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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.
*
10:58 pm
Street is definitely drunker than he intended to get, and he’s having difficulty detaching himself from Zito’s side. They’re out on the balcony with Zito’s L.A. friends, who are passing a joint, and Zito’s arm is around Street’s shoulders, making him feel light-headed and giddy, chosen.
“Your teammates are weird,” one of Zito’s friends says. Ted, Street thinks. Or Tim. Or Todd. Or, possibly, Zachary.
“Not my teammates anymore,” Zito answers, wind cutting in from the bay and making him shiver against Street. Street is not cold, warmed by liquor and other things.
“Your former teammates are weird,” the guy with a T name amends. “That guy Dan was talking to me? I didn’t hear him use a single verb.”
“Yeah, well. Life like we got, half the year, motherfuckers are in each other’s pockets all the damn time. We’ve developed a shorthand.” He shifts his arm, scratchy coat fabric on the back of Street’s neck. “Also, I like the way you’re talking about this with Huston right fucking here.”
Street looks up at the sound of his name, blinking. The guy with a T name shrugs, taking a hit on the joint, his eyes scrunched and red.
“The kid doesn’t care, he’s cool. You’re cool, Huston, right?”
Street nods emphatically, feeling like a freshman snuck into a senior party. Zito snorts and takes the joint, blowing across the halloween orange tip of it. Smoke weaves into Street’s eyes, making them water, blurring Zito as he inhales. Street can feel Zito’s chest expanding against his arm. He’s not really cool, he knows, but he’d like to be. Maybe if someone offers him the joint, he’ll even have some, fog himself up on the inside.
“Danny’s a little weird,” Street says, trying it out, though Danny has never been anything but perfect to him, all tall and funny and lending him DVDs. Zito starts laughing immediately, coughing out clouds of smoke, and Street grins until it hurts, hopping slightly in place. It’s easy to brush aside the small curl of shame in his stomach, with Zito laughing so hard. The other guys are snickering, mostly at Zito, but maybe a little because Street said something funny, too.
One of Zito’s friends has his hand hooked in another’s belt, Street notices, and he’s grateful for the dim light as his face heats. Weirdly disappointed, to find that this little crisis of his is not at all unique. It’s not a crisis, he reminds himself patiently. He’s really very excited about the whole thing.
“Which, who’s the one you were telling me about?” one of them, very likely named Jake, asks Zito. Street feels him go taut and still, rubs his elbow as comfortingly as he can on Zito’s side.
Zito narrows his eyes, takes another hit. The thick smell will linger on his skin, Street thinks, maybe it’ll even have a taste. He’s staring at Zito without bothering to hide it, protected by the height of the city around him and the solid metal under his feet.
“Don’t know who you mean,” Zito says, odd tightness in his voice.
“Sure, sure you do. Like, last year, I guess, when we were at that Valley party and you were really really drunk, couldn’t shut up about him. Your boy, you were all crazy about him. You said he was the best reason for breathing, remember?”
Zito says sharply, “Jake,” and Street says like an echo, very small, “What?”
Jake looks surprised, flinching a bit. He looks at Zito, then at Street, then back at Zito. “Fuck, dude, you didn’t tell me it was a secret.”
Zito snarls, the line of his cheekbone standing out starkly and the jay still burning in his hand. The red airplane warning lights on a building opposite tuck under his chin and bleed into him, making him look like his throat’s been cut.
“Goddamn it,” Zito starts, but then Street slams his elbow into Zito’s stomach, not realizing he was gonna do that until it’s done, and Zito is gasping. His L.A. friends are watching them like a particularly good car wreck, eyes big and round.
“What?” Street says more forcefully, and he’s shaking.
Twisted up, pressing his fist into his stomach with the jay sticking out like an antennae between his fingers, Zito gives Street a desperate look of regret, and says weakly, “Guys, could you?”
His friends file silently back inside. Street moves out from under Zito’s arm, clutching his elbows. The city rakes upwards, daggers and syringes, the lights and colors smearing and Street is reeling drunk, his head spinning.
“Who?” he asks, praying that Zito will say Mulder, Hudson, someone long gone. Someone not inside the penthouse right now.
Zito breathes out slowly and drags on the jay, the orange flaring onto his face. Street can’t look at him, the marks under his heavy half-lidded eyes and the wrench of Zito’s laughter sometimes. Zito had come after him so quickly and so directly, pressing against Street in that elevator, watching him all the time. He’d been so obvious, as the season ran itself down, his wide hand on Street’s back, biting Street’s lip in Detroit and swelling it up, everyone teasing him about groupies for days, and Street blushing, pushing his tongue into the cut, liking the taste of it and the way Zito stared.
“Look, it doesn’t matter.”
Street snatches a furious look at him, gripping the cold iron on the rail. Out from under Zito’s arm, it’s cold as hell up here. “Then it shouldn’t make any difference if I know.”
Zito winces, sucking in smoke, his cheeks hollowed. He sighs, and his face is almost completely obscured by smoke, and he says, “Chavez.”
Street shakes his head automatically, his palms going numb. “But he’s married.”
“He wasn’t always. We. We go back kinda far.”
“Further than any of us,” Street whispers to himself. Zito’s head snaps up, and Street looks away, swallowing thickly. Eric Chavez, handsome and steady and cracking inside jokes with Zito, smiling clean when Zito laughed, half a dozen years’ headstart and Zito’s gone now, Street will never catch up. “Was it for real?”
Sucking in his cheek, Zito fiddles with the jay. “Yeah.”
A string of pops, homemade fireworks, rattles from the south, far away like everything else. The drunk keeps surprising Street, as he helplessly pictures it, Chavez’s dark eyes and Zito’s long arms, his stomach coiling, feeling like his blood is vibrating. He fears the distance separating them from the sidewalk, the wind pushing at the hotel and making it sway, and Street’s head is all screwed up, muscles in his back pinched.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah, because you’re taking it really well.”
“Shut up,” Street says, fast and very much unlike him, seeing the mild stoned shock on Zito’s face and kicking it aside. “You, how could you not tell me?”
Zito tries the jay again, clearly his way of avoiding the issue, but it’s burned down too far and singes his lip, his fingers. He hisses in pain and flicks it away. “Fuck. It was ending. It. It’s ended.”
Street looks down over the rail, long long way down, blood-vessel cars the size of coins, the breath and heart of the night, terrible to do this to him now, to ruin the whole year like none of it meant anything.
“When?”
Sighing, Zito comes to stand beside him, but doesn’t touch him, closing his hands on the rail and mirroring Street’s position. His lowered profile is bruised and sad. “Two weeks ago.”
Street’s eyes swell, and he shakes his head again, digging his teeth into his lip. His balance swims and nearly deserts him, clinging to the rail with all of his power, listing forward.
“Son of a bitch,” Street says under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut. He was going to give up everything for this. It was supposed to be the only thing from now on.
“Huston, don’t-” Zito tries to touch his shoulder, and Street yanks away, his face ablaze.
“You get the fuck away from me. Just. Stay the fuck away.”
He sees Zito’s face collapse and something goes badly wrong in his chest, and he spins, staggers into the light and heat and sound of the penthouse, fifty-eight stories high and falling.
*
11:26 pm
Zito focuses on a party in another hotel, across the street, yellow windows and blue light and pretty laughing people wearing strings of shiny plastic beads and coned paper hats. He’d like to be over there, in a room full of strangers, with music that he doesn’t know and inexpensive liquor. He feels fucking awful.
Chavez had been angry at him for months; that’s what Zito remembers. He’d put his hand on Chavez’s back in the clubhouse, bring oranges to his hotel room, have a beer waiting for him when Chavez met him at a bar, and none of it had worked. Chavez kept pulling away and picking fights, all through the summer, the early fall.
Zito knew that Chavez was building up to leaving him for a long time before it happened. Something about Zito’s approaching free agency, something about Chavez’s son, who had learned to speak, called Zito by name. Chavez’s reasons weren’t really clear, but it didn’t matter. It was killing Zito. He did what he could, stretching his patience, offering Chavez everything, but it still hurt Chavez to look at him.
It was difficult to play like that, Chavez ever at his back, haunting third and scowling at him from under the brim of his cap, blocky shadows and rough dirt on his hands. Impossible to sleep or breathe properly, Zito’s life transformed into this crooked black-and-white thing, a joke.
And sometimes, when Chavez was pissed off at him, wouldn’t return his calls and made his back into a wall, sometimes seeing Street had been enough to put the color back in the world. Kind of an awful thing, because the rest of the time, Zito had known exactly what he was doing with Street, wasting time, distracting himself from what Chavez was doing to him.
Street was way too good for him, something Zito couldn’t quite shake, and he was so surprised all the time. Zito had wandered around for awhile after the season was over, not wanting his life to stay the way it was, different skylines and bodies of water. He ended up in Orlando and New York and finally Austin, drinking beer under the bridge, watching bats whip into the night like black rain, fooling around Street’s bed, feeling like he’d made it someplace good at last.
Zito had known exactly what he was doing. He can’t remember ever hearing Street curse like that before.
The sliding glass door squeals a bit as it’s pushed open, and Zito locks his palms on the rail as Chavez says behind him, “Well.”
Breaking a little bit, Zito crumples down, resting his forehead on the rail. It’s almost frozen, a clear red line that he can feel digging through his skin, into bone.
“Leave me alone.”
There’s a pause, and then Chavez clears his throat. “I don’t know, man. He came in like something was chasing him.”
“Please, just.” Zito stops. He can’t believe what he’s done.
“Don’t worry. Rich and Bobby are taking care of him. He’ll see the new year in, by god.”
“Eric, please,” Zito says helplessly, familiar anger in Chavez’s voice, running over him like water.
“I’m just, how fucking impressive, dude. Five minutes alone with you and he’s wrecked like nothing I’ve ever seen. That’s got to be a record.”
Zito wrenches up, turns to face Chavez with his numb hands trembling. “I’m asking you, please, please don’t do this to me.”
But Chavez’s expression is drunk-bright and near homicidal, slack mouth and the lines of arms drawn tight. He’s backlit from inside, the city shining in his eyes.
“What’d you do to him?”
“I. Nothing. It was nothing.” Say something often enough and it comes true, Zito thinks, and I don’t love you anymore, I never did. He wants to say it so badly.
“Obviously.” Chavez sneers. “You just, like, existed, and somehow he got the wrong idea, right?”
“He got the right idea,” Zito says without thinking. “He found out about you.”
Chavez goes very still. He’s not wearing his jacket, the wind flicking hard at his clean white shirt and making him shiver involuntarily, but in all other ways he’s motionless.
“You didn’t,” he says slowly. Zito ducks his head and grips the rail behind him so tight he can feel the metal seeping through his skin, poisoning his blood. “You did not tell him about me.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Zito remembers Chavez rolling him over once and pushing the pillow off his head, several years ago, looking surprised to find them in bed together again, Chavez telling him, it’s dangerous because you make me want to tell everyone I know, like, people on the street and my mom and, god.
“I didn’t,” he manages. “Not really. Someone said something and I just. I confirmed it.”
Chavez’s skin is turning gray, he must be freezing. He’s staring at Zito with his eyes flat and black and astonished, like Zito just tried to kill him.
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Chavez almost screams, and Zito flinches, too off-balance for this.
“Half the team knows,” he argues weakly.
“Yeah, the half that’s known us for longer than two fucking years.”
That’s not at all true, but Zito doesn’t see how it matters, anyway. They didn’t bother keeping it much of a secret because they didn’t have time for that. And it seemed incredibly unimportant, when Chavez was the single greatest thing that had ever happened to him, a shred of light in his life. Zito didn’t know how to hide that, it beat out of him like air.
“He’s not gonna tell or anything,” Zito says.
“How the fuck do you know? You’ve broken his heart, man, why wouldn’t he try and take us down?”
“Because he’s not like that! Jesus, Eric, listen to yourself. He’s on the team.”
Chavez laughs without joy. “He’s on my team. And now I get to see him all fucking teary and hating me for the next decade. You fucking asshole.”
Zito pulls a hand through his hair, feeling bits of paint and rust flake off. He wishes more than anything that Chavez hadn’t broken up with him; even at their worst, Chavez never looked at him like he wanted to hear what Zito might sound like screaming on a fifty-eight story fall.
“I can’t believe you,” Chavez hisses. “You leave, you’re supposed to stay gone. We’re supposed to clean up your fucking mess? What the fuck is the matter with you?”
Zito bites the inside of his cheeks savagely, stupid and high and drunk, his mind running jagged. “I didn’t know he was. I didn’t think he’d care that much,” he says, very much aware that that’s a lie.
Chavez knows too, staring at Zito in disbelief. Zito fixes his gaze on his own reflection in the glass door, superimposed over the colorful shift of the party. He can’t see Street; Rich and Bobby must have tucked him away in the kitchen or one of the bedrooms. Zito tries to make out his eyes in the refection, Chavez a dark blur in his peripheral vision.
“You didn’t think he’d care that much?” Chavez echoes, his voice cracking. Zito grabs the rail again, his elbow popping.
“We barely even did anything,” he protests without much faith that it will work. “He’s overreacting.”
“Oh, like I was?”
Zito flinches again, feeling like his chest is being cracked open from the inside. He did say that to Chavez, so long ago it’s weighted like granite in his mind. He’d kissed Chavez for the first time, holding Chavez’s face in his hands and feeling the rough skin of his cheekbones soften and give, and Chavez had gaped at him, stricken, before shoving him away. They’d fought so bad that night, mean as boys, because all Zito wanted was to put his mouth on every taut salty inch of Chavez, but Chavez had known even then that it would mean more than that.
Chavez wraps his arms around himself, hunching his shoulders and trembling. Zito blinks at him, his thoughts stuttering.
“Are, are you cold, man?”
Sparing him a hateful look, Chavez digs his fingers into his arms and replies, “Of course I’m cold. It’s twenty fucking degrees up here.”
“It’s not really,” Zito says stupidly. “It’s just the wind factor.”
“Whatever.”
Zito hesitates, looking at the tight pale skin of Chavez’s neck where it dips under his collar, and then strips off his jacket, the sleeve catching for a moment on his wristwatch. He holds it out to Chavez, hooking an arm across his stomach as the wind cuts in immediately, wicked and flashing down his spine.
Chavez looks at the jacket, then up at Zito, thin and suspicious. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. You’re cold. I’m wearing layers.”
Chavez is about to refuse, as stubborn a motherfucker as has ever graced Zito’s presence, but his teeth are almost chattering, and he swipes the jacket from Zito’s hand, muttering, “This doesn’t change anything.”
Zito lets his weight rest back against the rail, sighing, exhausted and kicked around and now pretty fucking cold. “Did you plan on yelling at me for much longer, or can we go inside now?”
“I haven’t even started,” Chavez tells him sharply, pulling the sleeves over his hands and glaring at him. “Did you really think a kid like that would be all casual about fucking a guy?
Shaking his head, Zito thinks of how Street had held onto his shoulders when Zito kissed him for the first time in the elevator, shiny glassy eyes and wet mouth open in shock, his grip strong enough to fuse through Zito’s shirt. How Street had lifted his face to Zito’s unconsciously, carefully licked across Zito’s lower lip, the two of them reflected forever in the mirrored walls.
“He was okay with it,” Zito says uncertainly.
“You just assume that. Just like you assumed it with me. Meanwhile, he’s all fucked up on the inside and thinking you’re this perfect guy who’s never gonna hurt him.”
Zito pushes his tongue up behind his teeth, seeing the color return to Chavez’s face. “Who are you talking about right now?”
Chavez tears his head to the side, balling his hands into the pockets of Zito’s jacket and scowling out over the city, the corner of his mouth pinched. “Both of us. Exactly what you did to me, you’re doing to him.”
“Bullshit,” Zito says too fast, but then decides that he likes it: angry is good, better than the alternative. “I never did anything bad to you. I let you get fucking married-”
“Let me-” Chavez starts to shout, outraged, and Zito cuts him off.
“Maybe I sleep around, but I never stood up and swore to love someone else for the rest of my life, you fucker.” Chavez’s eyes get huge and betrayed, but Zito’s gone now, adrenaline red and fast through him. “You think you can just tear into me like I’m the only one who’s fucked up here? I wasn’t the one who wanted this. You left me, in case you forgot. You’d been leaving me for half the fucking season, what the fuck was I supposed to do?”
“I left you because you weren’t gonna stay,” Chavez says, looking startlingly young in Zito’s too-big jacket.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Zito shoots back, the wind catching his voice and carrying it off. “Billy didn’t offer me anything.”
“You mean he didn’t offer you a hundred million dollars, which was a real shock.”
“Fuck you.” Zito doesn’t like the mean curl of Chavez’s lip, the sick shame that has lived in his stomach ever since he signed that goddamn contract. “I didn’t take that deal because of the money.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Barry, why else would you have?”
“Because I didn’t want to leave!” Zito yells, and it stuns him, driving him back against the rail. Chavez’s face falls open, his eyes wild and his shoulders dropping. Covering his face with his hands, Zito makes a small moan. “Jesus Christ, man, I never wanted to leave.”
It’s awful. Seven years in Oakland, come down to nothing like this. Zito remembers seeing Chavez running across the outfield sometime in his rookie year, the sun killing bright and crashing into the scoreboard, transforming it into a rectangle of pure white, and Chavez was a small black speck as his vision filtered in and out, something that he keeps in the back of his mind like his phone number.
It has to be rare, finding and recognizing happiness as uncomplicated as what they had, at least at the beginning. Having Eric Chavez nearby had cured all of Zito’s trouble, or anyway, outfitted him with a different form of it, something sweet and hard-edged. Zito had fallen in love for the first time ever in Oakland. It was the lowest kind of tragedy, having to give that up.
“Dude,” Chavez says softly, finally not mad anymore. His shoes scrape the stone as he approaches, lays his fingers down on the backs of Zito’s wrists. “What were you thinking? You’re never gonna see us.”
Zito shakes his head, pressing his lips together. “I wasn’t thinking. I just. I couldn’t stand the idea. And I know why you left me, it was so obvious, man. I thought maybe. If I was still. Even if it was only sometimes, maybe you could-”
“Hey.” Chavez tugs his hands down, but Zito keeps his eyes shut, ashamed. “You on the other side of the country was never the problem. You on another team was the problem. Any other team. ”
“Why?” Zito whispers, cold everywhere but the press of Chavez’s hands around his wrists.
“You know why. Here, look at me.” Something brushed across Zito’s eyelids, and he opened them reluctantly, Eric Chavez dark and solemn and still as good-looking as Zito can easily stand, poorly trying to smile at him. “You remember that time in Baltimore?”
Of course Zito remembers. He remembers almost everything, which is probably some kind of curse.
In Baltimore, four or five years ago, they’d gotten caught out in the rain on their way back from some club. They’d taken cover in a bus shelter, for hours as the sky poured down on them. Past midnight, the world had closed down, the rain too thick to see more than a yard or two. It had been a flood; they’d be washed clean, Chavez said, slurring a little bit, and kissed Zito against the plastic wall, his hands sinking wet fingerprints into Zito’s stomach. Chavez had said against his mouth, “I fucking love this,” and Zito knew what he meant, felt himself break open like dawn. It was the best night.
“That’s the kind of thing that’ll never happen if we’re not on the same team,” Chavez tells him gently.
Zito lifts his hands and wraps them around Chavez’s shoulders. He touches their foreheads together and says, “But it doesn’t change anything. I’m still in love with you.”
“I know.” Chavez sighs, his breath warm on Zito’s mouth. “It’s really not fair at all.”
Zito almost laughs, something choked in his throat. He slides his arms around Chavez’s shoulders and hugs him tight, burying his face in Chavez’s neck. Chavez hugs him back, the bends of his elbows tucked against Zito’s ribs, and Zito wants to cry at how familiar their fit is.
“Guys?”
Zito tries to jerk away, his mind whirring, but Chavez keeps hold of him, not turning. “What?”
Sneaking a look, Zito sees Rich standing in the doorway, and relaxes incrementally, narrowing his eyes. Richie clears his throat, gaze fixed solidly somewhere to the right of them.
“We’re going up onto the roof for the fireworks.”
“Fuck,” Zito says, time and place clicking back in. “What time is it?”
Harden grins. “Six minutes to midnight. We’ll be up there, okay?” He disappears away from the balcony, and Zito realizes that Chavez is trembling slightly in his arms.
He leans back and pushes his fingers across the silver patch on Chavez’s eyebrow, down his face. Chavez closes his eyes. “Fireworks,” he says quietly.
“Yeah,” Zito replies, not wanting to take his hands off Chavez, though he knows the day is fast approaching when he’ll have no choice.
“Well. Come on, then.” Chavez draws out of Zito’s arms and smooths down his hair, folds back the sleeves of Zito’s jacket. Zito follows him inside, feeling like the walls of his chest have been scraped clean. The sudden light is devastating, shrinking his pupils down to nothing.
The penthouse is deserted, bottles and paper plates and assorted debris all over the carpet, a city after a war. There’s still music, throbbing from the speakers, bizarre and unsettling without people to listen to it. Chavez has got Zito’s hand in his own, a lifeline.
Zito lets Chavez pull him into the stairwell, his head slowly clearing, and then stops him, hooking a hand in his belt. Chavez glances back at him, his expression strained and scared.
“So what are we going to do?” Zito asks, his voice thick. “The situation seems irreparable.”
Exhaling, Chavez taps his thumb on Zito’s knuckle. “It is.”
“That’s. That’s terrible, dude.” Zito swallows, picturing the life ahead of him all gray and small, crippled and playing for money not love. He feels like he’s going to be sick.
“Listen,” Chavez says, and pulls him up on the step, their knees bumping. He folds his hand around Zito’s hip when Zito totters, and keeps him steady. “Whatever else happened. No matter what you did, or what I did. I wouldn’t trade you for anything. We had six years. It was enough.”
And he leans in and kisses Zito then, his face cold and his mouth fiercely warm, and Zito presses against him, his balance wavering. Chavez’s hands are on his hips and Zito’s arms are back around his shoulders, and Zito pulls away for a breath, feeling Chavez’s forehead come to rest on his cheek. Zito shuts his eyes against the pain, unable to believe how badly Chavez just lied to him.
*
11:57pm
Chavez and Zito come spilling out of the roof door, into the skyline. The city busts open before them, gold and blue light washing the rooftop better than the sun. The party is louder up here than it was in the penthouse, whooping and hollering and hanging off each other’s shoulders.
Street sees them emerge, sees Chavez wearing Zito’s coat, and turns his back, his eyes hot. He can’t think of a worse way to start the year.
It’s so stupid, Street thinks desolately, fighting for his anger to return. How could he have thought that they’d both fall so fast, that Zito would want him as much as he wanted Zito?
Harden had kept telling him, in the kitchen as Street was staring at the floor and struggling not to cry, his hands woven over his stomach, Harden kept saying, “He’s just some guy, he’s gone now, you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
Harden means well, but he isn’t helping. Street thinks that he’d prefer to have Zito around even if it’s just to hate him. He shoves his hands in his pockets and gouges his nails into his legs through the thin fabric. The party rushes and rails around him, Street as still as an island.
Zito materializes at Street’s shoulder, and Street stiffens, his shoulders rising protectively. He stares out at the twisting lighthouse on Alcatraz, biting his tongue.
“Hey,” Zito says low. Street doesn’t answer, crazy falling sensation in his stomach. “I just wanted to say. Before midnight, I wanted to make sure you knew that I’m sorry.”
Street glances at him involuntarily, cloudy and drunk and not certain that Zito’s not fucking with him. Zito’s watching him with wide earnest eyes, and Street clenches his hands in his pockets, hardening his jaw.
“It’s been kind of a bad time for me,” Zito continues, barely over the wind and the catcalls at their backs. They’re at the very edge of the roof, unguarded. “Not an excuse, just. I know I fucked up with you, and I. I’m just really sorry, man.”
Street counts the seconds between the flash of the lighthouse beam, midnight crashing down on them like sky. He doesn’t want to start the year like this; it’ll never end.
“It’s okay,” Street says in a whisper, but he can tell that Zito heard him by how he tenses. It’ll be years before Street’s over him, he knows for sure. Zito got inside him and set mines all through Street, in unexpected places, wired to random memories and scents and tastes. Street just wants Zito to leave him alone. “Not the finest moment for either of us, I guess.”
Zito’s silent for a second, and Street eyes him helplessly, the wind wrecking Zito’s hair, the trace of his profile against the gleaming buildings. Zito angles his face down, the flat sudden drop of the building all the way to the sidewalk.
“I probably would have been crazy about you,” Zito says sadly. “You would have been really good for me. He just got here first.”
Street is stunned, because Zito sounds like he regrets the loss as much as Street does. Street licks his teeth nervously, and carefully puts his hand on Zito’s shoulder, feeling it give slightly. Zito looks so tired.
“Don’t worry about it, man,” Street tells him, the words tough and sticking in his throat. “It’s just some stuff that happened last year, that’s all.”
Zito’s mouth warps, but he moves closer to Street, cautiously hooking a finger in his belt loop. Street realizes he’s holding his breath, and lets it out in a stream of white air. He can feel a tooth of wind sneaking into his shirt, making him shiver, and Zito’s strange dark eyes catch the city light, holding it fast.
Behind them, Bobby starts shouting out a countdown, the others joining in, voices echoing high and joyful.
Chavez slides up on Zito’s other side, and Street watches in amazement as Chavez takes Zito’s hand and laces their fingers, wondering how he ever missed this. Zito sets his thumb down on Street’s hip, just above his belt, a current through the three of them, there on the edge of the roof.
Street doesn’t want to pray for a better year, because this one was almost perfect, to ask for more seems dangerous. Keep us together somehow, after all and after everything. He’s shaking so hard, waiting for the fireworks, frozen and suspended against the night sky, and three.
Two.
One.
THE END