Page 28 of Unwritten Rules
Eugenio finds him, snagging his coffee cup from its holder and drinking quickly. He pulls out his phone from where it’s stuck in the pocket of his shorts.
A message appears on Zach’s phone.I was going to text you.Eugenio nods toward where Frannie’s still going through his warmups.Didn’t know what to say about him though.
Zach shrugs. Frannie must know they’re talking about him, since the quickest way to get attention in a clubhouse is to try not to attract attention. He glances back once before continuing to do lunges.
What’d dspara say?Zach texts back.
Just that they know each other from way back when. And that they’re gonna try him out to see if he’s a good fit.
Well fuck
“I know, right?” And he sits down next to Zach. Up close, Eugenio smells like his morning coffee, no cigarettes yet, and the astringent odor of his cologne. He missed a patch shaving, a little island of stubble on his otherwise smooth skin that Zach wants to put his mouth on. Wants to and can’t. So he drinks his coffee and breathes through his nose, and tries to think about the stillness of mountains. Instead, he feels only their slow erosion, hand itching to reach and find purchase on Eugenio’s thigh.
What should we do?Eugenio texts him.
Zach pauses, thumbs over the keyboard. When he looks up, Eugenio’s looking back at him, the edge of his tongue pressed against his lower lip, and Zach focuses on that, on the shape of Eugenio’s words as he says, “We should maybe go see about fielding drills.”
Zach follows him out of the bullpen, out across the green practice field. But Eugenio doesn’t stop, instead going into the training complex, through the narrow set of hallways and to a room that holds various piles of equipment. They stand there for a second, surrounded by shelving, watched by buckets of baseballs, gleaming white and not yet muddied with the particular brand of New Jersey riverbed dirt they coat all the game balls with.
“What are we gonna do?” Eugenio asks.
“They might be testing him out for triple-A.”
“Sure, I always get a guy called the Pitcher Whisperer to work with my marginal fifth starters.”
“I take it you found that article too.”
“I don’t want to spend another year going up and down from the minors. I’ll be twenty-eight in July—” which means that he’s only a year younger than Zach, and old for a rookie “—and I don’t want to waste any more time.” Eugenio grabs a ball from one of the stacks of them and then throws it with full force into a rack of unlettered jerseys, sending them swinging on their hangers. And again. This one caroms off a wall, ricocheting and hitting a stack of bats, one of which rolls onto the floor.
Another pitch, and Eugenio’s hands—steady behind the plate, smooth, quiet—are shaking.
“Hey.” Zach reaches for the ball Eugenio is gripping. He takes it from him and sends it rolling, his fingertips brushing into the callused basin of Eugenio’s palm.
“Do you ever want something so much,” Eugenio says, and his mouth is close at Zach’s ear, breath warm on the skin of Zach’s neck, chest pressed into Zach’s shoulder, “it almost feels like you’re choking on it?”
Zach doesn’t answer, not out loud, not trusting his voice not to shake like Eugenio’s hands are. Just nods, once, again.
“And the closer you get to it, the more out of reach it feels.”
“Only,” Zach says, “only all the time.”
And that’s when Eugenio kisses him.
There’s a moment, right as a batter hits a ball late in a game, a ball that’s going to be a home run. A silence like a collective inhaled breath before the inevitable explosion of noise. A pause, a stillness, one Zach feels now.
Eugenio’s lips are a little chapped. His stubble is a pleasant sting, his groan a pleasure that vibrates against Zach’s chest when Zach edges his tongue into his mouth. He kisses like he’s been waiting for this with the same blossoming want. The kind of kiss that yields the next and the next.
Zach’s fingers are resting against Eugenio’s hand, and he digs them against the meat at the base of his thumb. It’s enough to dislodge Eugenio from where he’s standing, hand on the side of Zach’s face, whatever lingering control he has splintered by the touch. There’s a shelf behind Zach, one that will apparently take his weight because he’s shoved against it. Eugenio’s mouth is an impatient scrape of teeth at Zach’s jaw and neck, his hands determined at his sides, up under his shirt, thigh interjected between his in a hard press, one Zach grinds into.
“Fuck,” Zach says. Because he’s wearing shorts and exercise tights, because they’re in an equipment room with an unlocked door.
Because the shelf hits the wall behind it with a sudden ringing clang that makes Eugenio stop, taking a purposeful breath.
“We shouldn’t—” Zach says, pulling back.
“Does the door lock?” Eugenio looks over at the knob like he can move the gears and tumblers just by staring at them.
“This is a bad idea.” But Zach goes, and it takes a few tries, fingers clumsy at the latch. He tests it, twice, like one of their teammates is going to rip the door from its frame in an effort to get a fresh tube of pine tar.
