The drive home was almost silent, except when she scrolled on her phone, reading all the different articles that had emerged about us this weekend.
“The Daily Tea says, ‘Braves Rookie Griffin Silver Spotted with Fitness Queen Tatum Grace. Is There More Than Friendship?’ Fitness queen? That just sounds dumb,” she commented as she kept scrolling.
“How about this one,‘From Hero to Heartthrob: Griffin Silver’s Grocery Store Rescue Sparks Romance Rumors with Tatum Grace!’ Eww, I might gag.”
“Stop looking at those,” I said softly, but she did not listen as per usual.
“Oh, this one is good. ‘Secret Love Affair? RookieGriffin Silver and Tatum Grace Can’t Keep Their Hands Off Each Other!’They have a picture of us from the beach when you were grabbing my ass.”
“Tate, this isn’t funny. It’s going to be a problem.” I gripped the steering wheel, thinking of the robbers who might still have a vendetta against her, then the fans who would definitely hate on her, and worst of all, all the men that would perv over her social media account. I had to keep her out of the spotlight. The last thing I’d ever want is her to be publicized even more.
“This one wins for sure.‘Is Tatum Grace the One for Griffin Silver? Childhood Friends Turned Lovers After Heroic Rescue!’They sound so stupid. How do they even know all this crap?
“You must be fucking kidding me.” She paused before reading this one as though she has to steel herself. “CelebScoop says, ‘Is Tatum Grace the One Who’s Taming Griffin Silver? The Notorious Bad Boy of Baseball Finds Love in Childhood Friend.’All right, this is too much. Millie is spam-texting me. So is Dustin. I thought your manager was going to fix this.”
She and I both. Nick had obviously not been able to keep the lid on this one, and now we’d just have to live with the consequences.
Ten minutes before I dropped her off, I remembered her dog, Buster. “Whatever happened to Buster?” I glanced over at her, and she swallowed slowly.
“He died.”
“I didn’t think he was still alive.”
“He got hemangiosarcoma, which is cancer in his blood cells.”
I didn’t know what to say. That dog was a crucial part of my childhood, and it felt like I was losing him all over again.
“He was special, really fucking special. Mom kept his leash by the front door for years after it happened, and we couldn’tafford to get another dog. Now I don’t know that I can let another one into my heart.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Their life is so fleeting. When you buy or rescue a dog, you know they’re going to live a max of what? Ten years? Ten years compared to our eighty. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“If I wasn’t on the road so much, I’d go rescue a dog right now,” I told her truthfully. “You’re supposed to let people and dogs in, you know. Dogs are good for the soul. They fill parts of you you didn’t even know needed to be filled.”
“You sound like one of those ASPCA ads.”
“Do you regret having Buster?”
She was silent for what felt like eternity, with just the road noise of the tires in the cabin of the car, then a tear rolled down her cheek.
I stayed quiet as I knew talking wasn’t what Tate wanted or needed. She wanted a moment of silence for Buster. I could tell she was picturing all the memories he gave her. “No,” she replied, which was followed by a deep inhale.
She shakes her head. “No, of course not. He was my best friend. He never left my side, even in his last days. He slept beside my bed every night. He waited for me on the front porch every day when I came home from school. When you left, he stayed.”
“Then you answered the question, Tate. You would do it again.”
“Maybe one day, but financially, I’m not in any kind of position to care for anyone but myself.”
It had beentwenty-four hours since the slew of articles popped up. I’d been asked to give my statement more times than I cared to admit, and I know Tatum had been hounded as well. I saw a video of them trying to get information out of her as she went to the gym.
This whole situation grated on my nerves. She wasn’t supposed to get dragged into the worst part of my life.
No one liked the paparazzi.
I called her on a whim the following night, and at first, she didn’t answer, so I called again.
“What’s up?” she answered, the sound of water in the background.
