Page 58 of Breakout Year
21
Eitan
Cosmos drop nail-biter in rare late-inning stumble from Rivkin
* * *
“Is it normal to have a fight that’s about one thing but really it’s about another thing, and you know you fucked something up but aren’t sure if apologizing will make it worse?” Eitan asked when he was at the clubhouse the next morning—when he’d already been there for an hour, drifting discontentedly from the weight room to the batting cages. Now he was standing next to where a few of the pitchers—Williams, Botts, Vientos, and Salenko—were flocked around a card game in progress. He hadn’t slept after he’d gotten back from Akiva’s, and his skin felt like someone had shrunk it in the wash.
A few guys laughed at Eitan’s question, including Salenko, their third starter, whose bird-call laugh was itself a clubhouse joke.
Williams raised his coffee cup. “Hi, Eitan, good morning, how’re you?”
And Eitan knew he was bad off if Williams was reminding him of his manners. “Fuck.”
“Relationship problems?” Williams tapped the empty chair next to him, a metal folding chair in a set that seemed to spontaneously generate around the relievers.
Eitan circled the chair but couldn’t quite bring himself to sit. “You guys don’t want to hear about this.”
Vientos, who was their fifth starter on a good day and their second worst reliever on a bad one, grunted as he examined his cards. “Beats hearing how Williams got his dick wet last night.”
Williams shrugged and didn’t deny it, so Eitan collapsed himself into the chair. Seated, he could see half the group’s cards, including Salenko’s, who was holding a full house. Eitan’s face must have done something because Vientos cast his hand down. “C’mon, at least try not to do that.” But no one made him leave either.
“So you fucked things up with what’s-his-name?” Botts prompted.
“Akiva.”
“Yeah, him.”
Eitan rolled his eyes. “It’s not that hard to pronounce.”
There was a pause. Briefly Eitan wondered if he was going to start his day by both composing and erasing a bunch of texts to Akiva asking if they’d broken up—if they were even dating in the first place—and getting into it with Botts. Arguing with a guy who dressed like a Jimmy Buffett cast-off couldn’t be that satisfying.
Botts scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Fine, you fucked things up with Akiva?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re not sure what, but you know you did something and now he’s mad?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your usual go-to apology move? Flowers, jewelry, or—” Botts paused like he didn’t know if gay guys also did that sort of thing—not that Eitan really knew either—an open-mouthed puzzlement that Botts buried in his hand of cards. “Or whatever?”
Eitan didn’t remember fighting that much with Kiley, though in retrospect, he wasn’t sure that was entirely a positive. That morning he’d considered texting her and asking her the same question, then abandoned that almost immediately. What if she’d asked why he was asking and he didn’t know what to say? What if she knew exactly why he was asking and was pissed at him for any number of reasons, the first of which was having dated her when he’d suspected that he was gay? “I didn’t really date much in Cleveland.” Not like this.
And if dating but not having Akiva felt awful, driving home after their fight felt like a fresh bruise on his sternum, uncomfortably close to his heart. It’d been a good night before then. One of the best of his life. He’d gone out with someone he’d wanted to go out with. Laughed over drinks, walked home in the warm summer air. Kissed until his lips felt swollen with it, all his desires pointed toward Akiva like a compass. After, they’d lain next to each other and Eitan hadn’t known you could like the certain rhythm of someone’s breathing or the casual throw of their ankle under a sheet.
All he knew now was that he wanted to do it again. Was greedy for it, really. Everything felt new and wild and exciting and scary, too big for Eitan to contain. Definitely too much to put on Akiva, uncompensated. So Eitan had left. He’d regretted it before he got to the end of Akiva’s block.
“What does he like?” Vientos stuttered a little over the he but he made it through the question.
“Books.”
“So get him books.”
“He has books.”
“My wife has jewelry. That doesn’t stop me from getting her more jewelry.”
