Page 97 of Breakout Year
“No, it’s just…” Akiva felt around for a word. “Personal.”
He took the tefillin out from their cases. Gathered one up and placed it on his biceps, then began winding the leather strap around his arm. He was in short sleeves.
For a moment, Eitan watched the rhythm of it—the wrap of the cord around the relative pallor of Akiva’s skin, the interlay of the lean muscle amid the leather—and thought about what it’d be like to see that in dramatically different circumstances. He knew that Judaism was not contingent on a belief in a higher power who meted out rewards and punishments, but at that moment, he felt a prickle of guilt up the back of his neck.
Akiva looked up from where he was wrapping the leather loosely around his palm. Lifted an eyebrow. “Really?” Said less with outrage than faint, fond surprise. Eitan was about to explain that no, he wasn’t watching Akiva like that, even if he definitely was, when Akiva added, “I would have guessed you’d want to be the person getting tied up.”
“I—” Eitan gulped around an immediate denial. He’d thought about doing exactly that while they’d been together. In the months since. “Yeah,” he said a little sheepishly.
“I’m supposed to focus when I have these on and not laugh.” Though Akiva was pressing his lips together as if he was trying not to. “You surprise me. It’s nice.”
“Right now, I’m surprising myself.” Which Eitan was. Every desire seemed to unlock another. If he liked seeing Akiva wrapped in leather, who was going to stop him? Still, he was about to transport himself to the next room when Akiva’s phone chimed.
“Can you see if that’s Sue?” Akiva asked. Possibly another rule related to what one could and could not do in tefillin. Eitan should probably look those up if he was going to be sticking around.
Eitan thumbed the text preview to expand it. “Mark and Rachel want to know if you’re coming to dinner. The children are wondering if you’ve gone missing.”
Akiva snorted. “I saw them last week. Usually on Fridays I go to synagogue then to dinner at their house, if you want to come.” He fiddled with the end of the tefillin strap before he tucked it into the loops around his hand. “You don’t have to.”
The last time Eitan had been to temple was for a quick evening service at the end of Yom Kippur when he’d mostly spent his time talking with his friends from middle school who hadn’t left Mayfield Heights. They’d been excited to see which team he was going to sign with.
If he went, Akiva’s friends might ask him similar questions. Oh well, he needed to get accustomed to that. I want to quit. No, he revised, I’m going to quit. No, he revised, I’m quitting because of Akiva. No, that was worst of all. But he had hours until services to land on the exact wording. He had to go into the civilian world at some point. Better to do it with people who loved Akiva the way he did. “Dinner sounds good. What should we bring?”
41
Akiva
Akiva adjusted his kippah clip again. He’d done that once before they’d left the house, again on their walk to services as Eitan demanded Akiva catch him up on every moment of his offseason.
“I finished my book,” Akiva admitted. “Sue has it.”
That brought a yell from Eitan, the kind Akiva had heard him issue at a teammate who’d done something spectacular, loud enough to be picked up by on-field mics. Now the only things listening to them were the bare branches of the trees standing tough against the November wind. “You finished, and you didn’t tell me?” He batted at Akiva’s arm. “Can I read it?” Eitan thought for a minute. “I think there’s a way to make it play on audio.”
Akiva could only take so much on a Friday with not enough sleep. Eitan loved him and that love made the rest of the world seem painted in watercolors, distant from things like the decidedly unromantic mechanisms of publishing. There was also the fact that the main character of his book had dark brown hair, a tendency to wake up early, and the almost preternatural ability to charm his way into and out of any situation. Not Eitan, but enough around the edges that it felt vulnerable to show him.
“Sue will probably have notes.” Akiva was just hoping one wouldn’t read, Nice try, but let’s rewrite this from the floorboards up. Or worse, Abandon it entirely.
“I’d like your books even if I didn’t know you wrote them.” Eitan gave a cursory glance to the street around them. Reached and kissed Akiva, who gripped the velvet bag holding his tallis a little tighter. Was this what his life was going to be like—an endless stream of being told good things about himself, followed by public affection? It seemed impossible, and yet here he was, being kissed.
When they arrived at synagogue, he rechecked his kippah clip before he stepped through the low side entrance they kept open on weekdays. Eitan followed, then selected a green satin kippah from a bowl of them by the door.
“Can I see that?” Akiva plucked it from where it was loosely held between Eitan’s fingers. He examined the kippah’s interior for the personalization stamp from when people ordered batches for weddings and b’nai mitzvot, the faint gold lettering reading In honor of… “I like knowing who they’re for.”
“Do you have one?” Eitan dug through the bowl as if looking for it.
“No, I wasn’t bar mitzvah’d here.”
“Would you want that if we, uh…” Eitan trailed off, but Akiva could read the end of the sentence. If they got married.
“They do gay weddings here.” Something Akiva had checked early on: the congregation wasn’t Orthodox—it was officially non-denominational with a reconstructionist tilt—but you never knew unless you asked, and he’d asked. When they’d said he was welcome, they really meant it.
“Oh.” Eitan smiled, took the kippah, and placed it on the dark gloss of his hair. “Good.” He also took Akiva’s hand as they walked together toward the sanctuary.
When they arrived, Rachel waited all of five seconds before her jaw dropped. “Is that—” she stage-whispered as they approached her.
“Hi, I’m Eitan.” Eitan offered his hand, which Rachel shook.
They repeated the procedure when Mark came over, Anna at his hip, who immediately demanded that Akiva hold her. He did, and bounced her a few times, and let her smack a palm across his glasses, leaving a slight handprint.
