The week started off pretty dramatically. The office was a kind of chaotic with Diana being gone. Her presence just made everyone work better and harder and without her, we just weren’t quite sure what to do with ourselves. Some people were acting kind of unruly and they weren’t listening to me when I suggested they get to work because of course, I’m not Diana. I went to Dave to inform him of what was going on and he didn’t believe me that there was a problem! He claimed the office was still running just as smoothly. So I was really annoyed that nothing was getting done and no one cared.

On Monday, Diana emailed me and said she wanted to talk to me about something. I already knew (thought) she wanted to talk to me about working for her. I mean obviously. Why else would she need to urgently speak to me? I told her I would be free to chat later in the afternoon and she ended up calling me on my office phone.

“Reese, hi. Can you hear me? I’m calling from my cell and people always have trouble hearing me,” she said after I answered.

“Yes I can hear you. How are you?” I said back.

“Look, I’m going to be upfront with you. I need you to work for me. Well, with me. I’m going to be working with a larger firm to get started and they are looking for a director of marketing. But you’d have to move to Dallas. Before you say no, I want you to think about it. Think about your career. It would be such a great step for you and I know you’d be a shoo-in. They’d obviously pay your relocation fee and match your salary. I’ll give you a call in a few days and we’ll talk about it, okay?” Diana explained.

I laughed. I wanted to tell her right away that I had no interest in moving to Dallas, but decided I would think about it like she told me to.

So I thought about it for the next two days. As much as I want to work with/for Diana again, I have no interest in moving to Dallas. I love Chicago and Brady and everything I have here. And then I started thinking, if I’m going to consider moving to Dallas then I may as well move home to Houston. I’m not sure why, but I was really missing my family a lot more than normal. I started thinking that I could move to Houston, get the penthouse apartment in my grandmother’s building and manage the property so she can finally retire. I don’t know what was going on with me.

I figured I needed to break up with Brady if I was going to move one thousand miles away so I was stressing about having to talk to him about it. It was Wednesday and I thought I should bring it up sooner rather than later, but Luke invited me and some people from the office out for drinks after work.

I stayed out until like 1:00 AM and to my surprise, Brady was still up working. He made a big show of looking at his watch then saying, “Oh. You’re finally home.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, just above a whisper.

Brady gave me a look like he was concerned and then I just burst into tears because I was drunk and because all I do is cry lately. Brady motioned for me to come to him and I shuffled over.

“What’s going on?” he asked me.

“I don’t know!” I sobbed, suddenly not wanting to ever leave his side, let alone move all the way to Houston.

“Why are you crying?” Brady asked.

“Just because I love you.”

He didn’t say anything and I just laid there crying for a minute. Then we got in bed and I explained everything. I couldn’t quite put into words how I was feeling and Brady’s eyebrows furrowed like he wasn’t following along.

“Wait. So are you considering going to Dallas for Diana or not?” he asked.

“No. I mean, I want to work with her and do marketing and stuff, but I have no interest in moving to Dallas right now. Should I? I don’t know what to do. Do you want me to leave?” I answered.

“No, of course I don’t want you to leave. But if this is going to be the best career move for you right now then I think you should at least consider it. Especially if you’re unhappy with where you are now. This could be a really great opportunity for you.”

“I’m not unhappy. The whole office is just missing Diana. It should be okay once we figure out how to operate without her.”

“I don’t think you should give her a definite answer until you discuss it with her more.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

The next morning, I decided to work from home. After talking to Brady, I felt much, much better and was no longer considering moving anywhere. I got out my laptop and started working and at around 9:30 I heard the front door open. I assumed it was Lindsey because she had left for work not long before, but to my surprise it was Brady. And he was carrying a box of donuts.

“Hey. I got you something to get you through the day,” he said with a smile.

I squealed and hugged him. I’m glad he’s trying harder to be nicer to me. So I sat on the couch all day eating those fucking donuts. By the time Brady and Lindsey were due home, I actually wanted to die because I was so disgusted with myself. I swore off donuts months ago.

That night Brady and I made plans to visit his brother Hunter and his wife in San Francisco for Thanksgiving. Hunter and his wife (Dominique) won’t be attending the party in Boston next weekend or the wedding in New York so they decided to do Thanksgiving together. And Brady actually invited me to go. I’ve never been to San Francisco so I said yes and I’m really excited. Plus we are going to go for the whole week so we can do other stuff.

We met with Laura on Saturday morning. It was pretty good, we really just sat around talking. She didn’t question us at all and just let us talk and ask her questions. Maybe she just wants to ease into it because last time we were both there it went so haywire.

After we left Laura’s office, we stopped at the grocery store so we could get stuff to eat because at the last minute we decided we would have a few people over on Saturday night. I picked up Cheetos Puffs, Cheezits, birthday cake Oreos, store made hummus, and hot dogs. Best host ever! Brady wasn’t impressed with my selections and got some pretty pretentious options for his pretentious friends.

I didn’t plan on wearing a costume, but when our first few guests arrived and they were in full on costume I knew I needed something. So I rushed to the bathroom and did a quick deer makeup look that’s been popular this year. It was actually really fucking cute. I didn’t have deer antlers or a costume or anything obviously so I just wore a dress and fringey shoes. Hey, at least I tried.

So at first, the only guests we had were the usual suspects: Lindsey, Kendra, John, Jacob, Stacey, Dan, etc. Preston also came with Joe, Nicole and Lexi, and Luke came with a girl. Preston and I kind of made up, but I think he’s just so concerned with Joe that he forgot we had a little fight. I guess that’s okay.

So we were all just hanging out and Lexi grabbed my arm excitedly. “Kyle’s coming.”

I snatched my arm away and put my hands up so she knew how much I disapproved. “Here?”

“Yeah. That cool?”

I looked around for Brady so I could warn him and spotted him outside on the patio, smoking with his friends.

“I mean, I guess it’s fine,” I said slowly. I wasn’t sure how I was even supposed to tell her to uninvite him.

Luckily, the place started filling up, really fast so maybe I could avoid him. When Brady and I discussed it, we said we would just invite some of our closest friends, but it started to feel like a frat party. When I walked to the kitchen to get more tequila, I literally didn’t recognize a single person eating my Cheetos. I was not happy.

But whatever. It was Halloween so I was going to have fun. One of the random ass guys in the kitchen took a double tequila shot with me then I asked him to make the hot dogs for us. While I waited for them to be done, I decided that I’d had enough of my heels so I took them off and put them under the sink. #reeseproblems #reesesolutions

I elbowed my way back to the living room and found Luke and his friend. They weren’t drunk enough for my standards so I dragged them to the kitchen for hot dogs and tequila. Right as I bit into my dog, I heard a loud roar in the living room as if a celebrity had just arrived. Obviously I needed to know who was causing all this commotion and imagine my disdain when I saw that it was Kyle. How did so many people at my party know him? So annoyed. I elbowed my way through the crowd so I could greet him.

“Cute costume, Reese,” he said, tapping my nose.

I glared at him and his stupid Cubs baseball jersey. “You get the award for the laziest costume ever, congrats.”

“Thanks, cutie,” Kyle said just as Lexi made her way through the crowd and threw her arms around his neck. He kind of bent her back and leaned down to her and they started full on making out right there. I could literally hear all the saliva. I obviously don’t care, but like, no. That’s disgusting.

“Y’all are gross,” I said and walked away.

I ran into Preston almost immediately and he said, “What’s going on downstairs?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe go see.”

Curious, I slipped through the crowd and bounded down the stairs. The first thing I saw was a girl’s fucking tits. She was wearing a small bumble bee costume, but the guy next to her was pulling it down and trying to like suck on her boobs. She was half trying to push him off, but obviously enjoying the attention. They were on the couch next to two other guys and one of them was smoking out of a bong. There was a couple kneeling at the coffee table and the girl was recording the guy with her phone and squealing, “Mollyyyy!” That’s when I realized he was crushing it up and that they were going to snort it. And there were people at the bar actually snorting stuff. Gross! I was horrified and decided to go get Brady so we could kick them out.

Brady was walking back inside with a beer in his hand when I found him. He’d worn regular weekend clothes with a white doctor jacket over them for his costume. So maybe he gets the laziest costume award.

“Oh my gosh,” I started. “There are people downstairs doing Molly and Coke and probably acid and shrooms and all that other stuff.”

I expected Brady to be pissed or upset or have some reaction but he just stared at me.

“Can we kick them out? It’s just not that kind of party. I’ll do it, I just want you to go with me,” I continued.

He continued staring at me. Probably having hallucinations from doing drugs with them (obviously he must have been since he didn’t even have a reaction to people doing drugs in his house). I heard a girl shout his name and some chick and her boyfriend came over to greet him. Brady introduced me, but I don’t remember their names because I was so annoyed. Am I allowed to be annoyed?

Since Brady didn’t seem to care, I decided to just have fun and avoid the basement. Turns out I totally love Joe and I can see why Preston is obsessed with him. He’s so fun and cute! He’s like me!

I woke up disgustingly early on Sunday morning. I wasn’t hungover though which is a plus. I watched tv in bed for a little while until Brady woke up. He got up to assess the damage then came back and announced that we should probably clean. I wanted to refuse since the party guests were primarily his friends, but that’s mean so we both cleaned. Brady found my shoes under the sink and was very confused as to how they got there. Signs of a good time. Afterwards, we went to lunch at this really expensive place. Brady’s idea. I got an ahi tuna steak, prawns and roasted vegetables. The portions were small and I still wanted to eat so I insisted on getting gelato afterwards. And then we met up with Brady’s friend and his girlfriend at a bar. Sunday Funday?

I didn’t drink much and I was counting Brady’s beers. I know. I have some nerve monitoring someone else’s drinking. So I didn’t say anything.

Anyway, I actually haven’t heard from Diana since last Monday. She called me on Thursday and left a message because I was busy, but when I called back she didn’t answer and hasn’t returned my call. I’m going to talk to her about it more, but I really, really don’t plan on moving to Dallas. Or Houston for that matter. I had like a midlife crisis last week. I have no idea what was going on with me, but it was scary. I’m back to normal now though!