I Dated Brian Quinn

Chapter Thirteen

"Brian, you're going to want to see this." Sal held his phone out.

Brian stepped forward and took the phone, scrolling through it. He looked over his shoulder at Jackie, judging if she should see what was on the screen. When he decided that she should, he joined her back on the wall with Sal's phone still in his hand. He took the coffee from her hand and handed her the phone.

Jackie took a deep breath before looking down to the phone.

#BriJack was trending on twitter. She clicked on it and thousands of tweets bombarded her. All of them wishing she and Brian well. Words of encouragement. People telling her how lucky she was and how beautiful they thought she was. People telling Brian not to fuck it up. She continued scrolling, tears filling her eyes at the love of their fandom.

She stopped at one tweet in particular. There was a heart and an ant emoji followed by the words, One more ant for the swarm. We love you, Jackie.

She passed the phone back to Brian so that he could see it too because she could no longer see through the tears. She had been accepted by the IJ fans and the TESD fans. It was something she didn't realize she needed.

"We're going to be okay." She nodded, looking at each of the guys. "I love you guys. Truly, I do."

"Your boyfriend's not gonna like that." Joe laughed to ease the tension that had settled in the room.

"We've got to get to set, guys." Murr looked at his watch. "We're already late and this is promo for the tour."

"They'll live, Murr." Brian passed the phone back to Sal and then took Jackie in his arms.

He held her while the other guys took the hint and left the room.

"Come to set with us." He wanted her close, even though they hadn't spent a day apart in a week.

"I've got some things to do to get ready for tour. I'll meet you back here this afternoon, okay?" She buried her face against his neck, the feel of his beard against her skin oddly comforting.

"I love you." Brian whispered in her ear before letting go of her. He didn't wait for her to answer before he left her alone in the room.

Jackie waited until she knew they had left the building before she reached down and took the magazine out of the trash. She flipped through it, studying each page until she found it.

It was a full page of her standing at the window in Brian's bedroom. The fear in her eyes was obvious, and the cut across her cheek was still swollen, but she doubted anyone else would see it. They would be too busy staring at her body and how her nipples teased at the fabric of the shirt Brian had lent her. Thank goodness she had thought to put on panties before going to close the curtains that night.

She laid the magazine on the table and walked out of the room, not wanting to look at the picture for another second. Knowing that hundreds of thousands of people had now seen her almost naked made doing anything but hiding almost impossible.

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The four guys stood in a line, playing off of each other's lines to record the promotion material for their upcoming tour. While he tried to stay in the moment, Brian found himself searching the faces of the small crowd that had gathered around their camera equipment.

They all held phones and cameras up, hoping they were catching something exciting. But there was no one that caught his attention or stood out as the person who might be selling pictures of he and Jackie to magazines.

The words of encouragement from the fans, especially the ants, had been appreciated. He'd have to tweet back to them later tonight letting them know how much it meant to him.