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Akiva went to where Eitan was lying on the couch, head tilted back on one of the overstuffed cream-colored cushions. Eitan’s hair was mussed, falling across his forehead. They weren’t together. They’d been clear about that. But Akiva could monitor for fever, the way one of his characters might press their hand to another’s forehead and cluck with concern over a chill; Eitan didn’t seem like the type to remember to buy a digital thermometer anyway. After a moment’s hesitation, Akiva swept Eitan’s hair back and laid a palm on his forehead, pleased to find it cool, if slightly damp with sweat.
“Knew what?” he asked Eitan. “Hmm?” Eitan was smiling up at him. “Oh, that you’re a notebook person.” “I am a notebook person. It’s so I can write anywhere.” “Like here?” Eitan’s eyes were pleading, and Akiva would call it manipulative except for how the best and worst part about Eitan was how sincerely he meant everything.
He shut his eyes, lines radiating from them in discomfort, and Akiva had already kissed him there once, on that ill-fated night, so it wouldn’t be that big a deal to do it again, except for how it would be.
“You know,” Williams said, after indicating the painkillers Eitan could have one more of and the others he had to switch to, and the baby aspirin he needed to take to prevent blood clots while he had his leg elevated, and the tin of Tiger Balm that Aguila brought over because he believed it could cure everything from influenza to heartbreak, “Eitan was pretty torn up about whatever happened between you.”
“Hey,” Akiva said, low, “we should get you to bed.” Eitan’s eyes blinked open. “Akiva, hey.” Like he didn’t remember Akiva was there. “I thought I dreamed you.” This isn’t real. Except for all the ways it was. “You were pretty asleep. I can stay over if you want.”
This smirk was accompanied by the angle of Eitan’s jaw, the dark stubble of his neck that Akiva wanted to firmly direct with his teeth. Akiva ignored that smirk, giving only a lift of his eyebrows that probably bordered on schoolmarm.
What he couldn’t ignore was the memory of Eitan against him, his breath warm in Akiva’s ear, his gasps at each new thing that brought him pleasure. Akiva needed something, anything to distract himself.
“They said today was gonna be the worst of it.” He smiled. “But it couldn’t be—not with you here.”
Seven years ago, Akiva had learned that everything was ignorable until it wasn’t. And he couldn’t ignore it now: this feeling that expanded like it was taking up his entire chest cavity but somehow giving him air. That he was someone to Eitan.
“You found the coffee?” Eitan said, instead of what he’d wanted to say, which was good morning and I’m sorry and you look so good sitting here. Still, he felt like he’d just discovered a new, previously hidden level inside himself: there was queer as in wanting to fuck men and queer as in wanting a particular man seated at his kitchen island.
A moment later, he spotted it—and the electric kettle and a mug—already set out. There was water in the kettle. The indicator light said it was holding water at the right temperature for black tea. Eitan would not get emotional about hot water. Eitan would not crutch himself over and kiss Akiva right at the edge of his mouth.
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.
Whatever Eitan was planning, he still had that fuck you look of determination. It made Akiva want to kiss him.
For a moment, he thought Eitan might say fuck it and lean across the car and kiss him. Instead, Eitan popped open the passenger-side latch and hopped down to the pavement with an oof.
Eitan shook his head, dropped his crutches in a clatter. Hopped over to Akiva and wrapped his arms around him. “We’re not…” Akiva trailed off. Breathed into the clean fabric of Eitan’s shirt. “People might see.” “They might see what?” Eitan’s mouth was close to his ear. His hands gripped Akiva’s shirt. He hugged him, hard, the kind of hug that you were meant to collapse into.
Eitan was talking, indistinctly, about how any random person could throw a ball, but Akiva wrote books and that was special, creating something from nothing. Akiva had spent the morning and the night before and the night before that thinking about kissing Eitan, about drawing him back into his bed, but now all Akiva could think of was how few times in his adulthood someone had held him like this and how much it was something he hadn’t known he’d wanted. “I’ll be fine,” Akiva said, a little stiffly, and Eitan tightened his arms again so much that he wobbled on his bad leg. “We shouldn’t be
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Eitan’s breath was a faint puff on his neck. Akiva wouldn’t think about that or the beat of his heart through his ribs or the way their bodies fit together like tumblers in a lock.
“You struck me out on one of those.” Akiva flushed, ducked his head. “I did.” “I didn’t know if you remembered.” “I always remember when it comes to you.”
He wanted to kiss him now—not on the cheek, not as a goodbye—but settled for the tap of his knuckles against Akiva’s.
Once, Sue had told him that the most important part of a book wasn’t solving the actual crime or finding a long-lost artifact. No, it was a series of introductions and goodbyes as characters became their future selves.
“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.
“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.”
“They have food you can eat. I checked.” “I didn’t think you’d let me go hungry.” Eitan’s look from the train returned, this time darker and searching. He leaned close. Whispered, “You’ll let me take care of you?” in a tone there was no mistaking for friends.
He reached for Eitan’s hand. Threaded their fingers together. This time, he didn’t let go.
“I don’t know if I want to get used to this.” Eitan’s fingers brushed the back of Akiva’s hand. “Everything feels so new.”
And Akiva had lost count of the number of times they’d kissed—on the street for show, in Akiva’s bed before things had fallen apart—but he had to kiss Eitan then, a brief glance of his mouth across Eitan’s.
Eitan’s eyes were shut; lines radiated around them. Akiva wanted to kiss him there, so he did, a tiny nothing of a kiss that made Eitan’s mouth curve up in a smile. “How did I not know that I was—?” Eitan’s voice sounded caught in his throat. Akiva ran a soothing hand up his back. “You’re here now.” Eitan’s smile widened. “I am. We are. Kiss me again.”
Eitan kissed like he did everything: with a certain insatiable curiosity, and Akiva sucked his tongue and dug his shirt hem from his waistband and groped the thick muscles of Eitan’s lower back.
“I want you to show me what you like,” Eitan said. “I want this to be good for you.”
In Akiva’s experience, even bad head was still pretty good, and head from someone who wanted to do a good job was hardly ever bad,
Eitan pulled back. “I want to taste you. I want you to come in my mouth.” He looked surprised that he’d said it but not embarrassed that he had.
“I thought there was something wrong with me for so long,” Eitan said dazedly. “I tried to ignore it. It was easier to defend everyone else. But this is what I was waiting for. You’re who I was waiting for.” Long ago, Akiva had discovered that he didn’t cry even when he got hurt or scared or things felt unrecoverable, but now he learned that it only took one good thing—the right good thing—to make him feel like something had cracked in his chest.
“You’re who I was waiting for too,” Akiva said, so quietly he thought Eitan wouldn’t hear him.
“How much longer do we have?” Akiva asked, but he already knew the answer. Not long enough.
This time, Akiva had sat beside him, body close, arms brushing, and if anyone around them had taken their picture, Eitan wouldn’t know, because he’d been too busy memorizing the exact pattern of Akiva’s freckles and the way his mouth would tip up ever so slightly when he caught Eitan doing that.
“Do you want—” And he was going to offer a drink or more dessert or tea or whatever Akiva wanted, including the apartment itself, when Akiva leaned down and cut him off with a kiss. “Do you think we’d both fit in your bed?” Akiva asked. Eitan would sleep sideways and possibly upside down to ensure they did. “Come and find out.”
Eitan dropped his phone back on his nightstand. Next to him, Akiva’s face was slack with sleep. He was a stomach sleeper, hand under Eitan’s spare pillow, feet poking their way out from the comforter. No matter what happens, I’ll know that.
He kissed Akiva behind the rim of his ear where his glasses had left an apparently permanent indent. Another thing Eitan now knew. Akiva made a noise, a pleased grunt, so Eitan kissed him again.
Three words sat in Eitan’s mouth. It was too soon to say them, too soon to even think them. For once, Eitan held his tongue.
“You ever see yourself living anywhere but around here?” he asked. Too honest a question for before coffee but fuck it. Akiva wrapped his arms around him again. He was wider than Eitan at the shoulders, narrower everywhere else. The exact right dimensions, yet they couldn’t seem to make their lives fit together.
“Will you watch the game against Cleveland?” Eitan asked instead. “That way I know at least one person’ll be rooting for me.” He knew he was being pathetic—whiny, even—but he felt raw the way he had when he’d first come to New York.
A question Akiva certainly wouldn’t answer. Things didn’t work out: that was sort of the prevailing theme of his life. Things didn’t work out and you made the best of them. Taking giant leaps just led you to faceplant at the bottom of a cliff.
Some days, writing felt like art and some days it felt like clocking in at the word factory.
He would not think about Eitan whispering, You’re who I was waiting for amid the rattle of a train. And Akiva would certainly not think about the lightness he’d felt, as if he’d put down something heavy he’d been carrying for a long time, as he’d said it back.
Now, Eitan wasn’t sure if there was a word for what you felt when you knew the sandpaper grit of someone’s stubble, when you wanted to take their shoulders in your hands. When you wanted to hold them and have them hold you and not let them go for stupid things like baseball contracts.
Eitan grinned at that. If anyone was taking their picture, he knew what his face would look like. Goofy. Smitten. That was fine. He was both those things.
Akiva reached across him and stroked his hip. Eitan sometimes worried that he’d come apart—publicly, frenetically. Now he felt held together, made safe by the tiny motions of Akiva’s hand.
“When I did that press conference, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Or no, I did, but I thought it’d be simpler: people would hate me or they wouldn’t, and if they did, well, fuck ’em. Not how everyone gets to have their own opinion about me.” Akiva snuggled closer, resumed stroking Eitan’s hip. “What’s your opinion of you?”
“I want to be who I am as much as possible. I want that for everyone.” That got Akiva’s smile, the press of his mouth to Eitan’s cheek. “Good.” He paused then added, “And fuck everyone who disagrees.”
“I feel like myself with you but better,” he said. Not quite what he wanted to say, but enough of a fraction Akiva would get it. “You make me feel like I can jump and not fall.” Akiva said it in a rush, color on his cheeks, like he was embarrassed that he’d admitted that much.
