you don't want to win the lottery?
seriously not feeling a lot of what i'm writing right now, but, i don't know. i can never gauge these things. anyways. i have good ideas! lots of good ideas! for. once.
After All and After Everything
By Candle Beck
8:31 pm
It’s a good night for a party. The city is weirdly quiet, everyone localized inside, bars and friends’ apartments, empty bottles and cans rolling down the sidewalks, kicking aside noisemakers and pieces of tinsel.
Zito paid for the penthouse suite in the best hotel in town, as well as the rooms below, because it’s New Year’s Eve and they intend to be loud. Everyone’s coming. Zito’s been getting text messages all day, as he buys liquor and food and party hats. He’s got six new playlists and a set of waist-high speakers that are fresh out of the box because he didn’t bother to bring the ones from his place in Hollywood.
Everything is in place, it’s eight-thirty and Zito changes his shirt, fixes his hair. He takes a breath and says a prayer.
Eric Chavez is the first one to arrive.
Zito leans on the jamb, the door pushing against his back, and gives Chavez a long look, shirt as white as sunlight off glass, red jacket and black pants, dirty sneakers in case they need to run from the cops. Chavez’s hair is slicked back and there’s still salt on his skin.
“Welcome back,” Zito says, his mouth twisting. He tries for a moment to figure out what Chavez will want from him tonight, if midnight will change anything at all.
“Happy New Year,” Chavez answers, and takes a paper noisemaker out of his jacket pocket, blowing into it and making the scroll shoot out.
Zito grins, steps back to let him in. “You’re early, you know. I’ve been telling people nine o’clock.”
“You don’t say.” Chavez is terrifically uninterested, wandering around the penthouse living room with his shoes hidden almost to the laces in the carpet. He leaves his jacket on a chair, searing white as he passes the glittering city windows. Zito follows him barefoot, leaving tracks behind.
“How’s your boy?”
Chavez shrugs and smiles like Zito knew he would, a line easing out of his forehead. “He’s awesome. He never stops talking.”
Zito nods, feeling kinda sick. There must be something wrong with him, he’s using a toddler as bait to make Chavez smile.
“How was Hawaii?”
“Boring. Sunny. Napped a lot.”
“That’s good.” Zito balances on the arm of the couch, thinking that Chavez hadn’t really slept much at all for the last two months of the season. He has seen him maybe a dozen times since they left Detroit, one long week before Chavez went on vacation with his wife, seen him moving slow and trying not to pick up anything heavy.
Chavez doesn’t like to admit when things get to him, so it wasn’t of much surprise to Zito when he woke up alone in a motel room and read in the papers three days later that he’d gone to Hawaii. Zito had occupied himself in Chavez’s absence by screwing around with Huston Street’s mind, meeting with West Coast teams, dreaming of seeing Eric Chavez one more time before everything went to hell.
“All the guys coming?” Chavez asks. He picks up a clock and adjusts it to match his watch, which is calibrated to official naval time.
Slight sunburn on the back of Chavez’s neck, his head bent down like that, a strip the width of two fingers between his white collar and black hair. Zito realizes he’s staring, and looks away.
“Most. Joe’s in Kentucky, but Swish is coming back for it. Richie’s in. Um. Both Marks, probably, and Byrnes, which is, like, a total coup. Bobby and Danny are driving up together.”
Chavez smirks, still fiddling with the clock. “I wouldn’t take that trip on a bet.”
“Yeah. Bunch of my friends from L.A., too.”
“God. Save me from your L.A. friends.”
“Listen, they never did anything to you. You’ve got this totally unfounded mistrust of anybody who doesn’t play baseball for a living, and it’s really-”
“Okay,” Chavez says quickly, holding up his hand. He sorta smiles at Zito, out of the corner of his eye, and Zito forgets all over again that the two of them are not alone in the world.
Pushing his teeth into his lower lip, Zito watches Chavez’s hands, the way his watch clicks against the glass face of the clock. Chavez has always had good hands, and a week ago, before he left for Hawaii, Zito remembers Chavez holding on to his shirt pocket, the bones and tendons funneling down neatly into his arm, Zito’s perspective foreshortened and unable to gauge depth.
Heavy tension between them, just like now, but that’s nothing new.
“Hey.”
Zito looks up and Chavez is looking back, very dark eyes. He was sorely missed, Zito thinks, broke like empty pockets, Zito’s useless life on his own, and he swallows, says with a small break in his voice, “Come here for a minute?”
Chavez sighs like he’s been punctured, but he sets the clock down and crosses, one knee up on the couch, lays his hand on the side of Zito’s neck. Sand on his palm and the starched smell on his cuff, near enough for Zito to see the tiny silver patch in his eyebrow that has been there for as long as he can remember.
He kisses Chavez, fingering the stiff fabric of his collar, the slick back of his head. Chavez exhales against him and licks the insides of his mouth, tasting of pink-sweet Gatorade and a Christmas stocking orange.
Two weeks ago, they’d fought, and Chavez said that he never wanted to do this again. Zito believed him at the time and he believes him now, though Chavez is leaning into him, notched between Zito’s legs with one hand in his hair, and saying, “Baby,” with his teeth on Zito’s lip. Zito can feel the crumple of the noisemaker in Chavez’s pocket, crushed between them.
Zito pulls away a little bit, tracing his fingers under Chavez’s collar. He smiles, feeling mean. “You gonna tell me this is the last time again?”
Chavez’s face tightens, and he kisses Zito on the mouth, hard as a backhand slap, then shoves him off the couch. Zito lands on his back, knocking the wind out of him, and he blinks through stars and supernovas at Chavez, far above him.
“Tell me you at least bought the good beer,” Chavez says, and disappears into the kitchen, leaving Zito lying on the floor with his legs still jackknifed over the arm of the couch, touching his mouth.
*
9:26 pm
The penthouse fills quickly as Chavez hunches over Zito’s computer and fucks up all his carefully arranged playlists. Zito drinks two beers in fifteen minutes and presses the heel of his hand on the back of Chavez’s neck when he passes by, Chavez twitching almost imperceptibly each time.
Huston Street is set up in a corner of the room, talking with Rich Harden and keeping an eye on Zito. His first drink of the night is on his knee, condensation seeping into his jeans. Street thinks that getting everyone together for New Year’s was a fantastic idea, and he reminds himself to tell Zito that before the night is over.
Street smiles at Harden and Harden looks a bit surprised, but smiles back.
“I’m glad you came out, man,” Street tells him, clasping Harden’s knee companionably. It’s the last night of the year and it seems appropriate.
“Yeah?” Harden smiles down at the floor. “Couldn’t miss it, you know. Barry’s got an overdeveloped sense of occasion, usually, but it’s New Year’s.”
Street nods, exactly, just what he wanted to say. Zito wants everything to be a big production, wants to get it down on film and preserve it forever. Street thinks that it’s the right way to be dealing with something like major league baseball.
Across the room, Zito’s laughing at something Danny Haren said, shaking his head so that his hair falls in his eyes. His mouth looks bitten and used, and Street runs his tongue across the back of his teeth unconsciously, missing most of whatever Harden says next.
“-Lacey?”
His hand fisting compulsively, Street’s head jerks. “What?”
“She’s not here?”
Harden’s all innocence, blue eyes and glue under his nails from picking at the label on his beer. Street knows that whatever’s happening with him and Zito, it will have to be a secret, which is a sin of omission, which is a sin. Another sin, he amends in his mind. He’s been working on breaking up with his girlfriend all winter; it’s harder than he thought it would be.
“She’s in Austin. We figured, like, New Year’s is for friends.”
Harden raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. Street’s thankful for that, and he quickly polishes off his beer, asks if Harden wants anything as he stands.
Zito is standing with his back to the wall, watching Haren and Crosby snipe at each other with sheltered amusement on his face. Street takes up the space next to him, his hands folded at the small of his back. Angling a sideways look down at him, Zito knocks his shoulder into Street’s. Street grins, something bright and warm spreading out in his chest.
“Hi,” he says softly, like he’s wanted to do since Zito opened the door for him, with Eric Byrnes hanging on his back and bugging his eyes at Street over Zito’s shoulder. Street couldn’t say it then, not the way he wanted to.
Zito puts his arm around Street’s neck and pulls him close for a minute, Street gasping soundlessly into Zito’s shoulder, clinging to Zito’s shirt.
“Hi,” Zito says back, and ducks his head, presses his lips under Street’s ear, hidden from the room. Street shivers hard, feeling the muscles in Zito’s stomach hum under his knuckles.
Three months ago, in Anaheim at the tail end of the season, Zito had kissed Street in the hotel elevator, big hand pressing out fog on the mirrored wall. Their rooms were on the ninth floor, but when the doors had opened, Zito had drawn back, his face flushed, and looked at Street with something deep and hot in his eyes. Street had been shocked down to the heart of him, his fists on Zito’s shoulders, his mouth half-open and burning. Zito had smiled and hit the button for the forty-seventh floor, and swiped his tongue across Street’s lower lip, one knee pushing between Street’s, all his weight on Street’s chest.
“How’s it going,” Street manages, though he falls off a little bit at the end, feeling Zito sneak his fingers under his shirtsleeve for a moment before taking his arm away.
“It’s going okay,” Zito says, observing. Most of the guys are here now, arguing in corners and laughing on the couches. Mark Ellis is visible through the kitchen doorway, sitting on one of the beer coolers, demanding dances and knock-knock jokes from anybody who wants a fresh one. Swisher is taping scraps of paper with numbers written on each to everybody’s shoulder, for a secret prize drawing at the end of the night. Eric Chavez is staring at Zito and Street, his eyes narrowed and stony.
“Yeah. The, um. The hotel was a good move.” Street wants to put his fingers on Zito’s belt, but he doesn’t.
“You think I’d let all these motherfuckers in someplace I owned?” Zito grins against his third beer. “I don’t even live in this city anymore.”
Street blinks, confused. “’Course you do.”
“No, I will. I did once and I will again, but I don’t yet.”
“Oh.”
When Zito signed with the Giants, four days ago now, Street had to forcibly restrain himself from driving to California, reminding himself over and over again that it was just the National League. Reminding himself, he didn’t do it because of you.
Because three times after Anaheim, Zito had kissed him again, in the rough wind of Detroit, in the seats under the scoreboard at the Oakland Coliseum, in the front seat of his car. And once Street had kissed him, toppled both of them together onto Street’s bed in Austin, crawling up Zito like a pole, stretching out on top of him with his elbows dug in to either side of Zito’s head and Zito mouthing his neck. That last time, rain lashing at the windows, the gray sun setting as they got used to the angles of each other’s bodies and the pull of breath, Zito had pushed up Street’s shirt and opened his jeans and maybe Street thought, weeks later, that a dying afternoon like that was certainly worth more than a hundred and twenty-six million dollars.
“It was a really good idea to have a party,” Street remembers to say, thinking about Zito’s mouth on his stomach and nothing else.
“You’re a sweet kid,” Zito answers, but he’s not looking at Street, which is okay because Street is blushing pretty badly. Zito is looking at Chavez, who has risen and is walking towards them. Street feels Zito’s shoulder tense against his own, not sure why.
“’Scuse me,” Chavez says, smiling. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
Zito tips his head slightly to the side, sucking in his cheek. Chavez doesn’t wait for a response, slips into one of the suite’s bedrooms and leaves the door open a crack. Zito sighs deeply, and hands Street his beer, his thumb wet and touching the underside of Street’s wrist for a second.
“Trouble,” Zito mutters, then shakes it off, his eyes refocusing suddenly on Street. A sharp bitter grin cracks onto his face, and he bends down to whisper in Street’s ear, “If all these people weren’t here, I’d suck your dick until you screamed.”
Street drops the beer. Zito smirks and follows Chavez.
*
9:43 pm
Zito closes the door behind him, hesitates for a minute, then locks it. He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest, giving Chavez his best blank look.
“You rang?”
Chavez is pacing around, the light hitting the buckle of his belt at the exact same place every time he turns.
“That was cute out there. You and Huston. That wasn’t obvious at all.”
“Glad you approve.”
Chavez glares at him, though he knows that Zito likes it when he’s angry, or at least when he looks it. The lines of his face thin and are refined, and the black of his eyes is brought out, the muscles in his arms drawn tight. Zito has spent a good chunk of his life alternating between getting Chavez riled up and bringing him back down.
“He’s too fucking young,” Chavez says. Zito rolls his eyes.
“He’s twenty-three. Which is, hmm. Older than I was when you and I got started.”
“I’m not five years older than you are. And. That’s not the point.”
Chavez stops near the dresser, sets his hands down and bows his head. Surprised, Zito almost lets his arms fall, but decides not to, because maybe Chavez is playing him. Six goddamn years and you’d think Zito would be able to read him better.
“You’re screwing around with him,” Chavez says.
Zito curls his fingers in the hollows of his elbows. “Well. Yeah.”
“No, I mean, figuratively. Or whatever. You’re not taking him seriously, you’re only doing it because you’re mad at me.”
“That’s not true,” Zito says immediately, and wishes Chavez would look at him. “I’ve been mad at you for about three years.”
The corner of Chavez’s mouth inches up, half-smile. He flicks at the room service menu, clears his throat. “Interesting.”
Zito sighs, rubs his face with his hand. “Kinda fucked up when your relationship is predicated on mutual enmity.”
“Well, you find a routine, you stick with it.”
Allowing himself a smile, Zito wonders if he should go over there and stand behind Chavez, open his mouth on the nape of his neck, wrap his arms around, or maybe just rest his forehead on the back of Chavez’s head, sticky gel and slick black until he’s blind.
Chavez left for Hawaii with his wife a week ago, a week after he ended things with Zito, when they were still finding their way to each other more often than not, pushing at it like an old bruise. He’d panicked, waking up next to Zito again in some crummy motel halfway to Sacramento, and fled the mainland. While he was in Hawaii, Zito was cut adrift, moved around without direction, lonely and frustrated, and ended up signing the biggest contract ever given to a pitcher.
Zito can’t for the life of him stay away.
“What’s it matter, anyway?” Zito asks. “What do you care if Huston gets a little too attached?”
“I still have to play with him,” Chavez says sharply, and Zito flinches. “You’ve already left your goddamn mark on this team, no need to keep fucking us up after you’re gone.”
Zito sneers, lifts his head. “’Cause that’s just what I want to do.”
“Well, what the fuck, Barry? You start something even though you know, you knew that you weren’t staying in Oakland. You start something with the one guy on the team who probably still believes in Santa Claus, much less true love, and you think you’ll just be able to walk off fucking scott free whenever you decide to. Like, nevermind that you’re gonna kill him, god forbid you worry about that.”
Though Chavez is clearly not talking about Huston Street anymore, it still startles Zito when he punches the dresser, flat packing sound of his fist on wood, his face all twisted up as he cries out low in pain. He turns on Zito, eyes alight.
“And I know what ‘predicated’ means, motherfucker.”
Zito is halfway across the room, but he stops short, blinking. “I . . . assumed you did.”
“No, you didn’t. You never do. You use all your big fancy-ass words and you think you can get one over on me like that, but fuck you.”
“Okay,” Zito says slowly, and holds up his hands. “I think we’re getting off-topic.”
Chavez jams a knuckle into his mouth, sucking on it balefully. “It’s all the same topic,” he says around it, muffled. “We keep having the same fight and I’m fucking sick of it.”
“Look,” Zito says, feeling himself get angry. “You broke up with me two weeks ago, and what’d I say? Fine. Fine. I think you’re being monumentally stupid and it’s got nothing to do with your fucking vocabulary, but I say, fine, that’s how you want it, great. But that means that you’re no longer allowed to drag me in here and scold me about hooking up with somebody else.”
“When have I ever-” Chavez starts, his voice rising, and Zito cuts him off so clean he can taste it.
“Every fucking time. I fucking glance at someone sideways and you’re pissed off for the rest of the day.”
Shaking his head jaggedly, Chavez says, “That’s bullshit. I never once told you not to.”
“Right, only treated me like shit every time I did.”
There’s a sudden crack, gunshot maybe, from the main room, and they both jump, heads jerking in unison. A wail of laughter, it’s nothing, just their idiot friends. Zito looks back first, Chavez’s shoulders tense and high.
“Not everyone’s like you, man,” Zito tells him. “Not everyone has to be in love before they fuck someone.”
Two spots of color open like roses on Chavez’s cheekbones, and he pushes his hand back into his mouth, staring at Zito slit-eyed and suspicious. “’m not like that,” he mumbles. Zito sighs, because he knows that Chavez has slept with all of three people in his life, and married the two of them that he was legally able to.
“Whatever. I just. You’re the one who wants this. So. Quit acting like I’m doing something wrong.”
He wants to say more, he wants to tell Chavez that it’s always been extremely fucked up on some level and the fact that it’s ending doesn’t change that. Zito knows every crack and corner of guilt, he’s got it mapped out and he doesn’t want to feel this way anymore. He wants Chavez to take it all back.
Chavez’s mouth is hidden, his palm showing with his fingers curled back. He moves his hand away a little bit, says, “I don’t get why we can’t just be done.” He sounds honestly confused, slumped against the dresser.
Zito pushes a hand through his hair, exhaling. He closes the distance between them and takes Chavez’s hand down, testing the knuckles carefully, Chavez hissing between his teeth. Nothing broken, nor dislocated, perfect red circles rising, gleaming. Zito fits his thumb into the cup of Chavez’s palm.
“It’s been too long, Eric,” Zito tells him quietly. “It’s the kind of thing that lingers.”
Chavez doesn’t look up at him, his eyelids lowered, biting his lip. “For how long?”
“It was your idea. You tell me.” Zito places his fingers under Chavez’s chin and lifts his face, kisses him. Chavez sighs into his mouth and kisses him back, his arms sliding around Zito’s back.
Zito thinks about guiding him to the bed, laying him down, or even just against the dresser like he was picturing earlier, his hands digging into Chavez’s hips, and if he got on his knees, if he covered the shine of Chavez’s belt buckle with his mouth, maybe it would sear away taste and feeling, make him numb and able to let Chavez go at him roughly like Chavez always refuses to do.
But it’s early, still, Crosby’s voice barely audible through the walls, shouting out, “Ten o’clock, bitches!” They’ve still got time to kill, and Zito feels pressure start to build in his sinuses, a bellwether headache on the horizon and Chavez nipping at his lip.
They’re like that for awhile, and then Chavez leans his forehead on Zito’s shoulder and pushes back. He gives Zito a strange look, almost betrayal, and drags his hand down Zito’s spine before he steps away. He smooths his hands down his shirt and over his hair, and straightens his shoulders, looking clean and worthy of photographs.
Almost at the door, Chavez looks back at Zito, who’s leaning on the dresser and trying to catch his breath. “Your party sucks, by the way.”
Zito grins like his face might break, the pain in his head gaining power and speed. “You suck.”
Chavez rolls his eyes and leaves once again.
*
10:04 pm
Street is taking shots with Harden and Crosby in the kitchen. Crosby is a bad influence, pushing Dixie cups into his hand, grinning devil-bright and calling, “Go!” before Street has time to re-adjust.
He’s having a very good time, Street decides, wobbling a little and holding onto the counter. Harden whoops and smashes his cup under the flat of his hand, grinning wolfishly, blue eyes spinning.
“I am totally ahead now,” Harden says, and Crosby spits 7-Up at him. Street laughs manically for a minute, hearing himself cackle.
“And you, you are losing, little man.” Harden pushes at Street’s forehead, swiping his fingers through the thin film of sweat.
Street straightens. “Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t drink like it, then. Oh! Burn!”
Richie’s drunk. Street counts his fingers quickly and considers that he might be kinda drunk too. But it’s New Year’s. It still sounds as good as it has all night, and so he says it out loud:
“It’s New Year’s, you guys.”
“You know,” Crosby remarks mildly, squinting one eye closed as he pours out shots for each of them. “You’ve said that about six times in the past ten minutes.”
Street folds his arms on the counter, smiling at them. Crosby rolls his eyes and taps his paper cup on Harden’s, the two of them moving as a single unit, choreographed and amazing to watch.
“What do you think Eric wanted to talk to Barry about?” Street asks, because it keeps occurring to him on the edge of his mind, every time he looks around for Zito and realizes he’s not in the room.
Crosby and Harden exchange a strange look, half-shuttered eyes and tilted eyebrows.
“Nothing for you to concern yourself with, I’m sure,” Crosby says, taking care with each word the way he always does when he’s buzzed.
“Well, I’m gonna concern myself, aren’t I?” Street says blurrily to the countertop. “If this is how it’s gonna be, I’m pretty well obliged to concern myself, don’t you think?”
Harden doesn’t answer, passes a cup into Street’s hand. Street blinks down at it. “Oh, thank you, Richie. That’s very nice of you.” He takes his shot and flays his throat open, gasping. Harden and Crosby are something very close to giggling, mouths blocked by small white paper cups.
A loud crash startles everyone, alcohol slopping over on hands and shoes, heads craning simultaneously. Zito’s friends from L.A. have knocked over one of the speakers, and they’re laughing hard as the floor vibrates under their feet.
“Fuckin’ civilians,” Crosby mutters to Harden, and they glare at Zito’s friends, who are bunched together over the dead speaker, tight circle of backs.
Drunk, at least halfway drunk, Street lets himself think about Zito for a minute, bare shoulders and perfect skin over his hips, his hands open like stars on Street’s chest and his mouth between Street’s legs. A little too warm, Street tugs at the collar of his shirt, wonders what would happen if he told Rich and Bobby that he’s probably four-fifths of the way fallen for Zito tonight.
Maybe Chavez took Zito in there to tell him goodbye. Maybe everyone will, one at a time as the year shrinks down. Danny Haren probably has a nice little speech folded up in his back pocket. Zito is a small crack in dried clay, inching and branching out and eventually touching everyone.
Harden hooks an arm around Street’s shoulders. “Don’t worry about Eric and Barry. They’ve been through worse.”
Crosby snorts, “Right,” and Haren punches him without letting Street go.
“The stuff with them, it goes back further than any of us,” Harden says seriously. Street nods, because it seems like the thing to do, then pauses.
“Wait. What stuff?”
Crosby grabs the back of Harden’s shirt and pulls him off Street. “Nothing,” he tells Street, big sincere smile on his face. “You’re like a million behind, dude.”
Harden curls his lip up and pounds his fist on the counter, his face flushed all to hell and his hair sticking up in little spikes and whorls. Street watches Crosby fixing the next round, and checks the room again.
Chavez is slipping out of the bedroom, pushing his hair back and cutting his eyes around. Street watches him cross the room and blend into a group localizing around the couch, and thinks that Zito’s alone in there now, he could go in, lock the door, run his hands up under Zito’s shirt and lick his ribs.
He misses his window, and Zito comes out, looking shaken and harrowed, biting his lip. Street twitches in his direction, his heart jerking in his chest.
*
10:16 pm
Someone puts on Everclear and Zito gets a fresh beer, drops in on his L.A. friends, asking cheerfully why they’re being so goddamn antisocial. He’s not really listening to the answers, something about fuckin’ ballplayers, Zito’s palms damp with sweat and fisted in shirtsleeves. His beer is half gone already and his equilibrium is fading quickly.
People look at him differently now. As if he hasn’t been a millionaire since before he could rent a car. As if San Francisco is really that big of a deal. He’s off-balance, not certain who to lean on, but Haren grabs his arm and pulls him away without warning, and Haren is good enough, tall and strong with a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Yeah, I got him now,” Danny says into the phone, trying to communicate something to Zito with his eyes. Zito’s beer is on the speaker half across the room, and he misses it, his mouth dry.
“’Course he wants to talk to you.” Haren tugs on Zito’s arm. “You want to talk to Noah, right?”
Zito shrugs. Street’s watching him again, both hands hooked on his belt. He really is awfully fuckable, Zito thinks, smiling at him across the room and seeing Street’s eyes flare like streetlights.
“Here.” Haren pushes the phone at Zito’s ear and Zito takes it, not at all certain what’s going on right now. Chavez is laughing too loudly with Nick Swisher, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Hello?” someone says on the phone.
“Hello,” Zito agrees.
“Um. Hi.”
Noah Lowry, Zito realizes belatedly. A fucking teammate of his now.
“Noah.”
“Yeah. Hey. Happy New Year’s.” Lowry clears his throat, waits a minute for Zito to answer, but Zito’s sticking his tongue out at Street, Street laughing behind his hand, and Lowry says, “Danny says that you’re gonna fix all the stuff I’m doing wrong.”
“Well. Anything’s possible, I suppose.”
Grinning at Street, Zito thinks maybe that’s even true.
“Anyway. I’m real excited. I think this is gonna be really good.” Lowry sounds like he’s reading a script, something rote and memorized, and Zito says, “Yeah, sure,” and passes the phone back to Haren without saying goodbye.
A few steps away, he hears Danny saying, “Um, I think he’s a little drunk,” and Zito doesn’t like people making excuses for him, but he supposes he can forgive it, just this once.
Chavez is singing out of tune, “I will buy you a garden, where your flowers can bloom.”
Street stands up a little straighter as Zito approaches, fiddling with his belt for a minute before giving it up. Bright-eyed with gold around his neck, Zito can’t remember anyone being this easily happy to see him, not even Eric Chavez at twenty-two years old, shoving Zito up against a hotel room wall and grinning against his throat.
Zito brushes his fingers down Street’s face and Street blushes prettily, staring at his shoes.
“Are you drunk yet?”
Street licks at the corner of his lip, glancing up at Zito. “Maybe kinda.”
“Maybe a lot?”
Shrugging, white teeth showing, Street looks like he might fly apart from the inside out, if Zito keeps hovering this close to him.
Somewhere in the background, Chavez is singing, “I will buy you a new car, perfect shiny and new.”
“Listen,” Zito says, and flattens his hand on the wall next to Street’s head. They’re both drunk, everyone’s drunk, it’s a national holiday. Street’s breath catches, a whistle between his teeth. Zito tries to remember what he wanted to say, staring at the soft line of Street’s mouth, his smooth flushed skin, Eric Chavez filling his mind, almost shouting, “I will buy you that big house, way up in the west hills.”
Zito’s cold, his head aching hard now. He wants to spin, scream at Chavez to shut up, because it’s a dumb song and it’s not a nice thing to do to a person. His fingers scratch at plaster, trying to form a fist. Street touches Zito’s hip questioningly.
“Are you okay, man?”
Zito shakes his head, digging his teeth into his tongue. “Headache,” he says. Street’s eyes widen slightly, and he nods.
“I can. Do you want me to get you some aspirin, maybe? I could go get it from the gift shop. Would that help?”
Closing his eyes, Zito picks out Chavez’s voice through the clamor again, listens to him singing, “I will buy you a new life, yes I will,” and he nods, hears Street say, “Okay, sure,” and vanish from under his arm. Zito counts to fifteen, then turns and opens his eyes, finds Chavez watching him with a wild grin, people all around them like water.
Zito jerks his head, but Chavez’s face blanks and he blinks at Zito with black innocence in his eyes. Zito snarls at him, and turns away, fighting the urge to punch the wall. He breathes careful, once, twice, and when he turns back around, Rich Harden has materialized, standing in front of Zito like it’s the only place where gravity has a hold on him.
“Hiya.”
The pain in his head is making him sick, and Zito takes the red plastic cup out of Harden’s hand, a long drink of something musty and sharp and too sweet, tequila and Coke.
“That’s disgusting,” Zito says, his eyes watering, and he takes another drink, buzzing under his skin. He can’t tell if Chavez is still singing that fucking song, or it’s just stuck in his head. Harden snatches the cup back from him.
“Then it’s a good thing it’s not yours, huh?” Harden keeps a careful eye on Zito as he chews the plastic edge of the cup, says, “This is getting bad, you know.”
Zito presses his fingertips into his eyes. “It’s fine.”
“Dude. It’s just very awkward for the rest of us.”
Zito doesn’t answer, sucking on the inside of his cheek and trying to figure how many steps separate him and Chavez. No such thing as secrets on this team, which is A-number-one on the list of things that Zito will not miss.
“I mean.” A bead of sweat runs out of Harden’s hair and down over his temple. “You’re doing this in a room full of your nearest and dearest.”
“I invited them.”
“What, to bear fucking witness?”
“Shut up, Richie.” Zito takes the cup out of Harden’s hand again, sullenly finishing what’s left. Harden’s teeth have left little jagged edges in the plastic, interesting painful points on his lip.
Harden sighs and leans against the wall. “Sucks,” he says. Zito eyes him uncertainly.
“What?”
“I always thought you and him was a pretty good idea.”
Something like crushed glass in his throat, wondering where the fuck Huston is with that aspirin, and Zito looks over at Chavez unwillingly, sees the flicker of his hand and one side of his fine white shirt coming untucked. It does suck, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.
“Tell him that,” Zito mutters. If Zito had his way, six years and a hundred and twenty-six million dollars would have changed nothing. Chavez would have said to him, at some point during this long off-season, that wherever Zito went, no matter the distance no matter how far, they would work it out. Zito probably would have believed him, too.
“That contract-”
“It wasn’t about him.” Zito glares at Harden. Harden lifts his eyebrows.
“Okay.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Sure.”
Best efforts aside, Harden doesn’t burst into flames, and Zito turns his back on him, stalks into the kitchen and liberates a beer. Chavez isn’t singing anymore, just bouncing around in Zito’s head, making him hum.
Six years ago, this never would have happened, Zito thinks, and of course that’s true and of course it’s completely irrelevant. Six years ago, the sight of Chavez kicked up Zito’s pulse, destroyed his sense of place and time. Chavez smiled when Zito came into rooms, laid two fingers down on Zito’s mouth, cursed when Zito closed his arms around him. Strange breakless moments in stairwells and hotel rooms down the coast, Chavez telling him, “I’ve never done this before,” Chavez telling him, “You’re kinda growing on me,” Chavez telling him, “You can just sleep here, if you want.”
Zito rests his forehead on the empty cabinet, closing his eyes. He should have signed with New York. He’ll never live up to this.
“Hey.” Street’s loitering in the doorway, hesitant with a yellow blister pack of aspirin in his hand. “Got it.”
Zito makes a smile, turning and reaching back to take the counter in his hands, his shirt drawing tight across his chest. “Dude, thanks.”
Street smiles sun-bright and comes over, and Zito grabs him by the belt, pulling him in and kissing him. Street makes a surprised noise, clutching at Zito’s arm, plastic scratching at Zito’s elbow, and Zito curls his tongue up behind Street’s teeth, holding him still with his knuckles dug in at Street’s center of gravity.
Stupid, stupid, he thinks, everyone who counts right outside. Street’s so warm, this perfect clean boy pressing against him. Zito is not on this fucking team anymore, and he’s got nothing left to lose.
Pulling away with a gasp, Street stares up at him wide-eyed, as Zito fights for control. He wants to do all the impossible things to Street, tongue his way down the long path of Street’s spine, fit his teeth into Street’s hip, hold him down under handprints rise on his skin. Zito thinks almost hysterically that Street is one of the things that he’s saved until free agency, something he’s finally able to afford.
“Hey,” Street breathes out, and Zito kisses his cheek, lets him go. He takes the aspirin out of Street’s hand and chews it up, terrible acrid taste coating his mouth, chased with beer, and he bends his head, licks quickly across Street’s throat for the salt there. Street shivers, smiling at him and looking so goddamn untouched it breaks something small in Zito’s chest.
“You’re my favorite,” Zito says easily, without thought, and Street suddenly looks happy enough to cry.
*
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