Unwritten Rules

by KD Casey

  Gordon wanders by them and doesn’t say anything about how they’re standing three-quarters of the way to the dugout having a whispered argument and glaring contest. “Fellas,” he says, walking past.

  “Morales,” Zach says, because almost no one calls Eugenio anything but that in the clubhouse, except for Gordon dubbing him “Geno,” which Zach is absolutely not going to call him. “Look, fine, whatever, I’ll do it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I already said I would, so take the fucking W.”

  Which is how he ends up at a four-top in the back corner of a Cuban restaurant trying to make conversation with Eugenio’s parents, who are very polite, and very nice, and very quiet.

  Zach can’t tell if they’re not talking because he’s there, or if they just don’t talk in general, but the most they say after sitting and thanking the waiters for their menus is that they’re excusing themselves to wash their hands for dinner.

  There’s a dance floor in the restaurant, a stage with a place for a band, and the noise level will get worse if they start playing, not that there’s really anything to hear. Eugenio must see him looking over at the stage. “They’re not playing tonight. I checked.”

  “Thanks for thinking of that, you know, with this being a last-minute invitation and all.”

  “Zach—” Eugenio says, before throwing up his hands. “You’re my friend on the team, and I talk about you a lot with them.”

  “It just feels like an ambush.”

  “I didn’t know how else to do it.” But he doesn’t continue when his parents return.

  “Eugenio tells me you’re professors,” Zach says, when there’s been a lull in the conversation between the discussion of how the game went and what each person is going to order to drink. Neither of Eugenio’s parents ordered anything beyond water, and Eugenio stuck with an iced coffee, adding four sugar packets to it and stirring vigorously. “What do you teach?”

  “Religious studies, mostly,” his mother says. “A few core courses. Comparative religion, the history of the early church, but there’s a wide variety of electives.”

  “What kinds of electives?” Zach asks when neither of them follows up.

  “Religion and,” Eugenio says. “Religion and the movies. Religion and environmentalism. Religion and politics. That kind of thing.”

  “Next semester,” his mother says, “we’re co-teaching one on religion and sports.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Eugenio says.

  “We thought with, you know,” his father says, gesturing across to where Eugenio and Zach are sitting, Zach’s knees bumping the table and his elbow bumping Eugenio’s, “it felt timely.”

  “That’s, uh,” Zach says, and for the first time since they sat down, meaning it, “really interesting.”

  It turns out the course is on the unique intersection between religion and sports, and their role in society, and that occupies them through most of dinner and into the contemplation of, and rejection of, the idea of dessert. A long enough conversation—one that takes detours into a few stories from Eugenio’s childhood that make Eugenio flush with embarrassment and Zach from amusement—to unfray Zach’s nerves.

  Which is why, when Eugenio excuses himself to go to the bathroom, Zach isn’t expecting it when Eugenio’s father says, “We both wanted to say thank you.” He adds, “For helping him this year,” at Zach’s apparent look of confusion. “He mentioned that you worked together closely during spring training.”

  Zach flushes, a burning he can feel in his forehead and his cheeks, one he hopes they attribute to false modesty. “He doesn’t need much help with how he’s been hitting.”

  “There’s more to the game than that,” his father says. “There’s a human element to it. His team last year, I don’t think had a good sense of how to develop catchers. Things were more difficult than they needed to be. We’re happy he has someone looking out for him.”

  “Um, it’s not a problem,” Zach says.

  They take a rideshare back to their hotel, Eugenio handing him a bag with two to-go boxes before sliding in. “Did something happen in the minors?” Zach asks. “Your father said something weird.”

  “The fact that he said anything to you at all is kind of a surprise.” But Eugenio doesn’t continue.

  It’s a short ride, though their driver occupies most of it, asking Eugenio questions that Zach tunes out. When they get out at the hotel, Eugenio lingers by the lobby entrance, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one.

  It’s cooled off, and Zach’s a little cold. He’s about to tell Eugenio he’ll see him tomorrow, when Eugenio says, “Stuff last year wasn’t great. Bad development. I hurt my hip two years ago and it took forever for them to diagnose it. My parents weren’t happy with any of it—my not getting to play, the way the organization was handling it. It’s one of the reasons I wanted you to come to dinner. I thought they wouldn’t talk about it with you there.”

  “You could have just told me that instead of pulling that bullshit in the clubhouse earlier.”

  “They’re sort of difficult to explain.”

  “I mean, I get that, but it’s still bullshit.”

  “I did want them to meet you. If I can’t tell them about us, it’s important to me that they like you, okay?”

  Zach glances around. Their only real witnesses are the hotel staff, who are mostly occupied with returning valet-service vehicles to the garage. “Can we talk about this inside?”

  “Guys go out with each other’s families,” Eugenio says, like that’s all it was, the same as Braxton and Giordano and Braxton’s ex-wife all going to get dinner.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Eugenio has only smoked half a cigarette, but he finishes it and grinds it into the brick wall behind him, then discards the butt in a nearby trash can. “I bought cake if you want it.”

  Some of Zach’s s annoyance deflates. “Uh, sure, I guess.”

  They eat in Zach’s room, Eugenio procuring two forks from the front desk and a pile of napkins when it turns out the restaurant included neither. “I really did want you to meet them,” he says, after a while. “We’re close even if we’re pretty different.”

  “You don’t say,” Zach says. Eugenio’s shirt is off, and he claimed that he didn’t want to get food on it, though laughed when Zach asked him why he didn’t strip at the restaurant. “You look like them. I mean, except for all the—” Zach gestures to Eugenio’s tattoos “—and I can’t imagine they have as many opinions about tapas.”

  “You might be surprised by that once they get warmed up.”

  “It’s nice, them coming up to see you play.”

  “Like I said, we’re close. The rest of my family thinks they’re strange too. Growing up, it always felt like I was running interference between them and my cousins, who are probably more like what you’d expect.”

  “Everyone in my family’s loud. No, wait, my cousin Shoshanna’s quiet. I think. She’s a goth or was in high school, so I have no idea if she’s like that now.”

  “So, I should fit in?” It’s teasing, the way Eugenio says it, like Zach can just bring him to his parents’ Baltimore split-level. Can introduce him as no more than a teammate, a friend. “I shouldn’t have asked you like I did. I’m sorry. They’re important to me. You’re important to me.”

  And Zach looks up at that, at where Eugenio is sitting, the affirmation settling into Zach’s belly, warming him.

  “You look surprised,” Eugenio says.

  “Do I?”

  “You get this—” Eugenio reaches out, tapping a finger lightly to Zach’s forehead “—line right there. It’s...” He feels around for a word, and Zach’s brain supplies a number of them: sweet, goofy, panicked. “It makes me wonder why other people haven’t told you that before.”

  “You mean, what’s wrong wit
h me?” Zach can’t look at Eugenio as he says it, concentrating instead on the even stitching of the bedspread. He picks at the edge of a thread, his chest tight from embarrassment at having said that out loud.

  “More, what was wrong with them?”

  “Oh.”

  Eugenio kisses him, something soft, leaning over the containers of cake he bought, his forehead resting momentarily on Zach’s. “I want to tell my parents. About us. About me.”

  “Do you think they would be okay with it?”

  “I don’t know. I think they might be. But it feels worse to keep it from them.”

  “Even if they were fine with us being together, it’s not like we can tell them and expect them to keep it a secret.”

  Eugenio’s eyebrows draw together at that. “They would if I asked them to.”

  “Mine wouldn’t. Or they might because they didn’t want people to know, not because I asked them. Or they might tell just one person, and then I’ll walk into some family function, and everyone’ll look at me and just know.” Zach’s throat goes tight at the end of it, and he blinks a few times to wet his eyes, suddenly dry and stinging in the over-air-conditioned hotel air.

  “Zach.” Eugenio’s voice isn’t low, but his expression is worried. He collects the containers of cake, setting them on the nightstand, and shifts over. It’s not a large bed. Their shoulders touch, Zach lying on the mound of excess pillows, body feeling like he’s had all the air let out of him.

  “There’s this fundraiser in Baltimore my parents are holding over the break,” Zach says. “I don’t really want to go but I am. Morgan and her wife are coming to it. We were gonna go to the beach after.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I thought you were going to look for a new apartment.” Because Eugenio mentioned moving out of Gordon’s to some place where they didn’t need to worry about a dozen people showing up unannounced.

  “I can do both.” Eugenio reaches for Zach’s hand, fingers circling his wrist lightly, forefinger stroking over the tendons there.

  “You know we couldn’t be together while we’re there.” Zach imagines what that’ll be like—in his parents’ house, Eugenio a respectful distance away from him, wanting to touch him and not being able to. If his parents will surprise him with one of their friends’ daughters in an effort to set him up. If Eugenio will have to watch and pretend that it doesn’t bother him. That Zach will have to do the same.

  “That’s okay. Or not okay, but I can probably survive it.”

  “And they’ll probably stick you in a guest room with the world’s shortest bed.”

  “Where would you be sleeping?”

  “In another guest room on an even shorter bed,” Zach says, and Eugenio laughs at that. “I’ve never brought anyone home. Not like that.”

  “Not even a ‘friend’?”

  “No.” And Zach thinks about all the guys in high school he played on the team with—the ones he wanted to look at and didn’t, purposefully looking past them. The guys in college or the minors, the ones on the road he met through Grindr or at bars. None of whom he can imagine sitting in his mother’s kitchen, answering her unending questions.

  “If it helps, I’ve never met my boyfriend’s parents. So that’ll be a first for me too.” Eugenio’s hand is still in Zach’s and Zach adjusts, threading their fingers together, his heart at his ribs, and the ceiling above him a little out of focus.

  “It does help.” His voice is unsteady; he takes a few breaths. Next to him, Eugenio moves closer, a warm line at his side. “There might not even be an available flight.”

  Eugenio withdraws his hand. He pulls out his phone and makes Zach find his flight number. He books a ticket on the same flight, an open seat in first class a row ahead of where Zach is sitting. “I can return it for up to twenty-four hours if you change your mind.”

  “I kind of can’t believe you’re doing this. It’ll probably ruin your vacation.”

  “It won’t. But if you really want to make it up to me, we could go somewhere after the season’s over. Maybe the beach.”

  “That sounds like it could be all right. Spend a couple of days relaxing. I’ll even let you pick the restaurants.”

  “Oh, you’ll ‘let’ me?” Eugenio says.

  “Well, maybe I won’t.”

  Eugenio laughs and rolls over onto him, arms bracketing Zach’s shoulders, filling his entire field of view.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Zach says. “I promise I will.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  After the series in Detroit, they fly to Baltimore, a flight that starts out bumpy and never really settles. Zach’s nerves are similarly fraught. He spends most of the flight contemplating all the ways this could go wrong, even after his mother assured him that his friend was a welcome late addition. With the time difference, it’s almost ten at night when they land, and it takes another hour to get their stuff and make it to Zach’s parents’ house out in Pikesville.

  The windows are lit when they get there, his mother coming out to the front stoop as they each wheel a suitcase up the steps.

  Eugenio’s holding a gift, something actually gift-wrapped, one he withdrew from his luggage when they picked it up at the carousel. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says, and Zach’s mother insists he hug her in greeting, before turning and asking Zach if they bothered to feed them on the plane and then ushering them in to have the fourth or fifth meal of the day.

  His parents renovated their kitchen sometime in the ’80s, all wood cabinets and Formica. It hasn’t changed, save the paint, which he convinced them to do when a crack appeared in the plaster, even if they didn’t let him pay for it.

  Eugenio occupies one of the armless kitchen chairs, sitting across the table from Zach at a safe distance. He’s surveying the array of casserole dishes, white with blue flowers on the side, glass lids fogged with water. “This isn’t all for us, right?”

  Zach’s mom shushes him and tells them they both look thin on principle, even though Zach’s been able to keep more weight on this season than he has previously.

  “It’s not that much.” She pulls a pan from the oven, along with a foil-wrapped package that turns out to be warmed challah. “Go and wash your hands. There’s chicken.”

  There’s chicken, white rice, a container of squash with puddles of margarine on top of it, challah, boiled green beans with carrots cut into coins, a little dish of stewed apples.

  “You didn’t have to do all this,” Zach says, sitting.

  His mother reaches for his hand, grasping it, and recites a quick shehecheyanu, something she always does when he comes home after a long absence. Though it’s different with Eugenio here, looking inquisitive, as she says the prayer thanking God for sustaining them, one said on special occasions including, apparently, Zach coming to a fundraiser with a polite friend.

  “Mom,” he says, faintly embarrassed.

  “We haven’t seen you since January. I can’t be grateful that you’re here? Let me go heat you up some soup.”

  They eat. She sits and watches them, offering seconds, thirds, and asking if they didn’t like something when Zach declines fourths, complimenting Eugenio on being a “good eater.”

  Eugenio is sitting straighter than he normally does, and he answers Zach’s mom’s questions between forkfuls of food, when she asks him where he grew up, where his parents are from, what they do, and what their parents did. If they ever get to go back to Venezuela to see family, which he does, but says the political situation is making it harder for them to do.

  “Do you still have cousins in Russia?” Eugenio asks, when Zach’s mother mentions that’s where her mother immigrated from.

  “No, we’re all here now.” She gets up, offering more food. And Eugenio glances in question at Zach, who shakes his head slightly.

  They finish eating. Eugeni
o gets up to clear the plates to the sink without being asked, though Zach’s mom tsks at him to sit back down and to rest, and then tells Zach to come help her repackage the remains of the food. Zach takes the things she hands out of the fridge, various reused cottage cheese containers with leftovers, a clear plastic Tupperware container full of what looks like vegetable scraps: carrot peels, onion paper, a few sad chunks of potato.

  “I’m saving them to make broth,” she says.

  “Eugenio does that too. He’s a good cook.”

  And she pauses at that, looking to where Eugenio is browsing the set of cookbooks on the shelf. “Does he know how to cook kosher?”

  “Um, I don’t think so?”

  Which is how they end up in front of his mother’s cookbook shelf, taking out and then replacing various cookbooks. “This one,” she says, finally.

  Zach pulls out the New York Times Jewish Cookbook, puts it on the counter, shakes his hand as if protesting the book’s weight. “They’re gonna charge a baggage overage fee for this thing.”

  “It’ll be worth it.” She hands the book to Eugenio, who opens it and begins to leaf through it, fingers skimming the recipes.

  “Where should I start?” he asks.

  She ushers him back to the table with a set of sticky notes to amend various recipes where the cookbook authors didn’t know what they were doing, jotting down where to add a packet of onion soup mix or a few tablespoons of grape jelly to brisket.

  “Grape jelly?” he asks Zach, when Zach’s mother has gone into the other room for something.

  “It’s good. Or maybe it just reminds me of good memories.”

  “Then I’ll try to make it for you.” Eugenio says it low and then glances around before sliding his hand over Zach’s, the brush of their fingers together as damning as if they were kissing should Zach’s mother walk back in.

  “Stop.” But Zach doesn’t withdraw his hand.

  “She seems nice.”

  “Yeah, well, you had fourths, so you’re on her good side for now.”

  “For the record, you don’t look thin to me.” Eugenio gives him a look, one as warm as the incandescent light bulbs buzzing above them, one that he should not be giving Zach, not standing close to him, breathing the same breath.