Page 53 of Unwritten Rules
“What?”
“You’re wearing my shirt. They can probably see it.”
Eugenio cranes his head, trying to see what’s printed across his back. “You think they’re gonna tell someone?”
Zach’s neighbors are both women in their fifties who co-parent an English bulldog Zach sometimes sees them taking for walks. He doesn’t think they’ll say anything.
But they might complain to the condo board if they think Eugenio’s living there and Zach isn’t paying for an extra parking spot, especially when Eugenio’s truck is in the guest parking more often than not. Or when Eugenio routinely violates the building’s no-smoking policy, sneaking out onto the patio at night and leaving charred rings of ash where he grinds his cigarettes to put them out. Neither of which is a discussion Zach particularly wants to have publicly.
“If it doesn’t matter, just turn around,” Zach says.
Eugenio does, rolling his eyes, scooting his chair, which scrapes on the concrete floor of the patio. “Now the sun’s in my eyes.”
“For real?”
“Sorry, I’m just really fucking tired.” Eugenio drinks the rest of his coffee, hand enveloping the Proud Parent of an Honor Roll Student mug from when Aviva was in high school. “They want me to do a rookie profile with theEast Bay Tribune.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s rookie profile season. All the PR folks love a rookie profile.”
“Stephanie’s been pretty adamant about it.”
“She gets that way,” Zach says. “Mostly because it’s of guys she hasn’t had to yell at before. Usually.”
“It’s going to be me and her and some reporter. Gordon said he might swing by if he’s in the area.”
“So, you, Stephanie, some reporter, and eighty to a hundred of Gordon’s closest friends and relatives.”
“He probably won’t. Once he figured I wasn’t going to burn his condo down, he stopped checking on me. But Stephanie mentioned having, like, an angle other than just being a ballplayer.”
“Yeah, she also loves an angle.”
“What was yours?”
She asked Zach if he wanted to talk about his hearing aid, about the challenges that came from playing with hearing loss—or despite it, as she phrased it. But she didn’t ask about it again when he answered a flatno.
“Growing up an O’s fan. I’m really not that interesting. Plus, I don’t know what I’d have to do with you having an angle anyway. You’re interesting enough for two people.”
Eugenio glances over at Zach’s neighbors, who are both in downward-facing dog poses, angled toward them. He leans over, taking Zach’s mug and setting it on a little rattan table, and then wraps his hand around Zach’s forearm, squeezing once, twice, before releasing it.
“What was that for?” Zach asks.
“I figured they might notice if I kissed you.”
And Zach’s sure whatever expression he’s wearing is just as likely to give them away: something too affectionate for his rooftop in full view of his neighbors. He schools his face back to neutral, though it’s difficult with the way Eugenio is looking at him, like he might kiss him anyway.
Zach hasn’t looked at his phone in a while, but the sun is up higher, and they should probably get going to the park. It’s an afternoon game, the kind where they’ll be in shadow for parts of it, and he doesn’t envy Eugenio having to catch Hayek’s sliders, even if Zach is unhappy being benched.
“So, you’ll do the profile?” Eugenio asks. “I figured, I don’t know, the angle could be us being a tandem. You’d just have to come, hang out, talk about how well I’m hitting. I’ll talk about how well you’re catching.” He picks his mug back up. “And I could use someone else there. The media training was basically just horror stories about stupid shit players have done over the years.”
“Did I figure highly in it?” Though Zach mostly avoids doing extra PR, both from awkwardness and the irrational fear that being on camera will make him confess all his secrets, including the one currently wearing his shirt.
“Apparently, you and Gordon are the only ones Stephanie doesn’t have to yell at.”
“It might be obvious that we’re—” Zach gestures between them “—you know. Together.”
Eugenio looks at him from over his cup of coffee, eyebrows raised.
“I mean...” And panic begins to coil itself around Zach’s spine. “I didn’t mean, um, if we aren’t...”
