Page 30 of Breakout Year
Stars Lit as Cosmos Take In the Town
* * *
Eitan was sitting by his stall, halfway out of his uniform and halfway into a postgame victory beer when a clubhouse attendant called his name. “Yo, Rivkin, there’s a guy here to see you.”
“Akiva?” Eitan hollered back. “You can send him in.”
The clubhouse was roiling now that the media had departed following the postgame scrum. Various personnel trickled in and out. Guys ate the postgame spread, a few like Eitan supplementing that with a beer. Their manager kept objecting—not to the alcohol, apparently, but because he had a thing about gluten, and proper hydration, and the importance of getting no fewer than ten hours of sleep a night. As if Eitan could just go home and fall in bed after a game like that.
He was still in his jersey. The Cosmos shower set-up was communal with half-stalls that left everyone ass out in front of everyone else. Usually, he waited until the team was mostly done in the showers to take his, then to do his post-game dunk in the hot tub. No one had asked him to, but no one said anything about it when he did. It was fine.
By the time Akiva arrived at his stall, Eitan had managed to undo two more buttons, to peel off a sleeve, but had gotten no further. “Hey, glad you made it.”
“I’m surprised they let me in.”
“I put you on the list,” Eitan said. He pulled Akiva into a sweaty one-armed hug. Akiva’s cheeks went faintly pink. “Sorry, it’s kinda humid in here.”
Akiva did a slow inspection of the room, and Eitan tried to imagine it from his perspective: the ring of wooden stalls, each player with enough space to hang their uniforms and street clothes. The gourmet catering set-up.
“This place is pretty different, huh?” Eitan said.
“From the Fall League? Yeah, just a bit.”
“Have you been here before?” Because they did clubhouse tours sometimes for prospects.
“To Cosmos Stadium?” Akiva shook his head. “Haven’t really had time.”
A surprise given how obsessive Akiva used to be about baseball. “Well, we gotta get you to a game soon.” Akiva’s shoulders stiffened—it was possible that he drew the line at spending a game in the family room with other players’ partners—so Eitan pressed on. “You ready to go?”
Akiva looked down at himself. “Not sure I dressed to go out-out.”
“You look great.” Which he did. He was wearing jeans that made him look tall—well, being a head taller than Eitan made him look tall—along with a T-shirt that rode close to his body. What Eitan would have said to any friend he was about to go clubbing with. Except for the flush of heat up his neck, the same one he’d had when Akiva told him to kiss him. A feeling definitely not covered under contractual terms and conditions.
“Let me go rinse off,” Eitan said. “I’m sure I smell rank.” He made an elaborate show of sniffing himself, then stripped out of his jersey.
“I should probably wait outside.”
“I don’t think the other guys’ll mind.” Though Eitan wasn’t sure of that either—it was one thing to share a dressing room with a teammate who dated men, another thing entirely to have evidence of that fact hanging around.
Akiva fixed him with a look. “I don’t really want to find out if they do.” Then he told Eitan he’d meet him outside when he was done showering.
Forty minutes later, they piled into a club through the back entrance then were promptly whisked up to the VIP section in a private elevator. A bottle arrived without Eitan having to request it, along with an extremely attractive waitress who immediately fell into Williams’s orbit.
Below them, the floor hummed with the beat of music, EDM that always made Eitan want to dance. Everything glowed brighter in the dark—ice cubes, belt buckles, Akiva’s smile.
“Here, c’mon.” Eitan found a section on the padded bench lining the room. There were enough of them in the group that Akiva had to sit close to fit.
Eitan poured a shot and offered it to Akiva, who wrapped his fingers around the glass before Eitan had the chance to let go. For a second, they just looked at each other before Eitan withdrew his hand and Akiva made efficient work of the shot. A drop of vodka clung to his lower lip.
“Way to go, Aki—Ak—Eitan’s friend,” Botts called.
Akiva grabbed at his own hair, possibly checking to see if his kippah was still attached.
Eitan reached over, curved his hand around the back of Akiva’s head, feeling for the metal clip Akiva was using to secure his kippah.
There were only two ways to be heard over the beat of the music—shouting and whispering—and Eitan needed his voice for the game they were gonna play in the impossibly distant time of tomorrow. “All good,” Eitan said, voice low. He didn’t move his hand immediately. Couldn’t seem to. He’d touched other guys’ hair before, he was sure of it. He just couldn’t think of when. He wanted to take strands of it between his fingers. He wanted to lean in and trace the tip of his nose up the tendon of Akiva’s neck to catch the scent of Akiva’s shampoo. He wanted to do a lot of things and sitting here, in the dark, it was impossible to tease those wants apart: if this was about Akiva or men in general or the loneliness he felt when other players flinched away from him.
Akiva should shake his hand off, for both their sakes.
