Page 77 of Breakout Year
“I thought we were only doing the center and the park,” she said.
Eitan turned several colors. “Well, that was more a plan for Akiva and me.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows. “You all gonna stay out of trouble?”
“Do you want me to answer that?” Eitan asked.
“No, not really.”
“Thank you for doing all of this,” Eitan said to her. “I’d get you more fruit, but I feel like you’re getting sick of fruit.”
She looked around at the park. “I grew up two neighborhoods over from here. Worked my ass off to land my dream job with my childhood baseball team. They took a chance on me—which I appreciated—but they were very clear that they were taking a chance on me…which didn’t feel great. So I had to be perfect, ya know? Then for my first solo PR assignment, the player decides to go rogue at his press conference.”
Eitan went ashen under his summer tan. “Oh my god, I didn’t know.”
“Most guys who’re only here for a few months just treat the city like it’s an amusement park,” Isabel said. “They wouldn’t bother doing any of this. So, fruit’s great, but this is better.” And she waved goodbye and left them standing in the autumn sunlight.
“So,” Eitan said, “if I tell you that I have a plan for tomorrow, will you trust that plan?”
“Asking me that makes me not trust that plan already.”
“There’s an itinerary. You seem like you like itineraries.”
Akiva did like itineraries, albeit ones he made himself and double-checked half a dozen times to make sure they were right. He could probably go with the flow as long as the flow had backup plans. “Okay.”
“Great, that’s settled.” Eitan grinned. “What do you want for dinner tonight?”
“Do we need to change?” Because Eitan was still in workout gear—leggings and shorts and a sweatshirt—and Akiva’s jeans had grass smears on them.
“No, I like you as-is,” Eitan said and laughed when Akiva shot him a look. “But yeah, we should probably head home.”
So Akiva un-pocketed the keys and beeped the fob to remind himself where they’d parked. Walked to the car and ignored how Eitan had referred to a place they were both staying as home.
29
Akiva
“Where exactly is it that we’re going?” Akiva asked the next day, when Eitan was wearing a gleaming button-up shirt that made Akiva feel distinctly underdressed. He hadn’t packed for anything nicer than hanging around Eitan’s apartment.
“You’ll see.” Eitan you’ll see’d him into a cab, from a cab to Grand Central, and then aboard the Metro-North, the local that stopped approximately once every few seconds as they made their way up toward the Hudson Valley. “I’m gonna miss the subway,” Eitan said. “Not as much as the bodega cats. But maybe more than the piles of trash.”
“What’re you going to miss the most?”
Eitan gave him a long look, heated in the bright lights of the lurching train car. “The city’s really grown on me,” he said, after a moment.
Forty-five minutes later, they were still on the train as it wended its way toward someplace Eitan refused to reveal. “It’s pretty up here,” he said as they rolled along.
It was. The leaves were just beginning to turn on the trees, the late afternoon light dappling over the river. Next to him, Eitan was pointing out the red crowns of maples, the shape of an interesting cloud. I only get another week of this. If Akiva was writing this story, he’d give it another ending, not a mere amicable parting of ways.
Soon, the train arrived at a station. “This is us!” Eitan said, pulling Akiva up by the wrist. Once they were off the train, Eitan opened a map on his phone and squinted at it meaningfully. “We should be able to walk from here.”
So they walked along a well-worn path to another wing of the train station, this one quaint and old-timey, as if a collectible had somehow come to life. People were milling about on the platform, an analog sign announcing twenty minutes until departure. “Another train?” Akiva asked. “Where to?”
“It’s a luxury train.” Eitan read a list off his phone. “It features jazz, vintage cocktails, and thematic food, whatever that is. People aren’t supposed to have their phones out—there’s a rule. Detracts from the ambiance. I thought…” Eitan shifted around, looking uncertain for the first time all day. “We’ve been out a bunch of times, but, uh, under different circumstances. I thought you might want to get dinner. As people who sometimes get dinner together.”
A date, then, in the one place in the tri-state area they were unlikely to be photographed. A place they could sit close, hold hands. Dance. “That sounds good.”
“They have food you can eat. I checked.”
