Page 64 of Breakout Year
What the hell was that supposed to mean? A quick search answered him: a video clip Akiva watched exactly once, in time to see a Cincinnati runner take a hard slide that clipped Eitan’s ankle, then Aguila yelling for a trainer to come out right away. Eitan hopped up. Waved them off. Stumbled.
Grudgingly, he accepted the shoulders of two team employees who lifted him up to keep weight off his ankle. The TV camera zoomed in on his face: he was clearly in pain and too stubborn to admit it. Something in Akiva’s chest clenched with the twin sensations of You’re brave as hell and You absolute fucking idiot. Especially when they were carrying him away and Eitan paused and tipped his cap to the stands, while the crowd cheered its approval.
Akiva: Are you okay???
Eitan: Sure! Just didn’t want you to worry.
As if everything was absolutely and one hundred percent fine.
Akiva activated the automatic watering system for his plants. He grabbed a duffle and stuffed clothing into it—enough for a day, two days, three days, along with Eitan’s hoodie. He didn’t know what you really needed for a hurt ankle—Sprained? Bruised? Broken?—so he moved through his house like he’d never seen the place before, grabbing things with numb fingers.
Are you hurt? Of course Eitan was. Is your season over? Possibly. Why the hell did you do that? A question only Eitan could answer, and Akiva decided to forgo driving to the station to take a train to a train to a walk to Eitan’s apartment and just threw his duffle and laptop bag in the back of his car and hightailed it as fast as an ancient Prius could go.
It took some negotiating with the garage attendant at Eitan’s building to let Akiva park in a visitor’s spot. Akiva waited as the doorman called up. “Got someone else here—” He turned to Akiva, who said his name, which the doorman repeated. The crackle of static that answered didn’t sound much like Eitan, but the doorman let him up anyway. Akiva loaded himself into the gleaming elevator, along with his bags and the supplies he stopped for along the way. His heart rate ascended with each floor.
He had only knocked once when the door opened in a succession of clicks—the manual and electronic locks disengaging—and a guy Akiva vaguely recognized answered.
For a heart-rending second, Akiva wondered if Eitan was already dating someone else, but no, this guy had that scrubby weedy dirtbag look that meant he was almost certainly a relief pitcher. So Eitan’s teammate. Distantly, Akiva remembered his name was Williams, one of those baseball things where you weren’t certain if it was a first or a last name.
“Eitan, your b—Akiva is here to see you,” Williams called. He didn’t move from the doorway like he might bounce Akiva at Eitan’s say-so. It both irritated Akiva and made him like Williams more. Eitan should have people in his corner, even if Akiva wasn’t one of them.
“Let him in.” Eitan’s voice was muffled by either exhaustion or pain medication. “Now it’s really a party.”
Akiva had driven over here expecting to find Eitan alone on his couch, miserable with injury. In his worst imaginings, Eitan was despondent—grateful for Akiva’s company. But he had plenty of company. Williams and Aguila, plus a few other guys Akiva knew were Cosmos players, even if they were harder to recognize when they weren’t wearing hats.
A card game was going at the kitchen island; the TV aired a West Coast game. Eitan was in the middle of it all, on his couch, leg propped up with a massive ice pack over it, smiling up at Akiva with a dopey grin. So painkillers then. “Hey, you’re here!” He sounded both surprised and pleased. It was possible he’d forgotten he’d sent those texts to Akiva. It was as possible he never wanted Akiva to come screaming over from New Jersey.
Akiva held up one of the bags he was carrying semi-defensively. “I brought soup.”
“Hey”—Eitan addressed the room—“Akiva is here, and he brought soup.”
“What’s up, Akiva?” one of them—Botts, Akiva vaguely remembered—called back. He mangled the middle syllable of Akiva’s name, rendering it Ack-va.
“It’s pronounced Ak-key-va, dumbass,” another player said, exaggerating the length of it, and he laughed, a honk of a laugh that set the rest of them off.
“Has Eitan been like this since yesterday?” Akiva asked Williams.
“Yeah, the team sent a trainer to get him settled and to check on him today. We came over after the game to see if he was climbing the walls.” Williams paused, as if considering, then added, “He’s been asking for you.”
“That’s probably the pain medication.”
Williams gave him a look that Akiva hadn’t seen in about seven years, the veteran ballplayer You have to be fucking kidding me expression that made Akiva take an instinctive step back. “I’ll put the soup in the kitchen,” Akiva said. “Does he have other food?”
“Team arranged for a few things, but it’s good you’re here—we’re going on a roadie tomorrow.”
I’m not here like that. A statement that died on Akiva’s lips when Williams gave him another of those looks. “Good to know.”
Akiva dropped the soup on the counter, inspected the fridge. The team had sent food, but Eitan was low on tea and oat milk, the real necessities. Akiva withdrew a notebook from his bag and began composing a list.
“I knew it!” Eitan called over to him.
Akiva went to where Eitan was lying on the couch, head tilted back on one of the overstuffed cream-colored cushions. Eitan’s hair was mussed, falling across his forehead. They weren’t together. They’d been clear about that. But Akiva could monitor for fever, the way one of his characters might press their hand to another’s forehead and cluck with concern over a chill; Eitan didn’t seem like the type to remember to buy a digital thermometer anyway. After a moment’s hesitation, Akiva swept Eitan’s hair back and laid a palm on his forehead, pleased to find it cool, if slightly damp with sweat.
No one in the room did much more than what they were already doing. Most of the noise was the chatter of players vaguely watching a game and arguing over cards, sounds that Akiva could almost hear over the rush of his beating heart. “Knew what?” he asked Eitan.
“Hmm?” Eitan was smiling up at him. “Oh, that you’re a notebook person.”
“I am a notebook person. It’s so I can write anywhere.”
