Page 49 of Unwritten Rules
“You didn’t have to.”
And Eugenio smiles and shrugs, color up in his cheeks, the kind of smile he got when Zach kissed him goodbye a few days earlier, one that makes Zach wonder if their teammates won’t notice something is going on between them.
Zach examines the box, the care instructions that don’t seem particularly complicated. “I’ll let you know when I get it set up. You can come over and visit. Make sure I’m treating it right.”
Eugenio glances around like their teammates are hiding in their stalls, waiting to burst out and catch them. “Maybe tonight. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve planted anything before.”
“I wouldn’t want to mess it up, right as it’s just getting started and all.”
Eugenio looks like he wants to say something else, or possibly, like Zach, wants to sneak into a nearby training room and get reacquainted. Which is of course when Giordano walks in and yells at them that they’re due on the field and to stop beating off or whatever and to come play some goddamn baseball.
“Nice place,” Eugenio says later, when they’re at Zach’s condo.
“You want a tour?” He’s mostly joking, but Eugenio nods, and Zach shows him the exciting features of the sofa he sits on to watch TV, the bookshelf that holds the books his parents send him that he doesn’t read, the stack of comic trade paperbacks that he does actually read, the table with too much junk mail on it. And the rooftop patio that’s the reason he moved here in the first place.
There’s a long table, a stack of chairs under a cover, a few box planters, a couch with sun-bleached cushions. “This would be nice,” Eugenio says, “you know, to come out here, have a cup of coffee in the morning.”
“Yeah, there’s a pretty good coffee place nearby. I maybe checked a few out.”
“I thought you lived here last year.”
“I did. I just wasn’t going to get coffee for anyone else.” Zach scratches the back of his neck with his hand. “That’s, uh, okay, right?”
And he doesn’t really know what he’s asking, but Eugenio kisses him and says, “Yes, Zach, that’s okay.”
They actually do end up repotting the plant, which turns out to be aloe, Zach laughing as he pours half the soil onto the counter before using a paper towel to funnel it back into the pot.
“It says to give it a teaspoon of water,” Zach says. “Do you think a measuring spoon or like a spoon-spoon?”
“Do you even have measuring spoons?” Eugenio asks in the same tone that someone might use to ask if Zach has a spleen—something necessary that Zach doesn’t really understand the function of.
Eugenio digs a little disposable plastic medicine cup out of the kit that has the measurements printed on the sides, drawing tap water from the sink that Zach sprinkles onto the soil.
“What now?” Zach looks at the plant, half expecting it to start growing visibly.
“Put it in a window, water if it looks sad, and then mostly forget about it. They’re hard to kill unless you overwater them. If it’s still alive after a couple months, I’ll get you something else.”
“A couple of months?” Like it’s a foregone thing they’ll still be together. Something that makes him feel like he does about this season: the irrepressible hope that this is going to betheiryear. “I can probably do that.”
They order pho from a nearby place and eat in the outdoor seating area until Eugenio starts complaining about being cold. “Wait until you play in San Francisco.” Zach hands him a shirt to wear over his, watching the ripple of his shoulders as he puts it on.
“I played for the Rocking Horses. Two years freezing my ass off in Binghamton.”
“Looks fine to me from here.”
And Eugenio glances around to make sure Zach’s neighbors—some of whom have waved to them as they’re eating—aren’t around before leaning up to kiss him.
They make out, on Zach’s couch while ignoring a movie, and then on Zach’s carpeted living room floor, on one of the handful of throw blankets Zach lays out like they’re having a sleepover, Eugenio kissing him and kissing him. Zach shoves his sweatpants down his legs, and Eugenio’s too, jerks them off together. He’s looking down at the slide of them, slick, pressed together in his hand, when Eugenio says, “Hey, look at me,” and Zach comes watching expressions flicker over Eugenio’s face, Eugenio following soon after.
They lie like that together, on Zach’s floor until Zach’s hip starts to complain. He offers Eugenio a hand up, a glass of water, asks if he wants to sleep over or head out, and Eugenio smiles and tells him he’ll see him at the ballpark. They kiss against Zach’s closed front door, saying and not meaning goodbyes. And that’s his first real day of the season in Oakland.
They play an exhibition game in the cold pea soup that San Francisco likes to pretend is weather, the crowd a fifty-fifty split between Oakland fans in green and San Francisco ones in orange. A handful of lost spectators in Los Angeles blue get booed by both sides.
It’s a bullpen game, a chance to test them both out with various relievers, one in which Zach catches as many warmup pitches as actual pitches. Eugenio grumbles about squatting in the fog and then spends an hour warming himself up in Zach’s bed before leaving.
“Where are you staying anyway?” Zach asks, when Eugenio is gathering his stuff off the floor. He has to feel around for his wallet, which fell out of his pocket and got kicked under the bed at some point, giving Zach an up-close view of his ass.
“Gordon owns a condo in Uptown. He usually rents it out but he told me I could crash there until I found a place. It’s a little nicer than what I can afford right now.”
