Page 67 of Breakout Year
“I’m not here to get paid.” He ground a finger into the comforter for emphasis. “I’m here because I’m your— Because I’m your friend. Now stop being stubborn and let me help you.”
Eitan laughed. “All right.”
Akiva wasn’t sure if there was a friendly way to take off someone’s clothing, especially not slippery basketball shorts whose fabric clung to everything. Eitan was wearing underwear, the elastic rising above the waistband of his shorts. The same brand he’d been wearing a week ago.
Akiva scrubbed his hands down his thighs reflexively, trying to overwhelm his nerves with a sensation of something other than what Eitan’s boxers might feel like. Tried to forget how Eitan had looked up at him, dark eyes hooded, flushed at his lips and his nipples and the tip of his cock. How he’d said, I think I’m gay in any state, then kissed Akiva like he’d been dreaming of it for seven years.
They were friends. Only friends. Akiva was someone Eitan felt he could rely on in an emergency, and here one was. “Is it easier to take these off slowly or all at once?” Akiva asked.
“Um”—Eitan bit his lip consideringly—“let’s start slowly.”
So Akiva seized the bunched waistband of his shorts and extended it to give Eitan room to lever himself up one-footed. Together, they inched the fabric past his hips and from under the curve of his ass. Eitan’s underwear turned out to be bright blue trunks that clung to his thighs. Akiva would not look at them. Think about them.
Well, one glance, if only to make sure Eitan could undress the rest of the way. Eitan did, sliding his shorts off one leg and then the other, mindful of his wrapped-up ankle.
Which left Eitan in just his underwear lying atop his dark green comforter. Summer had painted his skin different colors of gold—darkest at his hands and forearms, then in a gradient leading to the paler olive of his chest. Worse, Eitan stretched—a flex of his non-wrapped toes, the arcing tendon in his ankle, the heavy muscle of his thigh and all the rest—and sighed again in relief. “They said today was gonna be the worst of it.” He smiled. “But it couldn’t be—not with you here.”
That same feeling in Akiva’s chest returned. Tomorrow could be for questions—for the whole story. For now, Eitan was here and he was here, and Eitan’s hand was close to his on the bedspread, and everything felt somehow more real than it did the night Akiva thought of as That Night. “I should let you sleep.”
“Will you—” Eitan began. For a heart-rending second, Akiva wondered if Eitan was going to ask Akiva to kiss him. If he’d have it in himself to say no, a word that felt impossibly distant. “Could you turn off the picture frame?” Eitan asked. “It lights up.”
“Oh.” Akiva picked up the frame, feeling its side for buttons. A slideshow of images appeared: Eitan with his parents in what must be their front yard right after the draft, holding signs that said Number One. Eitan, in the locker room in Cleveland, playing cards with a few teammates. Eitan, that sweaty night at the club, with his arms around Williams and Botts, all of them drunk and ecstatic.
Then another picture. Akiva blinked as if his eyes were deceiving him. Because there were him and Eitan, faces pressed together in a selfie they’d taken on some walk in the Park, because Eitan loved to just amble around and exclaim at ducks and babies in strollers and kids playing catch and artists drawing well and people dancing badly. Akiva had modeled enough that he thought he was immune to feeling much emotion at pictures of himself. Except he couldn’t stop looking at this one—how he could practically feel the scrape of Eitan’s jaw along his, the warmth of the sun made warmer by Eitan’s body pressed close. Eitan had said, “Take a selfie, your arms are longer.” And even after Akiva secured the picture, he’d seemed reluctant to let go.
A charade they needed for the world outside—or at least Eitan had felt he needed, and Akiva went along with it so long as the cash was the same—and not for in here, in Eitan’s bedroom, where the only person who’d see it was Eitan before he fell asleep.
Seven years ago, Akiva had learned that everything was ignorable until it wasn’t. And he couldn’t ignore it now: this feeling that expanded like it was taking up his entire chest cavity but somehow giving him air. That he was someone to Eitan. That they’d been something to each other—something complicated by money. The other thing Akiva had learned seven years ago. He’d just thought he’d read the fine print this time around.
There was nothing for that now, not as Eitan maneuvered himself under the covers and was clearly fighting sleep.
So Akiva dimmed the picture, and replaced the frame on the nightstand, and said, “Get some rest.” And he took himself out of the room quickly enough that he almost didn’t hear Eitan’s mumbled request for him to stay.
25
Eitan
Achilles Heel: Rivkin Injury Reveals Cosmos’ Offensive Weaknesses
* * *
Eitan woke up with sand at the corners of his eyes, with his ankle giving the particular throb of a healing cut, because plastic cleats were still cleats and these had managed to scrape skin off his shinbone. With the knowledge that Akiva was sleeping right next door, close enough that Eitan could practically feel him breathing through the walls.
Last night, he’d been out of it enough to only vaguely remember Akiva in his room. Akiva had shown up, bag in hand, and helped him take his clothes off. Stay, Eitan had said—more than he should have asked, more than he had any right to ask, the painkillers eroding the last small measure of his verbal filter. It didn’t matter. Akiva had left anyway.
Eitan tested his ankle. He was feeling better. Or his ankle was feeling better, his head not so much. He got up. His leg held his weight. The crutches were sitting right there. He’d been told—ordered—to use them. Gabe had called. Given him an earful. Promised another earful today when Eitan was quote-unquote less schnockered on painkillers.
He grabbed one crutch, clipped it to his arm. Close enough.
He pulled on a pair of shorts and made his way out to the bathroom, then down to the kitchen, rubbing lingering toothpaste mint into his teeth with his tongue. It was possible Akiva had already left. It was possible Akiva was done caring what Eitan’s breath smelled like.
Akiva was sitting at his kitchen island, laptop open, a steaming mug beside him.
“You found the coffee?” Eitan said, instead of what he’d wanted to say, which was good morning and I’m sorry and you look so good sitting here. Still, he felt like he’d just discovered a new, previously hidden level inside himself: there was queer as in wanting to fuck men and queer as in wanting a particular man seated at his kitchen island.
Akiva lifted his mug. “This is good coffee.”
I got it for you. Eitan swallowed that. “That’s what the person at the store said.” He busied himself at the counter. His tea should have been in its usual cabinet, but when he searched for it, it wasn’t there.
