Brady’s mom sent him a long text message after our Thursday meeting. She basically said the same things she told me, but it was obvious that they’d spoken on the phone beforehand because she said things like, “You don’t seem to care how she spoke to me today and that’s disappointing.”

You know what else is disappointing? You are, you bitch. She also said things along the lines of, “I didn’t raise you to be this way,” and “I thought you’d be a little more considerate after how Hunter handled things with his wife.”

She’s such a victim. I rolled my eyes at her long message and was at least happy that Brady didn’t bother responding.

On Friday, Mike was back in the office. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife. Sam, who had been busy, but chill the past several days, was clearly stressed about him being around. Like, relax.

Mike and I were meeting with the head of a construction company we partner with for a lot of our projects for lunch.

“How was your uh, New Years?” Mike asked on our walk over.

Sam wasn’t with us and I really needed her as a buffer. Mike has zero social skills.

“It was okay. My boyfriend and I went to a house party with some friends and spent all of New Year’s Day recovering,” I said. Why did I say that? Why? “Uh, how was yours?”

“It was all right. We need to turn here,” he replied.

We didn’t say anything else the rest of the walk. We were meeting with Thomas, the head of sales and Brendan, the CEO. Brendan was cute, I noticed, with his dirty blonde fuckboy haircut (faded on the sides and styled on top with a damn part cut into it), manly dimpled chin and super soft, gentle green eyes. Do you ever look at someone and feel like you can tell their entire story just by the way they look? With his long sleeved henley and swimmer shoulders and pea coat draped over the back of his chair, I could tell that he came from old money, was clearly filthy rich and liked to sail as a hobby. He was obviously the president of his fraternity in college (an Ivy League), was a self proclaimed beer snob and worked out like it was a religion. I was surprised that he wasn’t working on Wall Street. He looked younger than me in my opinion, but had a wedding band on. I could even picture what his wife was like.

Mike and the guys spoke mostly, but then Brendan said, “Do you have anything to add to that?” to me. And he said it kind of shyly, like he wasn’t sure if it was his place to ask me to talk.

“Yes, I have loads to add,” I said back. I always have things to add. I didn’t shut up the rest of the lunch and kept talking so much that Mike actually raised an eyebrow at me.

Eventually we stopped talking business and Brendan started telling us about the ski trip he was taking to Yellowstone. To my surprise, Mike actually showed a bit of interest and they carried on talking about the resort and stuff I could not relate to. Typical rich New Yorkers.

“Do you like to ski, Reese?” Brendan asked, realizing I hadn’t said anything for a while.

“I’ve only been a handful of times and as you can imagine, I’m not very good,” I replied.

Brendan tossed his head back and actually laughed a real, genuine laugh, revealing the most adorable smile with the cutest teeth even though he had noticeable fangs. His mouth was kind of wide too with dimples punctuating it. The rest of the conversation I spent staring at his mouth.

After lunch, we all got up and Mike told Thomas that I was the main point of contact and that we’d probably be working together a lot.

Thomas, a ginger (I love gingers), smiled big like this was the best news ever. “Looking forward to working with you more, Reese.”

Mmkay.

As we were walking out, Brendan fell into step next to me and the other two were a few feet ahead of us.

“Where are you from?” he asked me.

“Most recently Chicago. I went to school in Arizona and grew up just outside Houston, Texas,” I answered politely.

He laughed again. “What company did you work for? I see you’re new.”

Oh. So he didn’t want my whole life story?

I told him and he just said, “Ah, I see.”

“What about you? Where are you from?” I asked.

“Born here and went to school in Pennsylvania,” he said. “I was working on my own business for a while out of school until I sold it and took over this job.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem really young to have such a big job,” I said.

Brendan laughed, once again. “You’re not the first person to say that, don’t worry. It’s a family business. I was the only one fit to take over for my dad. Yeah, it might be a bit premature, but it is what it is.”

Typical. Taking over the business from Daddy. There seemed to be more to that story, but I didn’t think it was my business. We chatted a bit more about the city and when I told him the neighborhood I live in, he gave me some recommendations for places to eat and things to do. I added them to my mental NYC Bucket List.

Later on in the day, Mike forwarded me an email that was originally addressed to him asking for some reports to be summarized.

“Please complete this by end of day. Thx,” he said.

Not only did I have other shit to work on, but it was already 3pm. The day was practically over. Mike went offline immediately after sending that to me.

Kristina stopped by my office a little while later.

“Hey chica,” she greeted me. She’s 26 and high energy – she’s always running around, sending emails and talking on the phone and in a hurry. Love her, but her job is not as important as she tries to make it. I think she’s super cool though and she’s single so we talk about men and dating a lot. Unlike Gabby, she doesn’t feel like she needs a boyfriend, but just likes to have fun. “What time are you leaving? We should get a drink. Or several.”

“Ugh, I’m not sure. Mike just give me a ton of extra work to do and then just left. So…” I said back.

Kristina made a face and pranced out of my office, shouting to let her know when I was finished. I ended up finishing things up at 6 and Kristina was waiting for me at the office door. We walked to a nearby restaurant for their happy hour.

We immediately began gossiping about work. Kristina was filling me in on everyone’s stories: who is a suck up and who is lazy, etc. We seemed to have the exact same opinion of people and I loved that about her. I’m a good reader of people and it was nice to know that she is too. Kristina has a trendy blonde bob and always wear lipsticks and dresses like an Instagram fashion blogger with her layers and colors and prints. She’s super cute.

We moved onto Mike and she said, “It’s weird that he left so early today. He probably has a date with one of his ladies.”

“What ladies?” I needed to know.

“His escorts.”

“What?” I gasped. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear. He hires hookers all the time. Sam found out when she saw a hotel room in the city for him on his statement. He told her that it was for personal use, but he needed to book it with his corporate card. After digging a little bit, Sam realized that he was meeting prostitutes. There are hotel charges on his card like twice a month.”

“Oh my God!” I screamed. Finally! Something juicy. For some reason, I just wasn’t surprised. Like, of course Mike would. He’s hot, but he has no social skills so he probably can’t pick up women on his own. I bet Scott hires them for himself too.

Brady came home late on Friday night even after I texted him saying we should go out for dinner. See how he makes me a priority? He doesn’t. I made myself a protein smoothie for dinner and made him fend for himself. I was still upset about the whole thing with his mom and I was annoyed that he hadn’t brought it up again.

Brady worked again on Saturday and I used that as an excuse not to leave the house. By the time he got home from work, I’d done nothing except go through every single one of his messages. I was disappointed to not find anything incriminating, not even in his messages with Sydney. In fact, he said some really sweet stuff about me to her before Christmas. Clearly he’s onto me and knows I’m reading his messages.

“I’m super tired. Let’s stay in and watch a movie tonight,” he said when he got home.

“Gladly,” I said back, thinking we’d be able to talk.

That is, until he said, “I think I’m gonna go in again tomorrow. I have a lot to do and I want to get it completed as soon as I can.”

Seriously? After we ate dinner, I locked myself in the bedroom and texted him, “This relationship won’t work if I’m the only one trying. You’re choosing to work instead of spending time with me and that’s not okay. You promised you wouldn’t work as much anymore and you’re not even making an effort. And don’t even get me started on your mother.” I was hiding in the bedroom so he wouldn’t try to kiss me or kiss my hand or distract me.

Brady opened my message and spent five whole minutes trying to formulate a response.

“I don’t want you to think I’m choosing work over you because I’m not. I’d like to finish my work this weekend because it will make it easier for me in the long run. I have a very large workload which I warned you about [he did, back when we were in Chicago]. I’m seriously trying my best and I’m sorry I’m not doing a better job.”

I felt like he was blowing smoke just like he did with his mother. And, to my horror, I caught myself thinking, “Brendan would never choose work over me and I bet his mom wouldn’t try to bully me into moving out.” Of course she would, bitch, because he’s married!

I stayed in the bedroom until morning and Brady had to bang on the door so he could get in the closet. I felt a teensy bit bad that I’d unintentionally forced him to sleep on the couch, but not really. We haven’t spoken much since, but he’s been trying to be really nice and sent me all these ideas for what to do next weekend.

Mike asked me to come in on New Year’s Eve. The office was closed, but he wanted to catch up on some things that supposedly couldn’t wait until Wednesday. I was so annoyed. Brady had to work also so we got up and got ready together.

When I got to the office, Mike was already there sitting in his big office alone. He wasn’t sitting in his rolling office chair though, instead in one of the side chairs with his legs wide open like he was waiting for a lap dance. He glanced up at me from his iPad briefly before motioning to the other chair.

“Hi Reese. Thanks for coming in today. Samantha has the day off,” Mike said.

As we all should.

“No problem,” I said back.

He listed off some “end of year” things that needed to get done before the day was over. I tried not to roll my eyes. Would it have killed him to give me this list before the last day of the year when I was supposed to be home making plans and day drinking?

An hour later, as I was digging into my list, Mike stopped by my office door with his laptop bag.

“I’m heading out. If you need anything today, please text me,” he said.

I looked down at the clock on my computer. It was 9:30am.

“Wow, this early?” I said as sweetly as I could. I really should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t.

“Yes,” he sighed. “I’ll be back most likely Friday. Do you think you can handle things until then?”

I mean, not really.

“Sure.”

And I was absolutely furious because it wasn’t like I could just duck out after he left since he gave me actual work to do. What an asshole.

I turned on Ariana Grande and cranked out the work I needed to do and stayed until 4pm.

“Headed home. Pop the champagne,” I texted Brady on my way home.

He replied, “Not heading home and probably not getting off anytime soon.”

We actually didn’t have any plans, but that didn’t mean I wanted him at work all night.

“What the fuck ever, dude,” I replied to him.

When I got home, I opened a bottle of the expensive wine from Brady’s collection, took it to the bath with me, and stayed there for an hour. By the time Brady came home at 8pm, I was a bottle and a half deep, in velvet pajamas and raging mad.

“You’re so fucking inconsiderate,” I bombarded him at the door.

“Excuse me?” he said back.

“Why would you stay at work this late on New Year’s Eve?” I demanded.

“Because I have work to do. You know that, Reese,” Brady said and he walked past me.

“Well, we’re going out so get ready fast!” I shouted.

He came and found me in the bedroom where I was digging through the closet trying to find something to wear. “Where are we going?”

“Out. We’re meeting up with Lola.”

Brady put his hands on my waist, trying to kiss my neck. I pushed him off.

“None of that. If you would’ve come home at a decent time, we would’ve had time to do stuff. But you didn’t so we don’t!” I said. It sounded just like that infamous episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians when Kim went off on Kourtney.

I changed into a skort and tights with a body suit, booties and a fur jacket and packed my flask with tequila. We were meeting Lola, Kellen, Zeke and some others in Brooklyn for a house party because we didn’t buy tickets to a club. I couldn’t be bothered with a club anyway.

The party was in a large high-rise apartment with big windows everywhere. All of the lights were off and the place was being illuminated by the windows and neon purple lights. There was a pile of shoes at the door where all of the guests had ditched them. It seemed a bit unsanitary, but I was drunk enough from pregaming not to care.

Soon after arriving, it became apparent that everyone was on drugs and they were passing around baggies of crushed up molly and cocaine, I’m sure.

“Ew, why is everyone on fucking molly?” I asked Lola.

She was fighting with Kellen and he was with Brady doing their own thing. She was wearing leather pants, a hoodie and red socks and looked like a gothic Barbie with her long eyelashes and red lipstick.

“Grow up, Reese. It’s a party,” she said, rolling her eyes.

No one was really drinking though (too fucked up on everything else), but I found a guy who would take shots of Grey Goose with me. I’m too fucking old to be taking shots, I wish someone would stop me. Lola was tagging along with me nursing a can of Red Bull. Her pupils were the size of saucers all night.

At midnight, I was racing around trying to find Brady to make out with him, but I couldn’t find him until like 1:15am. Lola tsk-tsked the whole time because men cannot be trusted and she suggested he was up to no good. He walked back into the apartment from the hallway with Zeke and some other guys.

“Just where the hell have you been?” I demanded when I saw him.

“Getting some fresh air, Reese,” he smiled, using a tone like it was so obvious what he was doing.

Brady broke away from his friends and I was a bit quieter as I continued my tirade and followed him.

“Getting some fresh air?” I repeated. “You missed the countdown! I may as well have just come out alone!”

He turned and grabbed my shoulders like I am two years old. “Relax.”

“You fucking relax!” I exploded. “Don’t touch me.”

I stormed off and ignored Brady for the rest of the evening. Lola and I made our rounds and then settled into one of the couches with Zeke. They are both pro-anal and trying to talk me into it, but I just can’t. In fact, I won’t. I would never.

When it was time to go, Brady and I said our goodbyes and got in our Uber together then I cracked my knuckles to begin on him.

“It’s totally fine if you want to be irresponsible and pop pills and snort coke with your friends, but at least be considerate and don’t ditch me.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Asshole,” I mumbled.

The next morning, I woke up in bed alone. I felt like complete shit. Lola had texted me, “Kellen wants to know how Brady’s reaming went last night?”

I suddenly remembered leaving the party at the same time as Lola and Kellen and continuing to fight with him and telling them how I planned to kill him. Oops.

Brady was sleeping on the couch in all of his clothes with Tucker. Another New Years Eve spent fighting.

His mom texted me later in the morning. I was sitting on the living room floor with a homemade smoothie bowl (I wanted a bacon cheeseburger to cure my hangover, but new year, new me, bitch) and my phone vibrated.

“Hi Reese. Happy New Year to you. How are you?” she said.

It was like she knew I was sitting, unbathed, on the floor.

“Hi, I’m great. Thanks for asking. How are you doing?” I said back.

“Are you available for lunch on Thursday?”

She didn’t beat around the bush. I told her sure and she replied with a gushing message about having a great new year and something about the Bible.

That evening at dinner, I told Brady that he better deal with his mom.

“She’s going to try to get me to move out which is insane because I found this place!” I said.

“I’ll deal with it,” Brady assured me and I automatically didn’t believe him.

I was back at work on Wednesday. Most of what I’ve been doing was organizational stuff and tying up loose ends which was easy and satisfying. It’s funny – I am a total hot mess and disaster at home and my shit is so unorganized and it drives Brady crazy m. But at work, I am completely type A and everything has to have a place and be done correctly. I’m kind of psycho about it.

Samantha stopped by my office in the morning.

“Hi Samantha,” I greeted her.

“Hey, do you need anything from me today?” she asked.

“Uh, no?” I said.

“Okay. I’m supporting both you and Mike now so if you need anything, please let me know,” she smiled. “And call me Sam.”

I have a few theories. 1. Technically in my role, I’m supposed to have my own assistant, but Mike is being cheap and using Sam for both of us to save money. 2. Mike doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea about only him having an assistant so decided to extend her services to me. Plus he’s never in the office so might as well. 3. Sam just wanted to spend more time with me. I think it’s 3, obviously.

I was looking forward to lunch with Brady’s mom on Thursday. She let me know that she’d made reservations at The Smith for 11:30am. I took a yellow cab over and was shocked to discover that I beat her there. I never beat her anywhere! It was only by about two minutes, but still. She’s lucky she walked in when she did though because I was about to order two Bloody Mary’s and surprise her.

She hugged me and we sat and she asked me about work. I was happy to have something to talk about and rattled on about work for literally half an hour until the soup we ordered arrived. I kept thinking of things to add, telling her about our office, the companies we work with, what I find most interesting about work and even Mike. Because I am a talker. I talk way too much. Brady’s mom just nodded and occasionally smiled and asked questions. Bless her heart.

Eventually, she said, “Brady’s asked me to be patient with your living situation.”

“Mmhm,” I murmured.

“I think I’ve been very clear about why this doesn’t work. I’m sympathetic if there are financial hindrances preventing you from living alone. I wanted to let you know that our apartment is always open. We have a guest bedroom that we would be more than happy-”

Wait. What?

“There are no ‘financials hindrances.’ I could afford to live on my own if I wanted to. But I don’t, so…” I told her.

The mom tilted her head slightly, but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but Brady invited me here with him – to live with him.”

“It’s disgusting,” she said sternly. “And it’s disappointing that you are choosing this path of disrespect.”

For some reason, I actually felt really bad that she thought I was deliberately disrespecting her.

“I assure you I’m not trying to be disrespectful at all and I don’t want you to get that impression. I’m sorry if Brady gave you false expectations, but I don’t plan on moving out,” I said.

“You need to. You really need to.” Brady’s mom had this crazy, psycho look on her face with flared nostrils and everything.

In that moment, I wanted to kill him for putting me in that situation. Why was it so hard for him to be honest with his parents? As you can imagine, the rest of the meal was awkward and we were both dying to get out of there. She was a bit abrupt when we said goodbye and did not hug me or say anything nice.

My mom texted me later, while I was at home waiting for Brady to get home so I could kill him.

“I guess you’ve really pissed Brady’s mother off if she feels like she needs to call me,” she said.

I called her immediately.

“What did she say?” I demanded.

“Hi doll!” my mom shouted into the phone. “Give me just a second, I just walked into Arhaus. Hi! Happy New Year to you! How is everything?”

My mom was having a full on conversation with a sales associate while I screamed at her to come back to the line. I was so mad about Brady’s mom that I was shaking.

“Hi babe, I’m sorry. They have such good stuff here. What’s going on?” Mom said.

“What did Brady’s mom say?”

“Oh, nothing, just that she doesn’t like y’all living together,” my mom said, downplaying the whole thing.

“And what did you say?”

“Well, she didn’t let me talk very much because she was very upset. Maybe you should think about finding your own place since y’all aren’t married.”

“Mom!” I screamed.

“The only reason I say that is because there are no laws to protect you if you’re just living together. That’s why people get married,” she explained.

“Mom, protect me from what?”

“You never know what could happen, honey. Cynthia [one of my mom’s hot mess friends] was dating a man and he just up and left one day, never to be heard from again. He left her with a car that wasn’t paid off, the house and all the bills and she couldn’t do anything because they weren’t married.”

Ugh. Just because Cynthia was an idiot doesn’t mean I am.

Brady got home at 9:30pm. He had a little white box from a bakery with him.

“I’m so annoyed,” I informed him.

“Yeah? Why?” I could tell he knew where the conversation was going and was over it.

“You know exactly why. You told your mom to be patient while I found somewhere to live. Why can’t you just tell her that I’m not moving? I fucking live here!”

In true Brady fashion, he sulked off, mumbling something about me needing to calm down. I chased him.

“This isn’t fair, honestly. I don’t owe your mother anything, you realize that right?”

“Yes, I realize that! And you made that very clear today when you met with her,” he snapped back.

“Of course I did!”

Brady started undoing his tie and getting undressed slowly.

“Should I just move out then?” I asked, calmly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not,” he said as he rolled his eyes. “I have it under control.”

“Clearly you don’t because your mom called me disgusting today!”

Brady didn’t say anything and walked out of the bedroom in just his t-shirt and slacks. I sat there and cried. I feel like I want this way more than Brady does. I don’t know what to do. He literally doesn’t even try. Why did I even bother moving here with him when he doesn’t put in any effort?

Later on, after I worked in the bedroom for a few hours while Brady worked in the living area, he came and found me.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I was sitting Indian style on the bed and he came and kneeled down in front of me. I could’ve slapped him right then because he was at the perfect height.

“I could’ve stayed in Chicago. I was perfectly happy there. My job was going fine and all my friends are there,” I said.

“Really?” he actually seemed surprised.

“Yes. You clearly don’t give a shit about our relationship.”

“That isn’t true.”

I felt like it was still his turn to talk so I didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry. It really doesn’t matter about my mom. You know I don’t care about her or what she thinks, we just have to deal with her because she is close-by.”

“Oh, I don’t have to deal with anyone. She’s not my relative,” I scoffed.

Brady nodded. “I know.”

And then he had the goddamn nerve to gently push me back on the bed so he could kiss all over my thighs really sweetly before going down on me. Which I was obviously going to let him. It’s like he never stops wanting to fool around and eat me out. That doesn’t make up for his lack of communication and lack of common fucking sense. I feel like the only thing he cares about now is my vagina.