by KD Casey
“Well, if you’re up here, I better go back downstairs. Wouldn’t want Mom to come looking.”
“I can go back down.”
She hisses when she puts her shoes back on. “No, it’s all right.” She gets another alert. She answers it, shielding her screen from him, before looking up as if daring him to ask why she’s keeping it from him.
“Is there anything I can do to help? I mean, I’m just mostly standing around and pretending like half these people don’t think I play for the O’s.”
“Must be real rough. Someone asked me if you were Joe Mauer, so, you know, enjoy that.” And she walks off.
Eugenio comes up a few minutes later, when Zach is standing in the guest room, door open so he can pretend he’s not avoiding people. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah.” Though Zach knows he sounds whiny. “Well, no. Everyone is kind of pissed off at me.”
“I’m not pissed at you.” Eugenio looks out at the unoccupied hallway beyond the door before pressing a kiss to Zach’s temple. “I might be if I don’t get to take that suit off you later, though.”
Zach sighs audibly, and Eugenio corrals him over to sit down, taking his suit jacket off and ignoring his protests that his shirt will wrinkle. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
And Zach tells him about having a fight with Morgan, though not what the fight was actually about. About Aviva being irritated with him. About how his parents still won’t take any of his money, even to pay for catering.
“I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.” Zach swipes his hand through his hair, and he’ll have to fix it again if he’s going to take pictures. “Is that weird to say?”
“No, it’s not weird.” Eugenio smiles, teeth bright, the familiar curve of his bottom lip, though it fades. “Zach, I think your mom is looking for you.”
And Zach turns, slowly, carefully, his face going hot, from where they’re sitting on Zach’s bed, too close, Eugenio’s hand resting on Zach’s thigh. Zach’s mother is standing in the doorway, frowning. A sense of creeping dread—not knowing how much she heard or what she thinks of them, sitting together—washes over him.
“Zach, your presence is missed downstairs,” she says, eyes narrowed. She doesn’t acknowledge that Eugenio is there too. And Zach doesn’t know if moving away is worse than staying put, but Eugenio makes the decision for him, going over to where he hung his suit jacket on the back of the desk chair and putting it back on.
Zach can’t seem to move. His shirt collar feels tight, the top button strangling him. “I’m going.” He breathes, trying to quell a rising sense of panic. “Just give me a second.”
She stands in the doorway, like she doesn’t trust them to go without her surveillance, hallway lights glinting off the gray streaks in her undyed hair. “You could...” She pauses, reconsidering what she’s about to say. “I’ll see you in a minute. And you should apologize to Rachel.”
“Was Rachel who you were talking with downstairs?” Eugenio says, when Zach’s mother leaves.
“I should probably have warned you something like that was gonna happen. Usually they’re a little more subtle about setting me up.”
“We could tell her—your mom, I mean—about us. She might already suspect something. And it’s not fair to Rachel either.”
Something Zach knows, even if it feels too enormous to deal with right now. “You know you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I know. But it’s still not fair to anyone. Even if you don’t tell your mom everything, it’s been five months.”
“Has it?” And it’s the wrong thing to say. Zach knows it’s the wrong thing to say as soon as he says it.
“Yes,” Eugenio says, tightly, “yes, it has.”
“I’m sorry. Shit, I can’t do anything right today.”
“Your parents don’t seem to have a problem with Morgan and Lydia.”
“It’s different,” Zach says. “It’s different when it’s their own kid, okay? Because it’ll be something like: Am I sure? Is it a phase? Or that maybe I should try dating Rachel or someone like her, just to see. I’m supposed to get married, have kids. Go to shul with them and live twenty minutes away. I can’t have that and still play. We can’t.”
“We could.” Eugenio comes up to Zach, hands on his shoulders. “Not now, but, you know, at some point.”
“You don’t know, growing up, what it was like.”
“I know what it’s like to have my parents put expectations on me.” His voice is gentle, like Zach will break if he gets any louder. “And you might be the first guy I’ve been with, but the thought occurred to me before.”
“Can we give it some time? It’ll be harder for them to dismiss this as not being serious if we’ve been together longer.”
Eugenio kisses him, a long enough kiss that Zach considers just shutting the door, shutting them away from the demands of the world, Eugenio a shield between him and the things he can’t bring himself to face. Then Eugenio withdraws, straightening the lapels of Zach’s jacket, smoothing his hand down his shirt. “Sure, Zach, we can give it some time.”
Chapter Twenty
The next day, Zach picks Morgan and Lydia up at their hotel for their drive out to the beach. He opens the hatch of his rented truck, moving to load their suitcases before Morgan goes, “What are you doing?” And she hefts them in herself next to where Eugenio’s carry-on and garment bag are stacked.
Traffic is kind of a shitshow getting to the airport to drop Eugenio off for his return flight to Oakland. Maryland drivers consider turn signals optional, but somehow Zach forgets each time and has to be reminded when a car swerves into his lane. Morgan and Lydia are whispering in the backseat, low enough that Zach can’t make out what they’re saying, but Eugenio looks back a few times, before resting his forearm on the center console, fingers a few inches from Zach.
They arrive, pulling into the departure lane. Zach pops the hatch of his truck. “Do you need a hand?”
“Sure,” Eugenio says, like he can’t bench well above Zach’s weight.
On the curb, Eugenio hugs him, a one-armed clubhouse hug, though breathes in Zach’s ear that he’ll miss him, even though they’ll only be apart for a couple of days. And Zach considers what it’d be like to kiss him there, standing at the drop-off point, before a car behind them honks for Zach to move his truck.
It’s a two-hour drive, down to Annapolis, then across the Bay Bridge and to the beach on the Atlantic coast. Their rental house is on a side street, walking distance to the ocean, little drifts of sand dusting the driveway as he pulls in.
“Ugh,” Lydia says, climbing out of the truck, “my thighs are going to chafe in this heat.”
“It’ll be cooler by the water,” Morgan promises, kissing her at her temple a little absently, then hauling their luggage inside.
Zach knows Rehoboth from its reputation—Morgan booked the beach house because of it—but it’s not until he’s out in a sea of beachgoers that it really hits him. It’s crowded; there’s not much space to navigate between blankets, beach chairs, enormous multicolored umbrellas. A few people hit a badminton shuttlecock back and forth. More are lying with shirts and towels over themselves, basking in the unrelenting sun.
Morgan puts down a blanket, Lydia settling on it, face shaded by an enormous hat. Around them, couples, some straight but mostly not, recline casually on blankets and build sand sculptures with their kids. A couple in matching swim trunks holds hands as they walk down the beach, and Zach doesn’t look at anyone in particular—doesn’t gawk and doesn’t avoid—wondering what it would be like with Eugenio here, out in the open.
“You all want to go swimming?” Zach says, setting his stuff down.
Morgan sighs, like they’re just not going to talk to each other.
“I’m calling a truce,” Lydia says, not looking up from her b
ook. “Mostly because I get one week of vacation a year, and I’m not going to spend it reenacting my parents’ Catholic divorce.”
Morgan sighs again, then gets up and nods to a football Zach brought where it’s lying on the beach towel. “It’ll be good to get in some throwing.”
So Zach picks up the ball, staking out a patch of sand twenty or so feet from her, the conversation of throw-catch-release, throw-catch-release easier than the one they actually need to have.
They go to dinner that night, at a place that serves seafood by the water, the kind that converts into a club after dark. There’s newspaper on the tables, beer served in a bucket of ice, endless baskets of crabs covered in Old Bay. For a while, the only things they occupy themselves with are crab and Morgan’s grousing that they take too much work to pick.
The restaurant staff begin moving tables, converting the area in the center to a dance floor, though not many people are dancing. “You gonna dance?” he asks, when Lydia flags down a waiter, requesting tequila.
“One week of vacation a year,” she says. “Of course I’m gonna dance. Aren’t you?”
And it’d be one thing to have pictures taken of him, at a gay beach, or at a restaurant, sitting, guarding Morgan’s beach bag, Lydia’s hat. Another to be on a dance floor, especially with the lights undimmed.
“I’m a bad dancer,” he says.
“So’s she,” Lydia says. “She stepped on my feet at our wedding. I thought athletes were supposed to be coordinated.”
And he remembers them dancing together, how Morgan seemed to radiate happiness, while he sat on the perimeter, watching them. “I think I’m gonna stay here.”
They go, and he watches the increasing number of people, the volume loud enough he can feel it in his jaw. He’s seated by a window, and he looks out, watches lights blink on in boats just off the shore, a few people out on the beach with flashlights or lanterns. He texts Eugenio a picture, the only message in a thread, having deleted all the previous ones the night before in case his family got interested in his phone, and gets back a picture of the place Eugenio’s looking to rent.
Nice kitchen, Zach texts, when Eugenio sends him pictures of the countertops, the variegated tile backsplash, the stove with clawed grates over the burners.
Wait until you see the bedroom.
A few guys come up to him, one offering a drink, which Zach declines. Another saying, “You look like—” and Zach’s ready to deny that he’s ever heard of the sport of baseball, when the guy finishes “—you could use some company.”
“I’m good,” Zach says, and then orders another beer to keep himself occupied.
Morgan comes back, hair sticking sweatily to her forehead.
“Is that glitter?” he asks, and she rubs her arms on him. “You know that shit never comes off, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyone ever tell you that you need to have some fun?”
“I’m trying to.”
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
Lydia totters over, swaying in her shoes, holding a shot of tequila. “Hey,” she says, batting at his arm. She holds out her phone and nearly drops it onto the floor; he darts a hand out, catching it. “Get one of us together.”
And she drapes an arm over Morgan’s shoulders, rubbing a hand up through Morgan’s hair, which falls in Morgan’s face in the first few photos, before Lydia turns, brushing it away, kissing her.
“I should probably go,” he says, putting Lydia’s phone down on the table.
“C’mon,” Morgan says. “No one here’s gonna care or take your picture or whatever. Just come and dance.”
“You know it’s not like that.”
“Zach, people don’t do that at places like this.”
“You don’t know that. It’s different for me.”
“Because I’m not a professional fucking baseball player, you mean?”
“Stop fighting with my wife, Zach,” Lydia says, before turning to Morgan, “and stop looking for an argument. Now come dance.” And they spin away together into the music, glitter on Morgan’s arms catching the club lights.
Later, back at the house, Morgan comes into the living room where Zach’s sitting, scrolling through his phone. “Come for a walk,” she says.
The beach is full-dark, the only lights from surrounding hotels, the boats floating out on the water, the moon above them. The ocean breeze pricks the hair on his arms. They sit and watch the surf for a while, the foam moving in and out, sand crabs scuttling for new homes with each breath of the tide.
“I’m sorry,” Morgan says, after a while. “Not that I got mad, but that I didn’t tell you I was leaving.”
“You’re right. I was being an asshole. I knew you weren’t happy.”
“I thought it’d be okay. You know, if I couldn’t play, at least I could be in the game. But the closer I get, the worse it is. And it’s even worse getting big-timed by some of these assholes who can’t even throw a fucking breaking pitch.”
“You got a good curveball. I don’t know if I said.”
“Yeah, and in another lifetime, I might even get to use it.” She blows a piece of hair that’s come loose from her ponytail out of her face. “Now, I gotta go hold a fundraiser just to get to Korea.”
“I’d give you the money.”
“I know you would. That’s why I didn’t ask. I thought I’d get to play pro ball. Even through college. Like maybe the game would make an exception for me. It’s dumb.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You know, sometimes I just wish I was born in a different body,” she says, voice unsteady. “Like, if I woke up tomorrow, and I was, I don’t know, a foot taller. A hundred pounds heavier. Male. I could play. But I can’t.”
“I know what that’s like. There was this counselor in high school. I ended up crying in her office, thinking I couldn’t play, because of my hearing.”
They sit, watching the white peaks of the surf reflect the moonlight, the slow flap of shore birds, circling and diving to scoop prey from the water.
“I know what it’s like,” Zach says, again. “But not because of my ear.” But he doesn’t get any further, throat tight from the sand or the saltwater, chest constricting like someone wrapped a belt around it.
“You don’t actually have to tell me, Zach,” Morgan says, eventually, “if you don’t want to.”
“I want to. I just don’t know how.”
Morgan gets up, brushing sand from the back of her legs. She leans down and offers him a hand up. “When I was younger, and the world felt overwhelming. I’d drive out to the beach. Stand on the rocks. Yell out whatever I had to say to the water. I felt like I was carrying all this stuff inside and just needed to put it down for a little while.”
She digs her toe into the wet sand, watching water fill in the divot. “I needed practice. Saying it out loud. I had to tell myself before I could tell anyone else. I guess I’m the first person I came out to.”
“I’m gay,” he says. It comes out shaking, breathless, and he sucks in an inhale before continuing. “I guess I’ve never said it like that before. I didn’t think I’d get to play baseball, and, if I have to choose between that and playing, I guess I chose, but I am.”
She stands for a second, then holds out her arms, taking his weight as he folds himself into them, tight, her fist on his back like she’s gathering all the weight there, casting it off into the retreating surf. “Thank you for telling me. For feeling like you could.”
“You knew.” He pulls back, swiping at his face with the heel of his hand. “I figured you did.”
“It’s one thing to know. Another for you to be ready to share it with me.”
“There’s more to it. Other stuff I can’t say. Things have gotten more complicated, I guess.”
They stand there for a while, Morgan next to him, arms not quite touching, a
nd he considers the ocean at night. How the water moves the sand and the wind blows it around. How the waves reset the shore.
“I’m sorry that I’m leaving,” Morgan says. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like that.”
“Don’t be. I wish I had the guts to tell the team to shove it.”
“You know they’re tanking your playing time, right? And floating your name in trade talks?”
“Well, fuck.” And it figures, given how the team reacted to him winning his arbitration case arguing for a higher salary. But it’s another thing to have it confirmed.
“I thought it’d be good news. Maybe you can get the hell out of Oakland.”
“I’d prefer not to leave. Even if it means I take less money.” His phone flashes an alert where he has it in his pocket, Eugenio a continent away, sending him pictures of a kitchen he wouldn’t have time to cook in, or lying sleepless in his bed, complaining that it’s too hot with the window closed or too cold with it open, and that Zach isn’t there with him. A set of messages Zach will delete later like they never existed.
“Is that part of the ‘complicated?’” she asks.
“There’s stuff I’m not ready to say.” Things he’s not ready to admit to himself, much less anyone else. How tenuous everything feels—with Eugenio, with the team—like trying to hold on to water. “I don’t know when I will be.”
She claps a hand on his shoulder, then leaves him standing there, watching the waves as they rise and crest and fall, the ocean returning to itself. Above him, the night-flying birds wheel, their calls erased in the wind.
Chapter Twenty-One
October, Three Years Ago
That fall, they drive down the coast from Oakland to the beach house Eugenio rented in Cambria. Zach sleeps for most of the drive, his body is still working off the ache from their season ending with an elimination in the division series. Five games against the Union, interspersed with having to haul ass to New York and back, accompanied by the kind of jet lag that sets in and never lets off.
His parents called after the game to commiserate with him for a while and then ask when he’s coming back to Baltimore. His mother asked who he was going to the beach with and looked skeptical when he said, “A friend.”