Page 70 of Breakout Year
And Eitan’s rules weren’t going to last if Akiva kept inadvertently breaking them by saying things in that tone of voice.
Still, Eitan sat, ate. “Thank you for doing all this,” he said around a mouthful of bagel. The everything part of the everything bagel was sprinkling down onto his living room floor, earning Akiva’s frown. “It’s been a long time since I did the whole Sunday morning with anyone.” Which this categorically wasn’t. This was one friend bringing another friend something from the bodega. Eitan groped for a change in subject. “New York really got this whole breakfast sandwich thing right.”
Akiva looked up from his own bagel. He had cream cheese on his chin. Eitan wanted to lick it off, which was an entire layer of being gay he hadn’t known existed. “Noted,” Akiva said.
Right, because of course Akiva had never eaten a bacon, egg, and cheese or had a Taylor roll or whatever the ham sandwich was called in New Jersey. “Sorry.” Eitan took another bite. “Does this bother you?”
Akiva shook his head. “Not really. I wouldn’t eat a pigskin wallet either.”
“But you probably wouldn’t want pork in your house, right?”
“No, not particularly.”
“So it’d be a problem if you lived with someone who ate it?”
Akiva’s eyebrows rose, like he could tell Eitan was asking a slightly different question. “It hasn’t come up.”
“No roommates?”
“You saw my house. Where would I put them?”
In bed with you. Eitan took another bite. “I bet turkey bacon’s okay with fake cheese. Soy bacon. I bet the bodega could make a good version of anything.”
“You’ve really taken to the New York lifestyle.”
Eitan laughed. “That’s what Camilla—that journalist—said to me in that interview.” He finished his sandwich, balled up the wrapper. “I feel like I’ve been here for a few months, and I’ve seen some stuff, but there’s so much, you know?”
“You’re gonna miss the city?”
“Some parts of it. We don’t have bodega cats in Cleveland.”
“I would have taken you as being a dog person.”
“Nah, Russians are cat people. Besides, with a cat, they don’t like everyone. Really makes you feel like you’ve earned something if they pay attention to you.”
Akiva studied him for a moment, then wiped his mouth but missed the cream cheese on his chin entirely. “Well, I’m sure the cats of New York will miss you.”
And Eitan was halfway to pointing out that cream cheese glob—halfway to offering to remove it for him, if that was what Akiva wanted—when his phone rang.
Only two people ever called him: his mother and Gabe. This was the latter. Eitan answered, setting the phone to speaker. If he was going to get yelled at, he could do it without getting a crick in his neck holding his phone to his ear. Already, he could hear a crunch over the line: Gabe popping an antacid.
I should go, Akiva mouthed, and got up, clearing both his and Eitan’s sandwich wrappers and breakfast detritus.
“Hey, Gabe,” Eitan said, when Akiva had disappeared up the hallway.
“How’s the ankle, kid?”
“Good! Still attached to my body and everything. Gonna get it assessed tomorrow.”
More crunching. “I wanted to let you know before you found out from someone else—the league isn’t going to suspend Goodwin.”
Eitan blinked. “I didn’t think they would.”
“I take it you haven’t been on his Instagram.”
“No, why would I?”
“You might want to take a look.”
