carload of suburban-ish air back to the city.
Akiva must have been watching for him, because he came out as soon as Eitan cut the engine. He was wearing a hoodie—Eitan’s hoodie—and Eitan couldn’t see his own name on the sweatshirt, but he knew it was there, resting across the span of Akiva’s back. That swoop of…something he felt was not conducive to an amicable parting of ways.
Akiva got in the passenger side. The halogen light picked out the threads of his eyelashes.
I’m so glad to see you, Eitan bit back. He knew when he was being too much even for him, so he settled for a simple “Hey,” that came out a little thready.
“Tough loss,” Akiva said.
“You watched?” You watched me?
Akiva’s mouth ticked up. “The parts that happened after Shabbat was over. But it was nice to watch anyway.”
“You must really miss baseball if seeing us lose is a good time.”
“Next time, I’ll be sure only to tune in for a win.”
“You want to come tomorrow?” Overeager, but Eitan liked the idea of looking up in the stands and finding Akiva there, probably more than he should have.
“I would,” Akiva said, the clear beginning of a no, and Eitan should just interrupt, should tell him never mind, no big deal, though he couldn’t get any of those things out before Akiva continued, “but I have to work.”
Right. Even if what he was doing for Eitan was technically work. “No worries.”
“I’ll watch the replay if I can find a feed.”
