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.