Page 43 of 500 First Editions (The Romantics #3)
AUTUMN
THE COMMENT SECTION
Me
SOS!
Whitney
Damn. You’re up early.
Wander
Like, really early.
Whitney
Wait. You’re up too? Are we all morning people now?
Wander
Jack just left to go to the station. I’m going back to bed.
Me
I may have let Ryan get in a little first base action.
Wander
I’m awake!
Whitney
Wait. Like, actual first base action or Willow Winslet first base action?
Me
Um . . . The latter.
Whitney
Just to confirm. YOU LET HIM GO DOWN ON YOU?!
Me
Yes. And then we kind of ran the rest of the bases. A few times, actually. It was a full day tournament kind of situation. I’m not sure I can walk.
Wander
HELL YES. Oh my freaking God yes!
Whitney
And was it good?!
Me
I’m a mature enough person to admit that he is quite skilled in the bedroom. It was excellent.
Wander
Are you ready to admit it?
Me
Admit what?
Wander
That book boyfriends exist.
Me
I had good sex. Let’s not get crazy and go off saying things like that.
“ I s it an emergency?” Ryan asked as he snuggled up against my back and nuzzled his scruff against my shoulder.
I hid my phone under my pillow before he could read the group chat messages. “Just the girls.”
He chuckled against my skin. “Has the committee deemed me worthy of you yet?”
“Jury’s still out,” I murmured into the pillow.
Ryan slid his hand up my hip and waist, then cupped my breast under the covers. “I can be very persuasive.”
I let out a happy little hum. “As long as I’m the only one you’re trying to convince.”
He left a line of kisses up and down the back of my neck. “It’s only ever been you. Ever since I saw you with a case of pineapple seltzers and a drug store vibrator.”
“Aaaaaand the sweet morning moment is busted,” I said as I tried to wiggle out of his arms, but Ryan was stronger.
“I’m not teasing you, Autumn. I mean it.”
I froze. “Did you just call me by my name?”
“That’s usually what names are for.”
“I thought we agreed on ‘Willow.’”
“Willow. Autumn. My girl. Mrs. Ford. I’ll call you whatever you want.”
I turned in his arms and swatted playfully at his chest. “You’re so full of shit.”
Amusement and tenderness lingered in his eyes. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like the dead.”
He smirked. “We had quite the workout yesterday.”
My laughter matched his, like tittering school children sharing whispered secrets. “I’ve never actually spent an entire day naked before.”
Ryan stroked his chin. “I think we need to go for round two then. See how many days in a row we can go.”
“I think people might start to wonder if we’re MIA for more than eighteen hours.”
“Then let them wonder,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly to his chest as he gently rubbed my back. “How are you feeling today?”
“Like I need to use the bathroom, but I’m not entirely sure my legs work.”
His hum was rich and resonant. “Let me carry you.”
“I can walk. Your dick is good, but you didn’t break my pussy.”
“Damn. I’ll try harder next time,” he teased. Ryan’s eyes went soft as he craned his neck to stare down at me. “You always look so pretty in the morning.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t give me that book boyfriend bullshit.”
He laughed. “What? It’s true.”
“It’s not. My hair is a mess, my breath could knock a grown man out cold, and I probably have creases on my face from sleeping like the dead.”
Instead of arguing with me, Ryan flopped his arm over toward his nightstand and grabbed his phone. I stayed curled into his side as he opened the camera and snapped a picture.
“Ry,” I groaned.
“Hold on,” he said as he tapped through the prompts to store the photo in a digital album he had named “FW.” “Don’t worry. I’m not posting it.”
That hadn’t even crossed my mind. Frankly, social media didn’t make me feel good, so I ignored it most of the time. It was a necessary evil for my line of work, so I used a third-party program to schedule out the content that I needed to share, and then I logged off.
Ryan was much more involved—always talking to his followers and interacting on posts.
I chewed on my lip as he fiddled with the lighting on the photo, bringing the brightness up until we were glowing in the rays of sunshine that leaked in from the windows.
Ryan went back to the original image, where I was nestled in the crook of his chest and shoulder with the blankets pulled up to my chin.
The lighting was terrible and there were shadows everywhere.
“That’s what you see.” He flipped to the brightened image where my hair and complexion glowed in pinks and gold.
“That’s what I get to see. All the time. ”
Curiosity was an annoying little gnat that kept coming back no matter how much I swatted it away.
I grabbed my phone and tapped into Instagram. I ignored the notifications and unread messages and pulled up Ryan’s profile.
Most of the content that he posted was for sponsorships or to promote his businesses, but that wasn’t what the curiosity gnat told me to look at.
The last personal photo he had posted was of the day we attempted to make chocolate chip cookies after our bakery crawl. My hand was in the corner of the picture as I measured chocolate chips. Flour was sprayed across the counter, and eggshells sat right outside the bowl.
The caption read, “ There are good days, and then there are days you’ll never forget. ”
“Those cookies were terrible,” Ryan said as he kissed the top of my head.
I laughed, because they really were. “I think Lily gave a bad recipe so we’d have to keep going back to the bakery.”
“I think the ingredients were supposed to make it into the bowl,” Ryan said as his chest shook with laughter. “Probably would have gone a long way in making them turn out better.” His arm tightened around me. “But that kiss was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
I tapped the photo to like it, and left a cookie emoji in the comment section, just for fun.
And then everything blew up.
HotGirlsRead3052: OH MY GOD SHE COMMENTED ON THE POST!
MrsBrad4: She’s such a clout chaser. Doesn’t even post on her own accounts but she’ll ride his coattails. It’s pathetic.
MacrosNMicrophones: Poser. Follow me for real takes.
User82719: It’s probably his sister in the photo or something.
TheRealChad: I wish he would stop posting this shit.
LexReadsALot: I hate her books, but at least I found Ryan Ford out of it. Total book boyfriend.
AuthorWhitneyWest: @WanderWhitlockBooks SHE COMMENTED!
WanderWhitlockBooks: @AuthorWhitneyWest THAT’S OUR GIRL!
LadyAlanaReads: @WillowWinslet Do you get your inspiration for bedroom scenes from Ryan? Because I’m totally picturing him while I read.
“Oh my God,” I said in a panic. “I broke everything. Fix it, please.”
Ryan just chuckled.
“I’m going to kill Whitney and Wander,” I muttered as I watched the like count on the comment I had left with the cookie roll like ticker tape.
“Ignore the comments,” Ryan said.
But I couldn’t. Some of them were nice. There were a lot of people who were, apparently, very invested.
There were a lot of people who thought I was riding his coattails, or that he was riding mine.
There were opinions about it being a publicity stunt.
There were comments about the explicit nature of my books.
There were more than a few weird comments asking if he inspired the sex scenes or if we tested them out together for “accuracy.” There were a lot of gym bros named Brad and Chad who were apparently mad at Ryan for being a “sell-out.”
The whole time he and I had been together to make good on the challenge to test out The Ford Method, I was under the impression that he wanted to boost his business by proving his tactics.
Not once did I think about the fire he would come under for being with me, or how it would reflect on his brand.
“I didn’t realize how many people were invested in us .
. .” I admitted. After yesterday, things had started to feel real.
I had been blissfully unaware of what the court of public opinion was saying.
Now, the weight of it felt as if it was too much to handle.
“All of my social media posts are automated, so I never look . . .”
“Good,” Ryan said. “Because no one’s opinions matter to me except for yours. And maybe Wander’s and Whitney’s. I need to stay in their good graces or I’ll get kidnapped and interrogated in an abandoned Burger Palace again.”
I stared aimlessly at my phone’s dark screen. My heart sank as every single comment replayed in my mind on an endless loop. I had only seen them for a second, but they were seared into my memory. My stomach ached, and acid roiled in my gut.
Was I a terrible writer?
Why did people think I was dragging Ryan down?
Why did people think Ryan was dragging me down?
Ryan had so much going for him. Maybe I really was ruining his reputation.
I minded my own business and stayed in my lane.
It wasn’t like I was on his podcast. He hadn’t inserted himself into my career.
We were just two people who occasionally shared fleeting glimpses of our time together.
Why were people so mad about that? It didn’t affect them at all.
Ryan took my phone out of my hand and set it beside his.
“Let me ask you something,” he said as he tucked me against his side and drew my knee up until my thigh hooked around his leg.
“If you were walking through the grocery store, shopping and minding your own business, and someone stopped you and said they liked your hair, what would you do?”
I loved random compliments from strangers. They always felt really genuine. “It would make my day.”
“What if you were shopping in that same store, and someone was standing in the middle of the aisle with a bullhorn, shouting their thoughts about what was in your grocery cart or what you were wearing? What would you do?”
I snickered as I pictured it. “Try not to laugh and keep shopping.”
“Exactly.” He kissed my head. “The nice people in the comment section are taking time out of their day to spread kindness into the world. The critical people are the random folks who shout at strangers in grocery stores. No one should take them seriously.”
“That’s a good way to put it, I guess.” But that sinking feeling in my gut was still there.
Ryan combed his fingers through my hair. “The internet is a fish bowl where small people yell and think they’re loud. And feeling loud makes people feel important. The reality is, they’re not adding value to their community. They’re just shouting at strangers as they go about their lives.”
But Ryan Ford was the kind of man who added to his community. He helped people build or rebuild their relationships. He stocked Little Free Libraries with books. I had watched over his shoulder as he made weekly donations to different causes with his sponsorship income.
“Is that how you deal with it?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes it hurts no matter what your coping mechanisms are. It’s hard to stay soft in a cruel world.
People crave love and connection, but society has made us put up so many necessary boundaries that it can feel impossible to scale them in order to find someone.
I think, when you find that person, that you have to be willing to take that risk. ”