INTRICATE - Brian Quinn.

14

The next morning I woke up to my phone laid across my chest, telling me that I had fallen asleep shortly after receiving Kara's text. Something of which I would not be re-opening again today. As I got up to shower before James woke up, I stood and looked myself in the mirror intensely. I looked like a mess, not even giving myself the benefit of the doubt that I had just woken up. Since seeing Q's new girlfriend my self confidence had definitely dropped instantly. No wonder it was so easy for him to move on when he had girls that looked like that knocking around town.

After I had finished drying my hair, I was placing James into his high chair to feed him his breakfast when the landline began to ring.

"Hold on a minute buddy" I cooed to James who impatiently sat hitting his plastic spoon on the table, awaiting his breakfast still. Food was definitely not a joke to this kid.

"Hello?" I said, answering the phone. Covering my other ear with my free hand to shield out the noise that James was making in the background.

"Hey, Jess? It's Brian. I'm outside your apartment, are you in?" He asked. Why the heck was he outside of my apartment?

"Yeah, I'll buzz you up" I then pressed the button to unlock the buildings main door, before unlocking the door to my apartment and leaving it open, awaiting his arrival back at the table. Two minutes later I heard the door shut quietly, before footsteps became louder to my position in the kitchen. I hadn't turned around, but judging by the huge smile on James' face which was covered in baby porridge, I knew that he was standing in the doorway behind me.

"Hey little man" his voice filled the kitchen, before taking the seat next to him at the table. Q and I still not exchanging any words just yet.

"I uh, I tried your cell but you didn't answer, so I called your landline" he tried to start of some type of conversation, no matter how lame the opening line sounded.

"I did wonder why you randomly called the house phone" I replied, not realizing that he had even called my cell.

"Yeah.."

"You okay? You seem pretty quiet" I asked him. It was pretty unusual for him to be this quiet when at someone else's place, especially when he had asked to come over.. Or in this case asked to come in.

"I'm just tired. I wanted to see what you guys were up to" he smiled small. There definitely seemed like there was something up with him, but I wasn't going to be the one to force it out of him. He and I weren't that close anymore to dive into each others personal business.

"Well we are doing nothing. But I was actually thinking about taking him to the zoo today. If you wanted to tag along?" I asked.

"Sounds good" he replied. His short response really making me wonder what was wrong. I had already asked him why he was so quiet which was almost as good as asking him what was wrong, so at this point I guess I had to wait for him to open up to me by himself.

"Do you wanna finish feeding him while I go get ready?" I asked, holding out the jar and spoon in his direction, before he took them from my grasp gently without saying a word.

We had been in the car for twenty minutes, and Q's shift in mood didn't seem to be changing at all. He had barely spoken a full sentence the whole time we had been in the car together.

"You know.. You're giving me a headache from how much you're talking my ears off today" I said, trying my best to subtly alert him that I knew about his bad mood, hoping it would somehow work and that he'd decide to open up about it. It was getting to the point where I really wanted to know why he was acting this way.

"Huh? What?" Q shook his head, my words snapping him out of his steady glare that he had going on out of the window.

"I said you're very quiet" I giggled to myself at his reaction.

"Sorry, just got a lot on my mind right now" he replied.

"I guess it makes a change from me being the boring one" my mind replaying Tyler's words from last night, which made my sentence come across with a little more attitude than I had intended.

"You're never boring" Q said, seeming sincere with his words.

"Okay, dull then. That is what I got called last night by my loving boyfriend"

"Well I did tell you that your boyfriend's a douche"

"You're not half wrong" I sighed.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm having a few relationship issues myself" Bingo.. Maybe this was the reason to his bad mood.

"Oh yeah? What's your issue?" I quizzed, trying to keep my voice sounding less than prying.

"She's mad because I won't be home until next week" he replied.

"I thought she already knew that?"

"Ah" Brian said, smiling awkwardly.

"What?" I asked, giving him a quick glance before focusing back on the road.

"I was supposed to leave the same night as the party."

"Oh?" I couldn't hide the confusion in my answer.

"She invited me to this dinner party thing the next night, and I promised her that I'd be back in time for it"

"Ohhh" my oh'ing changing from one of confusion to realization.

"But instead I cancelled my flight and ended up spending the night with you"

"I'm still lost on something, though"

"What would that be?" He asked.

"You could have still made in back in time for dinner." I answered.

"I know" he said smirking, turning his head to look at me, not looking away until I flashed him a quick smile back. Was that him just admitting to blowing his girlfriend off so he could spend some more time with me?

"A week extra is a long lie to just avoid a dinner party, though.." I said, maybe a silent hint just to hear him tell me about how he ditched his girlfriend once more.. Talk about being severely sadistic..

"Why? Can't deal with me for that long?" He chuckled for the first time today, it sounding more than good to hear.

"It's you I can deal with. Your girlfriend probably wanting to kill me... Not so much"

"She can't kill what she doesn't know about. Besides, I'm staying because work came up." He said, air quoting the word 'work'.

"You better not had done this when you and I were together" I huffed.

"Nah" he replied. "You're one of the very few people that I think I could be around continuously without ever feeling bored" he smiled at me once again. "No matter how dull you are"