Unwritten Rules Page 8

  The pitching machine fires, and Eugenio adjusts, or tries to, and ends up eating a pitch that bounces off his chest protector.

  “Stop trying to move my hand.” Zach presses down on Eugenio’s arm with more of his body weight, not thinking about the last time he touched someone beyond the contact necessary to run drills. Not thinking about the constant, casual touching the game allowed—hell, encouraged—the attaboy slaps and head rubs and fist bumps, all predicated on the notion that it isn’t like that because no one in the clubhouse is like that. “You’re not gonna be able to shake me off at this angle.”

  On the next pitch, Eugenio lowers his wrist, defying Zach’s grasp, and he catches the pitch but flaps his glove obviously in doing so, muttering to himself.

  Zach adds his other hand, one above Eugenio’s wrist and one below it, praying that the next pitch won’t catch him on the finger. He focuses on the sweat on Eugenio’s skin, the position of his stance, the pop of the machine as it lobs baseballs at them. And not how, up close, Eugenio smells like ballpark shampoo and cologne. The way his arm shivers with effort as he tries to break Zach’s hold.

  “Wait,” Zach says. “Breathe.”

  Eugenio is close enough that Zach can feel it as he cycles his breath, the movement in his shoulders as he inhales, then a measured exhalation. His wrist stops tensing in Zach’s grip. On the next pitch, he adjusts his legs, his back, his ass, all of them working to move his glove, rather than moving the glove itself.

  “There you go.” And Zach ignores the cut of Eugenio’s smile. The trust of his forearm as it relaxes in Zach’s hands. “Now, do it again.”

  The machine fires, and Eugenio breathes, adjusts, catches, arm steady where Zach’s holding him. He drops the ball, letting it roll away, resting against the pile of them lining the chain link fence.

  “Good.” Zach eases his hold on Eugenio’s wrist some, and, shit, he must have gripped harder than he thought, because the skin there is momentarily pale before it regains its color. “Again.”

  Five pitches later—all on the same rhythm of breathe, move, catch, breathe, move, catch, breathe, move, catch—and Eugenio says, “Zach, you can probably let go of my arm.”

  “Oh, uh, right.”

  Eugenio laughs at that as Zach withdraws his hand. “It’s harder than I thought it would be. I thought it’d just be learning to move my glove less. Not this whole-scale revision of what I’ve been doing for fifteen years.”

  “That’s baseball. Everything works until it doesn’t, and then you gotta adjust.”

  “Fuck,” Eugenio says, though there’s no heat to it. “Yeah, I guess that’s baseball.” He leans down and begins unclipping his leg guards. “It’s funny. I spent years trying to figure this stuff out, and you diagnosed it in a couple hours.”

  “Well, hopefully, things are better here than they were in the minors.”

  Eugenio glances up so that Zach can see his face as he says, “I mean, some things definitely are.”

  “Oh, um,” Zach says, unsure what he’s supposed to say to that, under the weight of Eugenio’s gaze and the increasing heat of the Arizona sun, “glad to hear it.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “The Elephants are—I’ve just heard good things about other organizations.”

  “I wasn’t really talking about the Elephants, Zach.” And Zach suppresses the urge to glance over his shoulder, to see if Eugenio means someone else, which Eugenio notices, because he laughs a little. “I was stuck in the minors for six years. This all feels like, I don’t know, the best thing that’s happened to me in a while.”

  “I mean, you’re gonna have to get pelted by the pitching machine a lot more.”

  “Some things are worth the extra effort.”

  And Zach swallows, because otherwise he might say something stupid. Like admit how much he doesn’t mind this, even if he should. Objectively. A word that feels more and more out of his reach, compared with the sensation of Eugenio’s wrist in his hands or the echo of his laughter. “Yeah,” he says, finally, resignedly, “if you say so.”

  News of the first round of minor-league camp assignments comes that afternoon. Zach doesn’t have to see the list to know who’s being cut or sent down: A few perpetual spring training pitchers now past their usefulness as roster fillers, a bunch of teenagers who’ll probably spend the season in the instructional league. Guys who’ve been kicking around double-A their entire careers and will have to kick around it a bit longer.

  Johnson’s name isn’t on the cut list, and he’s practically glowing when he thanks Zach more profusely than Zach really deserves, since all Zach did was tell him not to freak out and get him a job scooping up golf balls.

  Eugenio’s name isn’t on the list either, though it’s not that surprising for a guy who spent last year bouncing between triple-A and the majors. It doesn’t stop Eugenio from asking to come by and use Zach’s pool, and if there’s something in particular Zach wants to eat for dinner to celebrate.

  “I think Hayek mentioned a cookout later,” Zach says, “if you want to come over.” One he now regrets agreeing to go to, if it means that they’ll be surrounded by teammates.

  “Maybe another time then.” Like Zach was the one doing the inviting.

  Hayek does cook out that night, with Braxton, Giordano, and Gordon—who rolls in with about fifteen people around him. It’s not so much a cookout as a “we survived” party for the players not sent down and an excuse for those who weren’t ever going to be sent down to get kind of drunk and very loud.

  Giordano is the loudest of all of them, blasting something from a set of speakers, pressuring Braxton to dance, as well as Johnson, who for a white guy from Alabama has moves.

  “C’mon, Glasser,” Giordano says, “you can’t just sit there.”

  Zach has been drinking a beer and trying to determine when he can make an escape, a headache vining around the side of his head and an itch in his ear from having his hearing aid in all day. “I think you’ll find that I can.”

  “Leave him alone,” Gordon says, with the kind of authority particular to veteran baseball players. He’s sitting, sipping from a beer, watching various guys dance or wrestle or try to prank each other, shouting occasional encouragements.

  “He’s being a killjoy,” Giordano says, as if Zach is single-handedly ruining his good time.

  “If he wants to be a killjoy,” Gordon says, “let him.”

  “I’m gonna go,” Zach says, getting up.

  Gordon tugs on the back of his shirt. “Don’t let this guy push you around.” He nods to Giordano.

  “I’m not.” But Zach sits back down.

  “Where’s Morales?” Giordano says—or more or less yells—at Zach. His breath smells like red Gatorade, and Zach doesn’t know if his volume is from overcompensating about Zach’s hearing or just because no one can hear over the noise. But either way, it’s annoying.

  “I don’t know.” Though Zach’s been watching the parking lot as other guys arrive, looking for the familiar outline of Eugenio’s truck.

  “Thought you were tight,” Giordano says. “Text him and tell him to get himself over here.”

  “Yeah, text Morales,” Gordon says. “You both are working too hard. It’s making the rest of us look bad.” Though he spends most of his time in the batting cages, perfecting his already perfect swing.

  Zach’s phone is up in his apartment. He sits for a minute, hoping that they’ll forget about it, even as he wonders what it’d be like to dance with Eugenio the way that Giordano is now with Braxton, who is trying and failing to find a rhythm but smiling anyway.

  It’s quieter now with Giordano away from them, the music fading to an ignorable thump. Gordon’s still sitting there, the gold of his wedding band shining against his light brown skin as he drinks.

  “For real, Morales is going to work himself in
to a demotion if he doesn’t unwind a little.” Gordon says it loud enough that Zach can hear, but not so loudly that it draws attention from their teammates, none of whom look their way. “If that’s your boy, you should be looking out for him.”

  And it’s said with no more inflection than anything else Gordon says, no intention behind it beyond pointing out—like Giordano did—that Zach and Eugenio are friends. But it’s enough to make Zach swallow around his own beer, coughing a little.

  “I’m trying to,” Zach says, honestly.

  “Good.” Like that settles some unspoken matter between them. “Now get going.” And he practically swats Zach on the ass when he gets up to go inside.

  It’s quiet in his apartment, the kind of quiet that makes Zach reconsider. He missed a text from his parents, a reminder about that fundraiser he doesn’t want to go to, asking when he’ll know if he can. It’s over the All-Star break. His parents don’t mean anything by it, but the assumption that he won’t qualify to go still kind of stings. He doesn’t text back—for one thing, it’s two hours later in Baltimore, and they don’t know how to mute the notifications on their phones. For another, he doesn’t have anything to say that won’t sound vaguely resentful.

  Outside, the party’s still going. He sits, thumbs hovering over the text thread to Eugenio. He could just open whatever app on his phone to see if someone’ll trade pictures long enough for him to get off and go to sleep, the outcome of the exchange both guaranteed and unsatisfying.

  Gordon told me to tell you to come over, Zach texts to Eugenio instead. We’re having a party. Eugenio doesn’t answer right away, but three dots appear—him typing—that then disappear.

  Gordon told you?? comes the response. You don’t want me there? He sends an emoji with it, a winky face.

  And Zach doesn’t know what to do with that. If that’s how Eugenio just is over text or if that’s how he is with Zach specifically, so he types, Come over. Eugenio responds, another emoji, this one smiling with a little cartoon blush staining its cheeks. And it’d be one thing if Eugenio was some guy Zach was messaging. But entirely another to have Eugenio send that back—and emojis look different on different phones, and so maybe he didn’t mean anything in particular by it—even if a traitorous impulse in Zach’s gut reminds him that he sent a come over specifically to see what Eugenio would say.

  And so he adds Bring food before tossing his phone onto the couch cushion.

  Eugenio gets there about twenty minutes later, holding a couple of grocery bags.

  “When I said bring food,” Zach says, “I just meant like, I don’t know, something you already had or some chips and dip or something.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Eugenio is already rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, his grin bright in Zach’s otherwise dim apartment.

  “Yeah, yeah, you caught me. What’d you bring?”

  “Come take a look.” Like Zach needs to be invited into his own kitchen. Like he can just go and hook his chin over Eugenio’s shoulder, watching his hands as he makes whatever he brought, listening to him explain it, the two of them standing together in the strange half dark.

  Eugenio probably wouldn’t slug him for trying. But he might pack up the stuff he brought, get into his truck and tell Zach he’ll see him at the training complex tomorrow, leaving Zach alone in his temporary apartment to wonder what the hell he was thinking.

  He goes to investigate the beer chilling in his fridge instead, uncapping one and then showing a bottle to Eugenio, who nods his approval, then doing a second.

  Outside, their teammates have gotten louder, loud enough that, if Zach notices it, the cops might be summoned on a noise complaint like they’re high school kids having a kegger and not millionaires.

  “Sounds like quite a party out there,” Eugenio says.

  “Yeah.”

  “We could just hang out up here. Sorry, I shouldn’t assume you don’t want to go back down.”

  “If it helps, I really don’t.”

  “Good, because this is gonna take a while.”

  There’s a bunch of bananas sitting on the counter, a box of butter, sugar, and a few other things. “You bought pie crust?” Zach says.

  “I hate making it.” Like it’s a moral failing and not just Zach razzing him about it. “The roll-out ones taste fine.”

  “That was a joke. And I guess I should volunteer to help, though I don’t actually know anything about cooking.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He’s peeling bananas into Zach’s trash can, and then slicing them into a bowl with a paring knife. He does it the way he swims, the way he blocks pitches when he’s not trying to frame: neatly, efficiently, like he put time and effort into learning how.

  “You’re good at that,” Zach says.

  Eugenio rewards him with the kind of look he has during framing practices, a genuine smile, different under the flickering lights of Zach’s rented kitchen. Not the indulgent one he aims at their pitchers when they’re being exasperating or the false grin he gives the coaching staff when he’s asked, yet again, to translate.

  “What are you making, anyway?” Zach says.

  “Tarte tatin. It’s not as fancy as it sounds.”

  “I don’t know. It sounds fancy.”

  “It’s basically just a quick version of a fruit pie. My ex made it a lot, and I picked it up from her.”

  “Gotcha.” The kitchen doesn’t have a place to sit, but Zach’s been leaning against a counter, watching Eugenio as he talks. Now, he wants an excuse to move away, to get out of the little bubble of the two of them. To remind himself that Eugenio is a teammate with a very specific hobby and a well-developed sense of gratitude, even if Zach wonders what it’d be like to come up behind him and rub his thumb over the skin above his waistband. If this was something more than two teammates avoiding a party together.

  “Do you want another beer?” he asks, even though he can see Eugenio’s is still untouched and his own is only half-finished.

  “I’m good. But for the next part, you might want to stand back.” He pulls a pan out of one of the bags he brought, a heavy cast-iron thing. Into it, he cuts cubes of butter from one of the sticks, turning on the burner, and rotating the pan to melt it.

  Sugar next, and he really does tell Zach to stand back, like he’s doing a science experiment and not making dessert, and Zach goes and investigates his phone and looks out the window at where the party outside appears to be dying down.

  “That’s gonna need a few minutes to bake,” Eugenio says, after a while. “If you wanted to watch a movie or something. I mean, I don’t know what you normally do.”

  Zach normally swims and relaxes and scrolls through Grindr looking at abs better than his own, before passing the fuck out. “Movie sounds great. What do you want to watch?”

  “Whatever you want. I don’t have a preference.”

  Zach laughs a little at that because Eugenio has preferences for everything: his coffee, his preferred spot in the bullpen. Preferences, and a particular pleased grin he gets when someone fulfils them. One that Zach likes more than he should. “You don’t have an opinion about, like, camera angles?”

  “Camera angles?” Eugenio aims a smile at Zach, one that makes him feel like he swallowed something warm and glowing. And it’s nice, it’s really fucking nice, to the point where Zach wants to open the window and admit the cool desert night, to douse whatever this is like he would charcoals after a barbecue.

  Instead, he flicks on the TV, navigating through the on-demand menu before picking a movie he’s already seen, something with a lot of explosions and not a lot of plot.

  “Oh, yeah,” Eugenio says, “this one’s good.”

  “I can pick something else if you’ve already seen it.”

  “I have to get up and check on that every couple minutes, so this works.”

  The living room c
ouch is, in fact, closer to a love seat, or at least isn’t comically oversized the way Zach’s couch is in Oakland, bought specifically so that he can stretch out fully. It feels small, especially since there’s no way to sit on it so that Eugenio’s thigh isn’t pressed against his.

  “We can turn the subtitles off,” Zach says, “if they’re in the way.”

  Next to him, Eugenio smells like whatever he’s cooking, like cologne and ballpark shampoo. With their shoulders touching, Zach can feel it when he says, “They don’t bother me.”

  “I’m okay either way. Mostly I keep them on, but, like, this movie doesn’t really hinge on understanding the dialogue.”

  “Really, it’s fine.” Eugenio gets up a few minutes later to go do something in the kitchen, leaving Zach’s right side cold. Zach’s phone doesn’t flash an alert, but there’s a message on his home screen, Giordano, wondering where he went, and then a video sent to the team group chat of Johnson chugging a beer through his own shirt.

  “Looks like we’re missing a good time,” Eugenio says, when Zach shows it to him. “We could go back down.”

  “Do you want to?” Though he doesn’t, not with Eugenio warm and laughing next to him, but doesn’t know how to say it without it coming out obvious.

  “That needs some time to bake.”

  “It smells amazing.”

  Eugenio has a few freckles on his cheeks that Zach hasn’t noticed before, a scar at his temple, another bisecting one of his eyebrows. He’s wearing gray sweatpants, and Zach doesn’t glance down at his lap or at the way his arms test the confines of his T-shirt sleeves.

  “I mean, I figured I kind of owed you something,” Eugenio says. “You know, with all the extra drills. And because I know that...” He trails off.

  And Zach’s heart kicks up in his chest, the way it does in a close game when he’s up to bat, sweat blooming between his shoulder blades, not from heat from the oven or from where he’s pressed against Eugenio on this armchair they’re calling a couch.