Page 70 of Playing Hard to Hate
You did what? Who on earth gave you permission to involve him?
Griffin
Your mom would have wanted you protected.
Tatum
Don’t talk about her.
Griffin
I have to go. Talk later. Remember, I’m a call away, kitten.
I scrolled through my phone, interrupted not even a minute later by a call from Dustin.
“How are you handling everything?” Direct and to the point as usual.
“Fine, you don’t need to worry.” I filled my kettle with water and hit the button for it to boil while I searched my pantry for some tea bags.
“You sound tense.”
“It’s early, Dustin.”
“Griffin is worried, Tatum.”
“He shouldn’t have told you. It was none of his business to involve you in this petty drama,” I bit, fighting the urge to grind my teeth.
“If it were up to you, you wouldn’t have called. I need to know what’s going on, and he had every right to tell me. You’re important to me, Tatum. Do you want me to fly down there? I can move some things around at work. I just need a day or two.”
“No, absolutely not. They were some robbers looking for quick cash. I’m not worth the trouble to them. Hell, Dustin, the guy was shaking so bad he didn’t know what he was doing.” I found a lavender tea bag and went back to the kitchen where I let it hang in my favorite cup and then poured in the boiling water.
“If anything changes, and I mean anything—if you get scared or think something fishy is going on—you call me, Tatum. You fucking call me. I’m serious.”
“Did you tell Dad?” I added some sugar to the tea and slowly stirred as I waited for his response.
“Yes.” He hesitated because he knew what a loser our dad was. He fucking knew but didn’t want to admit it.
“He didn’t call. Guess I’m not important to him. I will call you if something happens. Not that I think it will, but you, big brother, will be my first call.”
Griffin had texteda few more times during the day. To get him off my back I lied and told him Millie was sleeping over.
We had a lengthy FaceTime during the day, but she was not sleeping over. I went to the gym as usual and noticed a few more extra eyes on me than normal. I put it down to all the articles swimming around about Griffin and me. It had gotten me more attention in the gym for sure, but I’d been able to ignore it.
I was used to people staring. Girls were envious and typically glared. Not my fault they didn’t keep to a strict diet and routine, and then the men just perved like it was their right to look at my body. People walking across the room to do one set for a muscle they clearly don’t train, while looking at me out of the corner of their eye type of annoyance.
I had learned to focus on myself. It took years to perfect that skill, but for the most part, I’d been able to avoid awkward conversations until today.
“You’re the girl from the robbery?” a guy asked me in the gym today. He was one of the stereotypical overbearing old guys reliving his youth, sweatbands around his head and wrists, tiny shorts, and worse, a tank top with one of his nipples peeking out every time he moved. I wanted to tell him that he was about ten years late to the trends but refrained.
I nodded, trying to avoid conversation.
“What does your boyfriend think about them being let off the hook?”
I was working on toning my arms today. I had ten-pound barbells in each hand and was doing very slow bicep curls. I had headphones on and a hat covering the majority of my face.
Clearly, he didn’t get the message that I was not here to chat.
“He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
