Page 26 of Breakout Year
“Can I ask you a weird question?” Eitan said after a while.
Akiva’s shoulders involuntarily crept toward his ears. “Ask. I might not answer, though.”
“How does this compare to your other dates?” As if Eitan was placing this on a mental leaderboard.
“I don’t really have time to date—I work a lot.” Something that people usually accepted as given, if they thought Akiva dated at all, as if a kippah was the same as a monk’s tonsure. He wasn’t lying, though. He could resolve The Spreadsheet or spend his time on the apps, which occupied a firmly lower-case designation in his brain, but he didn’t have time for both.
“Mostly, am I doing this right?” Eitan asked. “I’ve, uh, never been out like this. With a man.”
Akiva blinked in surprise. “Did you not date men in Cleveland?” He’d assumed Eitan had, just discreetly. Or maybe he’d dated women publicly and fucked men privately. He certainly wouldn’t be the first.
Eitan frowned as if he was unused to the expression. “No, not really. I wanted to see what it was like, dating and having people know about it.”
“So you decided to do it on the biggest stage imaginable?” Akiva asked.
“Doesn’t feel so big right now.” Eitan’s eyes picked up the candlelight.
Akiva knew about fifty adjectives for the word brown, ranging from sable to mud. He would not think of any of them right now. He would not reassure Eitan that he was doing well in case he got…notions. “Wait until all those pictures of us hit the Internet,” Akiva said.
“Might not be so bad.”
Akiva made a noncommittal sound he hoped communicated that yes, yes it would be.
“So you’re a pessimist like Gabe.”
“I’m a realist.”
“That’s what pessimists say when they’re denying being pessimists. Okay, another weird question. Did you know, uh, you weren’t straight before you left baseball?”
Akiva could hear the question under the question. Is that why you left? “Yeah, I knew I was gay. I’ve known ever since I could be conscious of knowing, if that makes sense.”
For whatever reason, Eitan’s mouth twisted. He took a quick swig of beer, dabbed the foam off his upper lip a little forcefully. “What’d your family think of that?”
Akiva’s hand went tense around the stem of his wineglass. “We’re not really close anymore. Not because of me being queer.” Just because of everything else.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Eitan said. “Unless it’s a good thing?”
“Mostly my fault.” Akiva didn’t care to elaborate, so he didn’t. He’d get paid the same rate either way.
“You must have had a good reason then,” Eitan said.
Nothing about this date was supposed to be real, except the wine, the food, the way Eitan kept saying things like that. Casual declarations that Akiva should box up like leftovers and unpack in the safety of his house, far from the restaurant and the candle-lit glow of Eitan’s eyes and the hesitation in his smile. “It’s been a long time,” Akiva said.
Eitan shrugged. “Still.” As if he knew time didn’t always make things easier.
“What do your parents think about”—Akiva gestured between them—“you dating a man?”
“Not about me dating you?”
“We’re not really dating.”
Eitan’s mouth twisted. “I think they were surprised at the whole press conference thing. Maybe not as surprised as I was expecting.” He cut through another ravioli. Egg yolk, sunshine yellow, trickled onto his plate. “Hell, I was surprised I said something, even as I was saying it.”
“Are you sorry you did?”
Eitan gave him another look, this one glowing and hopeful in a way Akiva didn’t have within him to extinguish. “No,” Eitan said. “No, I don’t regret a thing.”
8
