“There have been some comments from people who have an opinion about your relationship with Ryder.”
He hadn’t even thought of that. Oh, God. What was he going to do? Could this affect his business? He didn’t need to look at the comments to guess what they were saying. It would be a repeat of what he’d said to himself in his own head. He wasn’t good enough for Ryder, who could do a lot better.
“You ready to get out of here?” asked Mason.
Felix nodded and said goodbye again to the grooms, who looked concerned. He felt awful for bringing this cloud to their wedding day, but they seemed more worried about him than anything else. What wonderful men they were. He hoped they planned to have kids as they’d be amazing fathers.
“Do you all use town cars?” asked Felix, when he saw what was waiting for him.
Mason chuckled. “Not all of us. Deacon, Max, and Ethan like to keep it real, as they put it.”
Felix snorted. “Let me guess. Those guys are all taken?”
“Most of them.”
They got into the car and drove off, and neither of them said anything for a while. Felix took out his cellphone and turned it on. Mason was looking out the window. Once his cell had a signal, it went crazy with notifications. His social media was going berserk, but he also had missed calls and messages. There were a dozen from Laura, and half that from Ryder. Others from friends, some of whom he hadn’t spoken to in ages. His email inbox had over a hundred messages in it as well. What the fuck was happening?
He opened one of his social media apps and had to do a double take. There were over a thousand notifications and his follower numbers had dropped by two thousand. He wasn’t sure where to start and was startled when Mason’s hand covered the phone.
“You should wait until you get home to look at all that.”
“How bad is it?”
“I know this is easy for me to say, because I’ve had time to get used to it, but the trolls on social media are nobodies. Their opinions don’t matter. You’re best to just ignore them.”
Mason’s phone rang. He answered.
“I’ve got him with me.”
Who was he speaking to?
“I’m taking him home . . . No, Ryder. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Felix’s heart sped up. Mason was speaking to Ryder. Why hadn’t he called Felix? Didn’t he want to speak to him?
“He needs to go home and get his head round this stuff first. We’re used to this. He isn’t, Ryder.”
“What does he want?” asked Felix.
Mason waved him off as if it was nothing for him to worry about, which annoyed him. He wasn’t a child. If Ryder had a problem with him, he wanted to know about it now. Without thinking, he snatched the phone off Mason.
“You can talk directly to me you know, Ryder.”
“Baby, how are you doing?”
The endearment made him preen, even though it was close to the “babe” which Sam had used. It felt affectionate rather than patronizing, though.
“I haven’t looked at everything yet. How bad is it?”
“It’s just people who are jealous. Always best not read the stuff like that.”
Felix took a sharp intake of breath as his mind went into overdrive imagining what people had been saying about him.
“Why don’t you come and stay here tonight? I think it’ll be good to have someone with you who knows how to navigate all this shit.”
“I’m not sure . . . What if people take more pictures or something?”
“Let them. Those pictures of us kissing are hot by the way.”
