Page 22 of Breakout Year
He went a swift red.
Eitan laughed. “That good, huh?”
“You don’t need to read it.”
“I know.” Eitan tapped him on the arm. A smile tugged at the edge of Eitan’s lips.
Turned out, there was a certain vestigial power to being smiled at by a man you’d had a crush on in your early twenties, even years later. Akiva would not do anything about it. At most, he’d put it in a book.
“You doing anything after this?” Eitan asked. “We could grab dinner.”
“You want to do—” Akiva would not say our fake date out loud, not near Sue, who had an ear for this sort of thing. “You want to do this now?”
Eitan grinned. “My treat.” It was unclear if he meant he was paying for dinner—Akiva’s stomach reminded him that he should eat something—or if this fell under the purview of the document Akiva’s brain served up as The Contract.
Nothing he could clarify in a room full of readers, many of whom were surrounding Sue in such a way that Akiva should intervene. Being six foot four wasn’t great for a lot of stuff—pants, doorways, fooling around in backseats—but it was occasionally helpful in establishing physical boundaries between Sue and her admirers.
Eitan eyed the commotion. “Your boss is kinda getting mobbed.”
“Yeah, I should take care of that. If you want to head out, you don’t have to wait.”
“Stop trying to get rid of me, Spencer.” And he sent Akiva off with a baseball-ish tap to his hip.
Up front, Akiva glared the crowd into submission and took his customary place next to Sue’s elbow. She had an autograph stamp, an ink pad. She chatted and stamped, stamped and chatted. “Was that your friend who was sitting with you?” she stage-whispered to Akiva between signatures.
There was a certain futility in lying to someone who wrote mystery books. “Yes.”
She threw another look toward Eitan, who was leaning against a chair. Handsomely, if a lean could be classified as handsome, which Akiva wasn’t certain of. “Now I understand,” she said.
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“I didn’t say it was anything.” She took a book, stamped it, smiled for a picture with a reader. “Don’t let me keep you from your plans.”
“I can stay,” Akiva said once the fan had left.
“I survived before you just fine.” Even if she’d been wearing her gloves more and doing her PT less. “Actually, you’re fired until tomorrow morning. Go have fun.”
Fun. If Sue knew about the whole arrangement, she’d howl or climb on a step stool so she could pat Akiva consolingly on the shoulder. Which was why he had no intention of telling her.
He picked his way through the crowd to where Eitan was standing, thumbs hooked casually in his belt loops.
“You want to get out of here?” Akiva said.
“Thought you’d never ask, Spencer.”
“It’s Akiva now.”
“Even better.” Eitan smiled. His teeth were very white, though one along the bottom was just a touch crooked. Not real, not real, not real. Reset. Akiva mentally clocked in like he was punching an old-fashioned timecard. Not real.
“There’s an Italian place around the corner if you want to head over,” Akiva said.
“Lead on.”
On their way out to the street, they paused by the door while Eitan retrieved an umbrella from the pile of them, a large black domed one of the kind that Akiva associated with funerals or royalty. He also tried to hold it over Akiva as they left, and Akiva had to duck to keep from getting whacked by its awning.
“I don’t think that’s going to work logistically,” Akiva said as they walked out into the rain. The umbrella sent his ballcap askew. Before he had the chance to adjust it, Eitan leaned in and wrapped one arm around him in a half-hug that Akiva momentarily mistook for a delayed greeting.
“See over there”—Eitan nodded toward where someone was standing down the street—“that’s Dave, my biggest fan. Smile for the camera.” His breath was warm on Akiva’s neck, and his hand was still on Akiva’s shirt, and Akiva just needed to survive the next few hours, something that would be a lot easier if Eitan stepped back.
