INTRICATE - Brian Quinn.

13

"Hold on!" I yelled to whoever was trying to get my attention, knocking louder than any usual person would at my front door at this time of night. As I opened it I saw Tyler standing in front of me. "Where's the fire?" I questioned the loudness of his knock.

"What?" He questioned back, confused.

"Well there must have been a reason for your urgency. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, I just came over." His voice slurring slightly. He was clearly intoxicated.

"Did you seriously come over here drunk right now?" I asked in disbelief. He knew that James would have been in bed by now, and he knew for a fact that I didn't like drunk people in his presence. And here he was, wasted on my doorstep, making all of the noise in the world.

"I'm not drunk" he said, leaning on my door frame for balance. His words proving otherwise.

"Look at you, you can barely stand!" I proclaimed, not hiding the fact I was not impressed at all by his behavior.

"Jess, I'm fine. Now just let me in" he said as he proceeded to step forward, to which I pushed the door up slightly to stop him entering. "What was that for?"

"You're not coming in. I can call you a cab so you can get home, but you will not be stepping one foot in this apartment in that state."

"God, you're so dull." He groaned, before stepping back.

"Yeah, okay, thank you." I said before closing the door completely. I wasn't going to stand there and let myself get verbally abused by someone that couldn't even use the effort to work one brain cell. Some days I wouldn't even give him the credit of thinking that he even had one. Today was one of those days.

As I sat down, about to start a good two hours of Netflix binging, my phone pinged on the couch cushion beside me.

'Check your instagram ASAP.' I read the text from my best friend Kara, instantly wondering why she would suggest such a thing when she knew that I hated that site more than anything. Well, that and twitter. Ever since Q had announced that we were together many moons ago, I had found out that a lot of jealous and evil people hid in the realms of an online comment. So I always tried my best to avoid it, or at least avoid reading anything written about me.

Logging onto the app, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Confused, I decided to text Kara back and question what on earth she had been talking about.

'What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?' I responded.

'Look at your tagged pictures. Someone saw you and Q together yesterday and uploaded it'

I wasn't feeling incredibly worried by the text. Brian and I had been together yesterday celebrating our sons birthday, we had reason to be seen together. I wasn't feeling worried until I saw the picture, that is. It was of Q and I entering the hotel late at night, a little worse for wear after our drinking session, seeming to be holding one another up as we walked through the door.

Checking the account name, I realized that it was an account attached to an online gossip website, or blog, what have you. Attached to the photo was a link to their website with whatever they had written about the picture that they had posted. I had to do the opposite of what I usually did, which was not look. I had to know what this person had seen or heard, and I definitely had to make sure that there wasn't any more pictures like this one.

Clicking the link, the title of the article popped up in bold writing.

'JESSICA DOLORES AND BRIAN QUINN; ON OR OFF?"

Oh what a great start... Reading further, it had pictures attached of us getting out of the taxi and a few more of us walking into the hotel. The article was talking about how we were witnessed by fans drinking at a local bar, then seen leaving together in a taxi. Not the best thing to be on the internet.. My only hope was that Tyler wouldn't see this article or the pictures at least. If I hadn't known anything about them, then surely he won't find out either? Or was that just wishful thinking? And technically, I didn't lie about what I did that night. I just said that it had been a late one. He was the one that didn't care to ask any further questions, so I guess that slight defence was always there. Well.. as long as he didn't see the picture of him with his arm around me anyways..

'Do you think anyone will see it?' I texted Kara.

'If you don't want anyone to see it, then untag the photo so it isn't on your profile anymore. Also fill me in ASAP as to what actually happened last night. Those pictures seemed cozy. You and Tyler doing okay?'

'So much information in that text to take in.. But you wouldn't believe the night I just had.'

'So we're avoiding the questioning of your relationship with Tyler then are we?' She asked, catching me red handed.

'Yes we are. I'm mad at him right now' I replied.

'Ok.. So what was the deal with Q? Haven't seen you and him in the same room together since.. Forever?'

'Honestly.. we hooked up last night..' I texted back.

'WHAT?!'

'I know.. I'm just wondering how to deal with all of this right now. We were both drunk and one thing lead to another.'

'Does he still want you back?' She asked.

'He has a girlfriend now'

'This story just keeps on getting better and better..wow. I wonder if she's on instagram too..'

'You're addicted' I typed back, not receiving the quick response that I usually would get from her, leading me to believe that she had fallen asleep. So with that I decided to hang up my netflix crown and call it a night also.

Climbing into bed, my phone sounding once more before Kara's name lit up the screen. As I opened the text, my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. It was a picture of Brian and his new girlfriend together. Specifically her sitting on his lap at a table with his arms around her waist, both smiling contently at whoever was taking the picture. It was almost funny to me that when Q had told me that he had been seeing someone new, I felt no ounce of jealousy in my system. But the moment that I saw photographic evidence of the couple, it felt like my heart had crumbled into a million tiny pieces. I don't know if it was because I hadn't seen them physically together at that point, so it didn't seem as real. But now that this picture was on the screen right in front of me, it began to feel very, very real. She definitely seemed like the type of girl that he would go for, the usual blonde, preppy big-boobed look. She had to be young, but she had to be a little older than me at the same time. I definitely felt like I couldn't even begin compete with a girl like that. Which made me start to wonder.. why on earth would he cheat on a girl like that?