Page 53 of Breakout Year
Which was something very distinct from what they were doing together now.
“I just—” Eitan began, then bit his lip, visibly recalculating. “Everyone in Cleveland was like, Why are you making such a big deal over the Pride Night thing? Are you gay or something? Not to the press, but in the clubhouse sometimes. And all I could think was, So what if I am? What the fuck are you gonna do about it?”
“Eitan,” Akiva said, “that is not a very straight thought.”
“See, that’s what I figured too.” Eitan grinned at that, bright, beaming. “Then they kicked me off the team, and I thought, hell, if you can’t be gay in New York, where can you be?”
Akiva would not laugh at that, except for how laughter was already echoing up his throat. Eitan—stubborn, determined Eitan, who saw the world for what it should be rather than what it was. Akiva didn’t know if that was naivete or bravery, but he knew that in that moment if he didn’t kiss Eitan, he’d regret it.
“Technically”—Akiva wound his hand around the back of Eitan’s neck—“we’re in New Jersey.” He pressed his mouth to Eitan’s. There was something joyful in this kiss, something that felt different than all the others. Eitan, perhaps settling into himself.
Eitan pulled back but rested his forehead against Akiva’s. His arms were still wrapped around Akiva, his grip sure. “I think I’m gay in any state.” His face lit with a grin. “Fuck, I’ve never said that before. But I think I am.”
“Think?” Akiva asked, lightly teasing.
“How can I be certain?” Eitan’s eyes were laughing. The creases beside them didn’t quite fade.
Akiva pressed his mouth there, to the lines that would only deepen as Eitan got older, as he became more and more himself, someone who smiled because life was full of things to smile over. In that moment, Akiva wanted desperately to be one of those things. In that moment, he wanted to be something Eitan was certain of.
19
Eitan
I’m gay. What Eitan thought as he kissed Akiva again, feeling the breadth of his mouth, the strength in his shoulders. He kissed Eitan with the same restraint he’d shown at restaurants when ordering the cheapest stuff off the menu: not like he wasn’t hungry but like he was concerned his appetite might scare Eitan off.
I’m gay. He stroked the lean outline of Akiva’s waist—he wanted to hold him, to buy him everything, starting with another hundred dinners at gaudy New York prices. To see the bare expanse of his body laid out. On a bed ideally. Right now, any available surface might do so long as they were together.
I’m gay. A revelation that seemed glaringly obvious in retrospect. Maybe that was how revelations were, really. He’d told Akiva he wasn’t certain he was gay, but as he tugged at the fabric bunched at Akiva’s waistband, desperate to see more, he didn’t know if he’d ever felt surer of anything. “Can I take this off?” Eitan asked, not relinquishing Akiva’s shirt.
Akiva nodded. Ducked so Eitan could relieve him of his shirt. Underneath, he had on his tzitzit, four strands dangling from the edges of an undershirt that looked like it was designed specifically for the purpose of affixing tzitzit to. They hung a little absurdly now. Eitan resisted the urge to tug one teasingly. “Do you want to take those off yourself or…” he asked. “How do the guys you date usually handle this?”
“Usually I don’t wear them on dates.”
“Because you don’t like people seeing them, or because you didn’t think I’d see them?” Eitan punctuated his question by running the pad of his thumb under the hem of Akiva’s shirt. He had hair on his stomach, a line of it Eitan had glanced at a few times but now wanted urgently to see in full. To trace with his tongue or his teeth. Was it like this, before? No. Nothing like this cracked-open feeling like every half-fantasized thought was pouring into his bloodstream all at once.
“Because a lot of people think being Orthodox means I don’t fuck.” Akiva said the word fuck a little exasperatedly, different than how he’d said it earlier, when he asked if Eitan woke up and thought about fucking men.
Eitan hadn’t—before. Or if he had, he’s thrown that kind of thought into a box the way he had his Cleveland baseball stuff after the trade, something that he didn’t think he’d ever open. But Akiva had been wrong. The press conference wasn’t the line of demarcation. No, that had been Akiva walking into that audition and walking himself right out. Something had stirred inside Eitan even then, a desire he was just now seeing the shape of.
“Do you?” Eitan asked.
“Do I what?” Akiva’s mouth was doing that thing—that mischievous little tilt that made Eitan want to bite at the corner of his lips. He did and got Akiva’s gasp, so he did it again. Repetition builds competence, some coach or another had told Eitan long ago, one who’d also told Eitan he’d always have to work harder than other guys who were taller, broader. He might totally screw this whole thing up, but dammit Eitan was going to try.
“I wanted to know if you’d fuck me,” Eitan said.
Akiva’s eyes widened at that. Somehow, he was still wearing his glasses. Tiny puffs of vapor fogged the bottom of each lens. “Eitan—” He cut himself off. Eased back, slightly.
For a moment, Eitan wondered if he was going to be sent back to Manhattan, an island he was told was full of men he could probably get to fuck him, none of whom he wanted to.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” Akiva continued. “There’s not a Gay Player of the Month award.”
“Maybe there should be. I just figured, if this is my only chance…” But Eitan dissolved the rest of his sentence into trying to kiss Akiva again.
Akiva held up a cautioning hand. “Only chance to be gay?” he asked, forehead wrinkling.
Only chance to be with you. Which sounded like too much to say right now, even for Eitan. “To figure this whole thing out.” It was nonsense—the vague sort of nonsense Isabel had coached into him when talking to reporters.
Nowhere near what Akiva deserved to hear. Eitan wanted to tell him every good thing about himself—that he had more courage than any other ten people Eitan knew. That he was funny, and smart, and fucking hot in a way Eitan didn’t really know how to put into words.
