Page 73 of Home Grown Talent
Owen shut his eyes, leaning on the spade, feeling its edge sink into the well-tilled soil. “She wanted a selfie,” he muttered.
Mac chuckled. “I hope you’re not going to start getting all high and mighty now you’re famous. We can’t be having you slacking off to sign autographs.”
Owen wished he could find it funny, but honestly, that little scene had… bothered him. The fact that a random stranger had seen so much of what felt intensely private between him and Mason bothered him. And he hated that she’d probably see even more of it when the next episode aired that weekend.
“Why the hell does she think it’s any of her sodding business?” he muttered, stamping his foot on the spade and digging it into the earth. “For God’s sake.”
After a pause, Mac said, “Well, it was on telly. What did you think would happen?”
Owen looked up and met his friend’s gaze. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I didn’t expect this.”
Neither had he expected his feelings for Mason to bloom so fast, nor to root so deep. That was the worst of it, having something so tender and new so ruthlessly exposed.
Yet this was what Mason did—it was all part of building his public profile. Owen had scrolled through quite a lot of his old Instagram posts now, and yes, Jay, Tag, and even Lewis were all featured in there, along with a bunch of other guys. In fact, it seemed like Mason had a new man to show off every few weeks. Which made Owen wonder glumly whether Mason would soon be looking for someone new in his life.
He was still mulling that over at the end of the day, when he and Mac got back to the small unit where he kept his fleet of three vans and all the equipment and materials he bought wholesale.
Mac reached for her ciggies as soon as she got out of the van, leaving one unlit in the corner of her mouth as they unloaded their gear and took it inside. Owen made a point of never leaving anything in the van overnight. Not that this was a dodgy area, but good tools were expensive and he didn’t like taking risks.
As he shouldered his way into the store room, he saw Mac standing talking to Naaz. She was showing her phone to Mac, one hand over her mouth and her eyes wide. “...think I should say anything?” she was asking.
“About what?” Owen said.
Naaz jumped and almost dropped her phone. “Shit. I mean, sorry. Er…” Her cheeks darkened, and her eyes widened even further.
Owen looked at Mac for an explanation.
She sighed heavily, shook her head, and held out her hand for Naaz’s phone.
“My friend sent it to me,” Naaz said, handing over her phone. “I didn’t know whether to say anything, but…”
Hanging up his spade on its hook, Owen braced himself. “Is this about the TV thing?” he said, stomping over to Mac.
“Some bollocks by the look of it,” Mac said, showing him the phone.
He peered at the screen, not quite sure what he was seeing, and took it from Mac to look closer. It was two photos. One was Mason and him sitting opposite each other in a bar, holding hands across a low table and gazing into each other's eyes. Possibly the night they’d gone to that fancy cocktail bar? He had no idea who’d taken the photo, but whoever they were, they certainly hadn’t asked permission. The other picture was of Mason standing at a different bar, laughing with someone else. With Lewis, in fact. The headline ran, Trading Up? Is Mason Nash swapping gardening hottie, Owen Hunter, for his gorgeous TV mogul brother? Fans react to shock photo.
“This is…?” Owen frowned. “What is this?”
“It’s on that gossip site, Echo?” Naaz said as if she was explaining it to her grandpa. “My friend saw it on Twitter.”
“Bloody hell.” Despite knowing better, Owen clicked the link. The ‘article’ consisted of little more than some comments about how Lewis and Mason had a ‘stormy past’ and a few tweets from random people saying things like ‘Owen’s so cute. I can’t believe Mason would cheat on him’ and ‘No way would Mason cheat—they’re clearly totally in love!!!!’
Shaking his head, Owen handed Naaz back her phone. “Do people really read this crap?”
“I suppose? I’m sure it’s not true, though. Mason seems so nice and—”
Owen cut her off with an embarrassed gesture. “That photo with Lewis is about a year old.” He didn’t explain that the reason he knew that was because he’d googled Mason ages ago, and he remembered seeing the picture then. It had been taken at some kind of industry gala, and it had stuck in Owen’s memory because he’d thought how different Mason looked when he was smiling naturally rather than wearing his pouty model expression.
Of course, now that Owen had seen that smile up close and personal, he realised it wasn’t as natural as he’d first assumed. Now he noticed the faint tension around Mason’s eyes and the stiff set of his shoulders. Now he saw that Mason was not, in fact, at ease in the picture, but was performing for the camera.
Owen tried to ignore the unworthy kick of satisfaction that knowledge gave him and focus on the fact that he didn’t feel remotely threatened by the article or the photo, at least not in the way it had been presented in this weird, fabricated story. He didn’t like it though, not one bit. Leaving aside the nasty insinuation behind the ‘trading up’ headline, the idea that people he knew—and people he didn’t know—might read and even believe this crap, bothered him.
What would Mason think if he saw it? What would Lewis and Aaron think?
Shit, what would his clients think?
“See?” Mac was saying to Naaz. “Don’t believe anything you read on the internet. It’s all a load of bollocks.”