Brady worked late last week. Not even just late – like crazy late. He promised to come home early on Mondays, but he didn’t walk through the door until 10:30pm on Monday night.

I looked at him like he had five heads when he walked into the living room where Tucker and I were watching a movie.

“Wow, so much for working from home on Monday nights,” I said.

“I’m sorry, I had a lot to catch up on from the weekend. I’m going to try to get off early tomorrow though,” he said. He put his stuff down and made a beeline for the bedroom and didn’t kiss me or anything which I think is rude.

So I followed him.

“Was work okay though?” I asked, sweetly.

“A bit of a bitch, to be honest. Anytime we work with benzodiazepines, it can be unpredictable,” he said.

“Benzos?” I clarified. Back over the summer when I was secretly texting that Xanax-addict musician, I learned the term.

“Yeah. But the team I work with is very good.”

“Oh, like who?” I asked.

“Like Andrea. She helps me out with a lot of paperwork and note taking,” Brady said and then he walked out of the kitchen.

“Let me see Andrea!” I said, innocently. I continued following him.

“Why?” I could tell he was getting increasingly more annoyed, but it’s like, I need to see who you are working late with every night.

“I just want to see her. Please.”

Brady sighed. “I don’t have a picture, Reese.”

“You have Facebook,” I pointed out. “I’ll grab the iPad. Please, please can I see her?”

I was begging to see a picture of Brady’s coworker because he loved her and I had no shame about it.

I pulled up Facebook on the iPad and instructed Brady to log in. A few minutes later, Brady handed the iPad back to me, looking unamused.

“Cute!” I exclaimed, meaning it. Andrea’s photo was a professional black and white headshot and she had what looked like dirty blonde shoulder length hair, with trendy beach waves in it. She was wearing some sort of dark lipstick that was apparent even in her black and white picture.

Brady walked into the kitchen and I continued scrolling through her page. I quickly discovered that she has a hipster looking boyfriend with a big, disgusting beard and they had a ton of pictures traveling together. And girls don’t cheat on their boyfriends so I decided she is a nonissue.

I was more interested in the unopened message he had. With Brady occupied, I clicked the message and saw that it was from Brittany. Houston Brittany! This bitch. Before I could open it, Brady came back around with his bowl of cereal.

“How was work for you?” he asked.

I sat there with him while he ate his dinner, telling him about all of my opportunities I had going on. I’d told him about everything while we were on our way to Houston, but I wanted to talk about it more to see if he had more insight. Plus, my interview for the social media position was unexpectedly cancelled.

“I think you should move on from there. Even if they do decide to move you into that new role, it sounds like it’ll just be putting a bandaid over things for now. We don’t know if you’ll like the new office more and it’s a risk. I want you to be happy though,” Brady said.

Later, Brady fell asleep on the couch and I took the time to get back into his Facebook messages. There was a brief moment where I felt bad about what I was doing. How I needed to trust him especially after realizing that I had jumped to conclusions about both Kim and Andrea. But luckily that feeling passed and I proceeded to snoop anyway.

The most recent message from Brittany said, “Lol, let me know when y’all make it back home!”

I scrolled up and saw that the original message was from Sunday morning at 3:00am. Around the time when we were all leaving the club.

“You know Christian is the ex, right?” she said. The last time they spoke before that was a long time ago.

At 10:00am, Brady said back, “Really?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure how long it lasted though, Reese never talked to me about it,” Brittany said.

Like, what a bitch. Christian could hardly even be considered a fling. I barely even hooked up with him.

Then Brittany said, “I know they slept together, but I’m not sure the exact details. Just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“Haha, well obviously he’s far from the only other guy she’s slept with. Thanks for the info though,” Brady said back.

I was furious! What was Brady trying to say? And fucking Brittany! What was her issue? I immediately texted her, “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull by telling Brady about Christian, but nice try. He already knew.”

Brittany called me and I sent her to voicemail.

“Reese, call me before you freak out,” she sent me.

I ignored her and since I was already in Brady’s messages, I decided to continue snooping. Obviously Brady isn’t really into social media so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. But I did find a message from 2009 where he asked a girl to come over. Asshole.

I was seething. I blocked Brittany and then I went through and deleted as many random friends and photos as I could. Too far? I don’t give a shit. No one uses Facebook anymore anyway.

When Brady finally woke up to get in bed, I launched into him.

“Did you and Brittany have fun talking shit about me?” I demanded.

“What are you even talking about?” he said back.

“Christian obviously isn’t the only other guy she’s slept with!” I repeated.

“Oh my God, why are you yelling at me? She’s your friend! I was defending you. What did you want me to say?”

“Literally I don’t want you to say anything at all, especially not to me. Fuck you,” I said. I got in bed and didn’t talk to Brady before falling asleep.

You know that exhausted feeling you wake up with after a night of debauchery? I woke up feeling like I’d just robbed a bank and performed at a strip club in front of everyone I know the night before. Thinking about my little Facebook rampage, I felt kind of guilty.

Brady appeared at my side, kneeling by the the bed.

“I love you,” he said, putting a hand on the side of my face in my hair. “I’m going to try to be home early tonight, okay?”

I nodded. He kissed me and left. If only what he said was true.

When I got to work, I saw that one of my marketing leads who I was going to meet with later in the day cancelled our meeting in Google. That was weird. All day I waited for the updated calendar invite, but it never came. Ooookay, so I guess I was no longer in the running for that job. Whatever then.

I stayed at work a little later than normal (5:45pm) and then headed home expecting Brady to either be there or be on his way. After feeding Tucker, taking him out and even running around the park a bit, Brady still wasn’t home.

“ETA?” I texted him at 7:30pm.

“Not sure. Still lots to do, but I’ll let you know, baby,” he said.

Ugh. Don’t fucking call me baby. Especially when you’re being an asshole.

The fucker didn’t come home until 10:30pm. Again. I didn’t even say anything to him when he walked through the door. I did my nighttime routine and then got in bed. When Brady joined me, he wrapped his arms around my waist and tried to pull my close to him.

“Did you you have a good day?” he whispered in my ear.

I ignored him, pretending to be asleep. And then, because I was still mad when I woke up, I waited as long as possible to get out of bed so I wouldn’t have to talk to him.

Later that morning, I got a message from the girl in marketing who I was supposed to interview with.

“Hey, sorry about canceling the interview. I had a time conflict. Are you available to meet tomorrow?” she asked.

Was this a joke? I literally had 2 days left and had obviously mentally checked out. But whatever. I told her we could still meet. I’d entertain her a bit.

Gabby and I walked to Chopt for lunch and I told her what was going on with the position and interviews.

“Obviously you aren’t going to take the job if they offer it to you though, right?” she asked.

“I mean, the timing is super off. My last day is Friday and they want to meet with me on Thursday. Unless they conjure up an amazing offer in two days which I highly doubt, I am leaving,” I said.

“If you don’t end up getting that job, I wonder who they will choose,” Gabby pondered.

“They’ll probably go external,” I said.

Gabby’s face seemed disappointed. Wait. Did she want to be considered for the role? The poor thing is sick of being a receptionist and wants to put her degree to use. Maybe after I get comfortable in my new job I can find her something at my company.

On Wednesday night, Brady came home at 10:45pm. It was finally time to confront him.

“What’s going on at work that keeps you so late?” I asked as politely as I could.

“I’m working on divvying up some responsibilities so I don’t have to work as much. There’s a lot to do and at this moment, I am the only one able to do it. But eventually I’d like to pass some responsibilities onto other people. That takes time and training,” he explained.

It honestly sounded really stupid.

“Okay, so tell me about your timeline of when all of this is going to happen and you can come home at a decent time,” I said

“Well, as soon as possible obviously.”

“That’s not that answer I am looking for,” I said.

“It’s the only answer I can give you right now,” Brady said, getting defensive. I wanted to slap him.

But do you know who was home at 6:00pm on Thursday? I came home needing a drink. I had my interview with the marketing woman and to put it politely, it was a complete waste of my time. It seemed like she’d never conducted an interview before and I basically dominated the whole thing. At the end, I even said, “If you have someone else you think would be a good fit for this role, by all means, hire them. I already have another job lined up so..”

She looked surprised, but said okay.

I was measuring the fourth tequila shot for my drink when Brady walked in. Aggressive? Yes, but it was Thirsty Thursday.

“Oh my gosh, hi! You’re home so early,” I greeted him.

“Yeah. I still have some work to do this evening,” he said.

I felt guilty that he was home for dinner and I had no plans for what we would eat. Usually I eat silly things for dinner like chik’n nuggets with mustard or a plate of homemade nachos.

So I ordered a pizza for us and annoyed Brady for the majority of the evening. He came home at a decent time on Friday too. We went out for drinks to celebrate my new job and stuff and proceeded to stay out until 4:00am getting fucked up and dancing. Brady revealed that he was working on Saturday despite not being “scheduled.”

“Why would you volunteer to work when you don’t have to? It’s bad enough you work weekends sometimes anyway,” I said.

“I just have some work I want to catch up on. It’ll only be a few hours, don’t worry,” he said.

And honestly, it was nice to be able to sleep in and not have Brady waking me up for the damn gym. Tucker and I finally rolled out of bed at noon. I was bit hungover and starving and texted Brady to see what his ETA was so I could decide if I should wait for him to eat.

He didn’t reply right away so I took Tucker on a walk around the neighb. Brady finally responded saying, “Not sure.”

What the fuck ever. I decided to grab lunch on my own. Something weird happened while I was out. Brady’s mom texted me.

“Hello. I understand Brady is working so I am reaching out to you. We’d like to invite the two of you over for dinner this evening, if you are available,” she said.

How sweet.

“Of course. What time is dinner?” I said back.

“Whenever is convenient. I know Brady likes to work late.”

“Should we bring anything?”

“Just yourselves. We are looking forward to seeing you.”

I immediately texted Brady, “Your parents invited us over for dinner. So you probably need to get off work soon.”

He didn’t reply right away, but I felt like I needed to mentally prepare myself for the evening ahead. I cleaned the whole apartment, found a cookie recipe on Pinterest, texted Brady, ran to the store to get the ingredients for my white chocolate cranberry cookies, baked burned the cookies, threw them out, showered, texted Brady, picked out four outfits and curled my hair.

Brady finally waltzed in after 8:00pm. I was sitting on the couch in my underwear with my hair and face done.

“Where have you been? Why haven’t you texted me back?” I screamed.

“Relax. I just talked to my mom. I just need to change and then we’ll head over,” he said, rolling his eyes at me.

I followed him. “Just so you know, it’s super inconsiderate of you to volunteer to work today even though you’ve already worked a ton this week. And then you decide not to come home until almost 8:30. It’s like you are purposely trying not to spend time with me and Tucker.”

Brady sighed. “You know I wish I was home with you guys more. I don’t even know why you’re doing this right now, Reese.”

I quickly got dressed in jeans, Alexander Wang booties and a modest sweater. Brady and I took an Uber to the Upper East Side to his parents’ apartment, packing a bottle of red wine we had at the house so didn’t turn up empty handed.

Brady’s parents have an apartment in New York City because they are here for work so often. They have a corner unit off Park Ave with a bomb ass view. I’m not surprised. Also not surprised with how little they did with the interior. If it were me, I’d do a midcentury mod vibe with rich colored wallpaper, funky shaped lighting, intricate framed mirrors and tons of plants. But it’s not me and it’s them, so everything was white and grey and obviously expensive, but boring.

Dinner went on as normal, the parents talking to Brady about work, about housing (What do you have planned for your condo in Chicago?), about what he’s (we’ve) been doing on for fun in the city.

Suddenly, Brady’s mom said, “Reese, I emailed your mother. We are having a Christmas celebration in Massachusetts and we thought it would be a nice gesture to extend the invitation to both your mother and your father. If they are still working on their relationship, of course.”

“Wait, what?” I said, out loud.

Brady’s mom looked at Brady and he looked like he’d been caught red handed.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to mention that to you,” he said to me.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Your mother hasn’t gotten back to me, but I hope they can make it,” Brady’s mom continued.

Y’all know what I planned on doing for Christmas? Waking up with Tucker and Brady, making a huge and disgusting breakfast (pancakes, bacon, biscuits and gravy, eggs Benedict, crepes, mimosas, etc) and opening all of our gifts in the living room alone. Then we’d have sex a few times before getting up and showering and then maybe we’d consider some sort of contact with the outside world. I did not plan on socializing with anyone’s family, including my own.

“I figured Brady would want to spend the holidays with you, and I thought to myself that you must want to see your own family as well. Hunter, Dominique and the kids have already made travel arrangements to join us, along with my sister Katherine and my mother…” Brady’s mom went on.

I was so furious I couldn’t even make eye contact with Brady. I was afraid if I did, I would start laying into him and that would not be a good look in front of his parents.

“That sounds really nice,” I said, with angry tears in my eyes. I was mad that Brady knew about this and didn’t tell me and also that it was all happening so fast and I didn’t feel like I had enough time to prepare myself/my crazy parents.

Brady could sense how mad I was and tried really hard to make small talk in the Uber home.

“I really want to strangle you,” I blurted out. “Like, you’re so annoying. Why didn’t you think it was important to tell me about your mom’s huge plan for Christmas?”

“I’m sorry, I honestly forgot. I only found out recently, also. I wasn’t deliberately trying to keep it from you,” he said.

“Maybe if you didn’t smoke so much fucking weed, you’d remember to tell me things,” I said.

Brady didn’t have anything else to say after that.

So yeah. My mom confirmed that she got the email and was discussing details with my dad because they’d love to see me and Brady again for the holidays, according to her.

“I don’t know why she thought to invite us, though. Is Brady proposing or something?” my mom asked.

I literally laughed. “He wouldn’t dare.”