He bumped her back. "I recognize this. Considered it too. Thank you." He turned his attention to me. "Would you like me to delete Harry? You haven't seen him since the last week of March."
"As I've mentioned before," I started, working my damnedest to keep my voice even, "you are not responsible for looking after my personal engagements. I'll change my calendar viewing permissions if that task is too complicated."
"But you need to drop them," Tatum whisper-yelled. "The calendar boys. You can't hang on to them if you're seeing Cal." She held up her hands when I sighed in response. "And before you tell me I'm not supposed to get involved in your personal life, I just want you to know we think Cal is really great and you should focus only on him."
"And we're already involved in your personal life," Flinn added. "Your mother sends us Christmas cards and I follow your sister's dogs on Instagram."
Tatum nodded in agreement. "Right. What Flinn said."
He glanced at her, his gaze chilly. "Oh, you're agreeing with me now? Funny how you see reason when it suits you."
I wagged my pen at them. "None of this conversation is Sunday morning critical," I said. "I don't want a lecture on my relationships and I don't want to referee the two of you."
Tatum folded her arms over her chest, elbowing Flinn in the process. "Sorry," she said, not sorry at all. "Didn't see you there. It's tough, you know, because you're not consistently in the same place."
Flinn cleared his throat, crossed his legs. His shoe tapped Tatum's calf. "My bad," he murmured. "I hope that didn't hurt. Would you even notice? I mean, how could you? You don't have normal, human feelings."
"Oh my god," I muttered to myself. "Here's the story, friends. I'm touching base with Travis Veda soon and you're hitting the phones to turn up the volume on McKendrick's apology tour. Get me every friendly, softball interviewer you can find. I don't care if it's a sports columnist from the Andover High School newspaper. As long as they can keep the conversation on the predefined topics, we'll grant the interview and do any promotional spots they want."
"Got it," Flinn replied.
"I'm not actually calling the Andover High School newspaper, right?" Tatum asked.
"You would ask that," Flinn said under his breath. "You never listen to clear, honest words when they're spoken directly to you. Doubt everything because it's easier than trusting someone. And why bother trusting anyone when you don't see a reason to rely on anyone but your own damn self?"
I pushed to my feet, sending my chair rolling back into a low bookshelf. "I do not have the brain space to care what's going on between you two. If you make me care, we will have a serious problem that will result in someone leaving this team. Solve it and move on. We have a handful of games left until McKendrick is back on the field and we don't have the time to dick around. Understood?"
"Yes," they replied.
Another elbowing and calf-tapping unfolded but they managed to keep quiet. About fucking time. "Thank you," I said.
"Fire me if you want but I'm going to say this." Tatum looked up, her bottom lip snared between her teeth.
Flinn sank back in his seat, his eyes closing on a groan. "Don't," he whispered. "Don't, Tate."
Tatum ignored his advice, continuing, "I know you don't want to hear this right now but you need to end it with your calendar boys." Her eyes crinkled as she grimaced, an expression I interpreted asWhat don't you understand about this? "You don't even see them that much. Why are they so hard to give up?"
I fetched my chair, tucked it under my desk, and stood behind it, my arms resting on the back. I thought about sidelining the conversation, but knowing Tatum and her quiet bulldog tenacity that would only tighten her hold on this bone.
"I haven't thought about it," I said, and that was the real, undiluted truth.
I hadn't thought about Stephen, Leif, or Harry much. Harry hadn't crossed my mind since the last time he texted me and—oh shit. I'd never responded to him. But no response still qualified as a response. Definitely. It was as good as ghosting.
"But you're deleting all of the appointments," Tatum argued. "I check your schedule on Sunday nights when I'm work-planning for the week and I've seen you canceling your standing Harry every time."
She was right about that. I deleted those appointments but they barely registered as proof of a thin but existent tie to those men. But…so what? Where was the problem here? I wasn't misleading anyone. No one was in the dark. Cal knew where I stood. If he wanted me standing somewhere else, he knew how to start a conversation.
"I promise I will put the appropriate time into reevaluating things once we've cleared the biggest hurdles with McKendrick." Another undiluted truth. My brain was at max capacity right now. I needed a few more weeks before I could engage in any soul-searching or priority shuffling.
Flinn cracked an eyelid. "Wouldn't you recommend dealing with an issue when it's first identified rather than putting a rug over it? Don't we know from years of experience"—he swiveled toward Tatum, gave her a one-eyed glare—"that pretending the issues don't exist is a terrible offense? It requires the defense to work overtime when the shit starts spinning, and someone always finds out that we've been sitting on the info all along."
Tatum met his glare and shot one back at him. "As much as I hate to admit when he's right," she said through gritted teeth, "you shouldn't wait."
"Wow," Flinn muttered under his breath. "So you can acknowledge when you're wrong."
"How am I wrong about anything?" she asked him. "I was the one who raised this topic when you were slouching into your chair and telling me to shut up."
He closed his eyes again, crossed his arms over his chest. "I never told you to shut up."
