Page 91 of Unwritten Rules
“No offense—” Zach’s teeth are clenched, his breath short in his lungs “—but I don’t want to hear about you sleeping with someone else right now.”
“Why?” Eugenio moves his hips, just enough to tease. “You worried they fucked me better than you can?”
Zach pictures it: Eugenio in someone else’s bed. His easy laugh and all his opinions, his tattoos and his hands and his lower lip. Waking up and kissing some stranger, face an awful blank, parting in the doorway to their apartment, visible to his neighbors, promising to see each other that night. He pictures it, and doesn’t trust his voice, but he nods, his tongue a weight in his mouth.
“Well, I tried, and they couldn’t.” Eugenio shifts, settling, hands on either side of Zach’s face, filling his entire field of vision. “So prove it to me.”
Zach lets go of the bed frame, blood rushing back into his fingers, sitting up, back against it, Eugenio finally moving to match him, mouth at Zach’s neck, body answering. The stubborn clench of Eugenio’s arms around him as Zach presses up, as Eugenio laughs a little as if delighted, kissing him and kissing him.
As Zach nearly comes, before stilling. “Can I?” And for a second, he worries Eugenio will make him hold himself there, will get up and walk out and leave him, alone.
Until Eugenio breathes the words on Zach’s skin, a permission, and Zach buries his face in Eugenio’s shoulder and chest and doesn’t wait any longer.
“Hey,” Eugenio says, a few minutes or possibly an hour later, “drink this.” He holds out a glass of water, cold from the fridge, and Zach drinks it, teeth hurting. He’s naked, leaning against the headboard, Zach’s face against his chest, ear pressed to his sternum.
“Are you gonna stay here?” Zach glances at the clock; it’s nearly three in the morning, the blackout curtains he has on the window shielding them from ambient city light. “It’s an early game tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will.”
Whatever tension is lingering in Zach’s wrists and shoulders eases, even more so than when Eugenio rubbed the spot on his back that was twinging. “I should shower. Or you should. Or if you’re hungry, I probably have something, or we could get someone to deliver.”
“Zach.” It’s a little exasperated, a little fond, the contrast of it with his heartbeat, the familiarlub-dubof it, sound conducted through Zach’s jaw, his heart as only Zach hears it.
“Yeah.” Zach yawns. “Okay.”
When Zach wakes up, Eugenio is gone, but the other side of his bed is still warm, the smell of coffee drifting in from the kitchen. He finds Eugenio wearing a pair of his shorts, which are tight in the ass, and looking half-awake. He’s frowning at Zach’s pantry—which is mostly unopened jars and cans gathering dust—in disapproval.
“Turns out,” Zach says, “buying a bunch of stuff doesn’t mean you can cook.”
“You have eggs, at least.” Eugenio cracks each one against the flat of the counter before dispensing them into a bowl, then adds a splash of soy milk, with some disgust, and a heavier pat of cream cheese. The mixture gets poured into a buttered skillet. It’s a sequence he did a thousand times in Oakland with Zach milling around his kitchen, half-awake and distracted. Now Zach watches him like if he looks away, Eugenio will vanish like the steam rising from the pan.
Out on the balcony, it’s a Miami morning, hot, air thick with water, streets congested with traffic. They sit, drinking coffee, eating eggs. “You have—” Zach touches the side of his neck, the stubble burn there “—a couple of them.”
“You worried someone’s going to say something.”
“No. Well, they might, but I’m not worried.” Zach’s phone flashes an alert, and it’s not the counselor’s office calling back, just a reminder that he set before drifting to sleep, Eugenio beside him, warm and steadily breathing.
He pulls up his email. There’s one from Stephanie he hasn’t answered, a list of questions for their upcoming interview so that he can prepare his responses—about what he’s willing to share and what he isn’t—about his hearing.Thx, he writes,these look fine.
He navigates to the one his agent sent a few days ago, about if he wants to stay in Miami for another season or opt out and try his luck elsewhere. Next to him, Eugenio is drinking his coffee, staring at the ocean, a mark from Zach’s teeth on his neck.
And Zach counts off on his fingers, beginning with his first full year, counting and recounting, and reaching the same conclusion—that it’s been seven seasons, not enough to qualify for his full pension, which he gets at ten. Considers what it would take to have three years of a long-distance relationship, if he’s in one city and Eugenio is in another. If that’s something Eugenio would even want.
But he can’t endure another year here, suffering in good weather, sinking slowly toward his retirement. It’s possible that no other team will want him. That walking away would mean being done in the league, the kind of unheralded career that happens to most guys lucky enough to play.
That if he answers honestly when teams ask,Is there anything about you we should know about you?their contract offers will be rescinded when he says he’s gay. A conversation that seems both impossible and necessary.
I’m going to opt out, he writes, and then hits Send.
“Something important?” Eugenio asks.
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
They play the last game of the series, Zach behind the plate for Miami and Eugenio for New York. Zach hits a single in the fourth, draws a walk in the sixth, and steals a few strikes from an umpire who clearly wants to get the hell out of the city, and is happy to expedite the game. Eugenio hits twice, both ringing doubles, and after the game, a reporter sticks his phone in Zach’s face, asking him why he thinks Miami has so much trouble with the Gothams. Like Miami doesn’t have trouble with the Federals or the Constitution or the Bravos or every other team in the division or affiliated ball.
