Page 23 of Breakout Year
Instead, Eitan insisted on adjusting the brim of Akiva’s ballcap. “No kippah?” Eitan asked.
“Hat is easier sometimes.”
“Well, you look great.”
“I don’t think Dave can hear you from across the street.”
Eitan glanced over. “I don’t think Dave looks that great, but don’t tell him I said so.” He yielded the umbrella to Akiva, even if Akiva had a ballcap on and Eitan’s hair was already starting to gather rain.
“You’re getting wet,” Akiva said.
Something in the way he’d said it made Eitan laugh. “I’m not gonna melt.” But he ducked under the umbrella, close enough their shoulders brushed.
Ballplayers pretty much came in two smell groups: excessive cologne or chewing tobacco juice. Eitan somehow belonged to neither—he smelled like shampoo and a little like mint. Akiva ran his tongue over his own teeth to check them. He’d brushed them before he’d gotten on the train because that was the polite thing to do before one went out. He definitely wasn’t checking because he and Eitan were going to do more than smile at one another.
When they got to the restaurant, they got a wide-eyed expression from the hostess, then were swiftly seated at a table spread with a neat white tablecloth. Beneath it, Eitan’s sneaker brushed his before Akiva withdrew his foot.
“So,” Eitan said, once they’d ordered a beer for him and wine for Akiva, “you spend a lot of time in bookstores?”
“Sue does, so I do too.” Akiva took a deep sip of his wine. “How about you?”
“I just needed somewhere my agent—and my parents—wouldn’t yell at me for going that wasn’t my apartment. It still has new apartment smell.” Eitan wrinkled his nose. “You know, fresh paint, new carpet, that kind of thing.”
“Sure,” Akiva said. “I mean, my house mostly smells like it’s been raining for three days.”
“It has been raining for three days.”
“It smells like that all the time.”
“See, that sounds nice.”
“Mostly just damp.”
Eitan laughed, then traced his hand across the tablecloth. He had ballplayer hands, wide palms, thick fingers, calluses obvious at this distance, not that Akiva was looking. He dragged his gaze to his menu just to be safe.
“Is Sue the only author you’ve worked for?” Eitan asked.
“She’s the only one right now.” And Akiva listed off a few others, including an author he did some basic transcription for back in the day who was almost as famous as Sue.
“Really? That’s so cool.” Eitan’s grin was open, unguarded. How he was going to survive the vocal Cosmos fanbase, Akiva didn’t know.
“What do you do for them?” Eitan asked.
It occurred to Akiva that he should probably keep up his side of the conversation, though he didn’t get paid more to be interesting. His life wasn’t that interesting anyway. “Emails, research, social media. Whatever needs to be done.”
“You ever do any writing?”
“This feels like a press conference,” Akiva said.
“Well, not one of mine, because you’re doing a good job. Including avoiding a question you don’t want to answer.”
And Akiva couldn’t help it—he laughed.
Eitan’s eyebrows rose. “I take it you watched that one?”
“I needed to know what I was getting myself into.” Even if Akiva wasn’t entirely sure of what that was.
“How’d I look?” Eitan asked.
