Breakout Year

by K.D. Casey

“Hey,” he said, when Akiva picked up. “I’m back in the city.” Because home felt like the wrong word for a place he was about to leave. “Me too.” Eitan could hear Akiva over the phone and through the now-open door to his apartment. Akiva was there.

“I figured you might need some help packing,” Akiva said, when Eitan pulled back. “I got boxes.” “You’re—” Eitan started to bite back a word, but fuck it, when else was he going to say it? “You’re perfect.”

“I don’t want to leave New York.” But no, that wasn’t quite right. “I don’t want to leave you.” “Eitan”—and Akiva had to know that he was only making it worse by saying Eitan’s name in that soft, casually devastating way of his—“we knew this was going to happen.”

He wasn’t as expressive as Eitan, but his face was easy to read if you knew how to look. Eitan did know now—that Akiva wore his sadness in the pinch of his mouth, the faintly tense line between his eyebrows.

“The second I got traded from Cleveland, I started counting the days until I could leave New York. But I stopped counting when you walked in that hotel conference room.” Akiva’s mouth did that thing, the little tic that meant he was happily embarrassed. “Oh.” “What I’m saying is we get one more day together.” “We do.”

Before, Eitan had wondered what it would cost for them to be together. Now he knew. He went anyway.

He abandoned all of that for taking Eitan’s face in his hands and kissing him lightly on the lips. Eitan was cold—shiveringly so—and there was a wildness about him Akiva recognized from the moment after he’d said something at that press conference he couldn’t take back.

He got in Akiva’s shower but didn’t pull the curtain completely shut. Groaned under the spray, a noise that lengthened until it was halfway to a sob. Not knowing what else to do, Akiva shed his own clothes, folded them neatly, and set them on the closed lid of the toilet. His shower was snug, but they both fit. Eitan was standing under the showerhead a little numbly. After a moment, Akiva took him in his arms, Eitan’s back to his chest, the damp ends of Eitan’s hair brushing his mouth.

His eyes were shut, and it was possible he was crying. Akiva kissed his hair, the side of his neck. Kissed him, held him, waited until Eitan drew in a few great shudders of breath.

Sometimes you closed doors, and sometimes you had them closed for you. He held Eitan tighter, putting his strength into it, and let Eitan lean against him as the shower sputtered warm water over both of them.

“I have enough money—more than enough, really. More than I ever thought was possible. I’ll be fine.” His voice cracked a little on fine. “You don’t have to decide now.” Akiva kissed his neck, his ear, any place that might ground him. “You shouldn’t decide now. Take it from someone who’s been there.”

“I missed you. I don’t know how to say this other than to say it. I made the wrong decision when I picked baseball over you. I’m making the wrong decision if I pick anything over you.”

But Eitan looked more like himself: bright-eyed, determined. “I had five hours to think about this on the plane. Four if you don’t count the hour we spent in turbulence. I want to be with you. I want that more than I want anything else. Whatever I need to do to make that happen, that’s what I’ll do.”

Eitan had fallen asleep next to him and woken up next to him and wanted nothing more than to do it all again that night, and the night after that, and the night after that.

For a moment, Akiva looked like he might press the point. Then he leaned down and kissed Eitan instead. “I’m glad you came here.” “I was worried you weren’t going to—” Eitan gulped around the end of the sentence. He’d knocked on Akiva’s door and wondered what would happen if Akiva didn’t answer. “I was worried you might not want to see me.”

“That was my fault. I thought it would hurt less if there was distance between us.” “Did it?” “No.” Akiva bit his lip, studied the floor. Color spotted his cheeks.

“I love you.” Eitan’s words came spilling out like they normally did, but for once he didn’t regret saying them. “I think I fell a little in love with you sometime around when you told me to kiss you on the sidewalk so Dave could take our picture.” “I have you beat. I think I fell a little in love with you when you told those guys at the bar in Arizona to go fuck themselves.” Akiva smiled. “For the record, I love you more now.”

“For the record?” he teased. “Just so there isn’t any ambiguity.”

“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.

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.

“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.

“I moved back to Cleveland,” he said. “Turned out that was a mistake. I got in late last night, and I’m planning to stay in the area.”

“We’re still deciding,” Akiva said evenly. He went to the box holding the wine, opened a bottle with a twist, then held it out to Rachel. “Can we all be nice to my boyfriend?” Rachel took the bottle of wine and glugged it into six mismatched glasses. “We are being very nice to your boyfriend.” She handed them each a cup.

But boyfriend he could do. He sidled up behind Akiva, put a hand at his waist, rested his chin on Akiva’s shoulder when Akiva ducked down. He smelled like the cheap soap he used, like late fall air. Eitan closed his eyes for a moment, and there was an aww that came from somewhere.

“What was Akiva like back then?” He was the best pitcher I’d ever seen. He was going to be a star. “He’s happier now.” “Is he?”

“I’m going to work very hard to keep him that way,” Eitan said.

“Can you tie someone up on Shabbat or does that constitute work?”

“No other guys you’ve dated have wanted that?” Eitan underwent a momentary panic: guys who liked tying people up probably sought out guys who liked being tied up. It was possible Akiva was humoring him. “No other guys I’ve dated have cared that much about what you could and couldn’t do on Shabbat.”

“Honestly, I haven’t really actually dated a whole lot.” He smiled a little sardonically. “Mostly just fucked. No one that recently.” Eitan cupped his jaw, tilted his head up. “I like that we get to figure all this out together. It makes me feel less like I’m playing catch-up, you know?” “You really find the best in everything.”

Akiva’s plans consisted of a long shower with a series of deliberate instructions for Eitan to follow, a discussion of past partners and various test results and lines of consent. Now a set of meticulously tied knots. It was possible Akiva had a checklist. Eitan would not be attracted to a checklist, except for the fact that he was.

“I want to be with you,” Eitan said. “And I kind of want to see what all the fuss is about, given that some guy tried to break my ankle over it.”

“I like the idea of you being the only thing I can focus on.” “You don’t need to—” Akiva shook his head. “You can just like things because you like them.”

“You do not do well with delayed gratification.” Akiva would have sounded stern if not for the lift at the edge of his mouth.

Having the kind of sex you wanted to have, it turned out, was a little funny and a little gross, and better for being each.

“That’s twice you’ve called me that.” That made Akiva look up at him, wary. “Is that not…” He trailed off. “I like hearing you say it. I like feeling like I belong to you.”

Up until now, Eitan hadn’t ever really had the urge to get a tattoo, but he wanted something there to mark that kiss, as permanent as one of Akiva’s freckles. “I belong to you too.” Akiva said it low, and Eitan’s skin went hot and tight all over. “Show me.” “Are you sure?”

“You okay?” Akiva was frowning minutely, and Eitan loved his freckles and his stubble and the way the low light rendered his eyes golden. But he loved that concerned little frown most of all. “I’m good,” Eitan said. “I’m really good.”

His throat was a little raw, his eyes a little wet, and fuck, fuck, fuck, was this what it was like all the time for other people?

He bit at Eitan’s lips and said his name the right way, the way only Akiva ever said it, and Eitan felt as if he was approaching the edge of something he couldn’t pull himself back from, wouldn’t have wanted to even if he could.

This time, when Akiva kissed his temple, Eitan could gather enough words to ask, “Why there?” Even that came out panting. Akiva lifted himself up, leaving Eitan’s body momentarily cold. “You have little creases.”

I could be myself or I could play. But fuck that. Fuck that. I don’t want you to have to decide. I couldn’t live with myself, knowing you gave that up for me. So wherever you’re going, I’m going.”

“Somehow, I will learn to live with the indignity of having a hot millionaire boyfriend—no matter where he winds up.”

New York wasn’t his home, but there should be a name for a place you weren’t from, exactly, but also didn’t want to leave.

He wanted to hold Eitan’s hand on a sidewalk, to be so close that dropping each other’s hands felt like too much of a separation.

One of the things I love about the game is its long history. I’m not the first gay player in professional baseball—I also hope I won’t be the last. Being open hasn’t always been simple. What I’ve learned since I came out is that a lot of people have a lot of opinions about me. I want to make sure whoever’s next doesn’t feel like they’re alone.”

“This was a big year. I got traded. I came out. But most importantly, I fell in love. And I wouldn’t give that up for anything.”

“Do you think it’ll work?” Eitan said, after. His phone sat quiet on the coffee table. He wasn’t expecting teams to call immediately, but this silence felt markedly louder. Akiva was fully sprawled against him, head on Eitan’s shoulder. He tipped his mouth up and kissed the underside of Eitan’s jaw. “If the goal was to make everyone fall in love with you, it already worked.”

Akiva was a sour cream on latkes person, and Eitan favored applesauce, but you couldn’t have everything, really.

“Won’t you hate having to go back and forth like that?” Akiva had asked, as if he somehow wasn’t worth an hour’s commute. “Not if I’m coming home to you.” A declaration that had made Akiva flush and call Eitan a ridiculous sap and kiss him all the same.

“This feels like an excessive amount of space for two people,” Akiva had said, then promptly proceeded to fill it with books.