Carly came to visit as promised. She ditched Chris and Sloan and hopped on a train on Saturday morning. It was perfect timing because Brady decided to work that day. Brady has been working like his life depends on it. More about that later.

I invited Lola over also so we could all sit in my warm apartment (we have a fireplace) and gossip.

“Oh my God, I love your place!” Carly exclaimed several times. “Do you think Brady will mind if I move in?”

“He’s never home anyway,” Lola said.

Even though she was right I glared at her. Brady usually leaves the house in the morning at around 5:30 – this is after he’s gotten ready and taken Tucker for a walk. Then we can expect him home between 8 and 9:30pm. And he’s worked the past several weekends. So yeah, he’s never home, but I didn’t need Lola to point that out.

I made us a fabulous vegan brunch consisting of fresh fruit, a sweet potato and kale hash, chia pudding and ginger shots.

“I’m going crazy,” Carly announced. “I’m bored and I have cabin fever and I catch myself baby talking to other adults.”

“Why don’t you get a job?” I asked.

“I’m looking. Chris doesn’t want to put Sloan in daycare right now though.”

“Tell him to stay home with the baby while you get a job,” Lola chimed in.

Sixteen mimosas later, we were talking about Brady again after Carly and Lola complained about their respective men. Carly is annoyed that her life is so boring and Chris doesn’t seem to care because he wants her home with Sloan. Lola and I told her that she should get a part time nanny and then either get a part time job or a hobby. That’s what I would do. Carly is also mad because she told her job that she’d be back like 6 months ago and she hasn’t so they replaced her. She’d have to find an entirely new job.

Lola is always annoyed with Kellen, but on this particular day, she was mad at him because he told her he needed space, that he didn’t want to feel like he was dating his mom. So harsh.

“I’m just trying to help him better his life. He still lives like he’s in college, eating corn dogs and shit for dinner,” she explained.

Carly made a face. “I refuse to have anything like that in my house.”

I really had nothing to say because I’m usually eating a pound of chips and bacon ranch dip for dinner or nothing at all. And I am way too old for that.

“Brady has always been like that, Reesie,” Carly said after I’d complained to them about his schedule.

“I know, but he keeps promising that he will try harder and he doesn’t,” I said.

“You know…” Carly swirled her mimosa. “If Brady didn’t get this job, you guys wouldn’t even be here. So really, you should be grateful that he has it.”

“I’d much rather be back in Chicago than this!” I blew up at her. “Are you kidding me? Why should I be grateful that he dragged me across the country and has no regard for me or my feelings?”

Carly threw her hands up and Lola said, “Just do your own thing. If he can’t find a way to spend time with you then he doesn’t want to. He’s not the president of the United States.”

“Thankfully,” I muttered.

“Yeah, just try to find things to do on your own, babe,” Carly said, touching my hand. “I really think you should join a book club or a fitness class or something.”

A fucking book club. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore because they didn’t get my point.

That evening, Carly and I got dressed to go out for drinks and Brady walked in. I hadn’t heard from him all day because he’s so busy at work that he can’t text. I used to blow up his phone and make him at least acknowledge me, but I don’t even try anymore.

He greeted both of us with hugs and I let him know that we were going out.

“Yeah, do you want to come?” Carly said.

Brady looked at me before answering and he must have been gauging my reaction because he said, “No, that’s okay. I’m pretty tired-”

“Cool. Good,” I said. Stay your ass at home then.

Later on in the night, Carly said, “I sort of felt like you when Chris and I first moved.”

“Really?” I said back.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Chris was working a lot and I didn’t like my job and I was homesick.”

“What did you do to get over it?”

“Well, I stopped thinking Philadelphia was going to be anything like Chicago and tried to be more open minded. I found a new job and started going to any fitness class I could find.”

“Mmhm,” I murmured back, taking a sip of my drink.

“And a word of advice. You have to think about your future – if you are going to start a family with Brady and expect him to be the breadwinner, he’s gonna have to work a little bit harder to get where he wants to be. It sucks now, but it’ll be worth it in the long run.”

I rolled my eyes at her. I don’t need anyone to be the breadwinner. I make plenty of money on my own. And when we do begin having children, if he thinks he’s going to be able to work 100 hours a week and not help me with the baby, he is in for a rude awakening. And the nerve of Carly to even try to give me that advice. She hates being a stay at home Mom and having to rely on Chris so why would she think I wanted to do it?

Anyway, on Sunday after Carly left, Brady and I went for a walk. We just wanted to get out of the house. And when he started telling me about work, about how stressed he is about his workload and how there isn’t enough time to do it all, I started feeling bad. I’ve pretty much gotten used to him not coming home until late or working at home on Monday nights and not even looking up when Tucker and I run screaming through the apartment chasing each other. I’ve gotten so used to it that I don’t bother texting him to check in, keeping his dinner warm for him or even caring about it. I really should be more empathetic, but so should he. He’s the one who took this job.

But anyway, to actually have work to do feels nice. I’ve been super busy trying to catch up because there’s a lot and Mike is impatient. He’s a deadlines kinda guy and gives me a deadline for everything.

“Please print and read this SOP by end of day.”

“I need these expenses consolidated by end of week.”

“I’d like you to schedule lunches with these partners and please have this done within the next hour.”

And he loves changing deadlines so I have to reprioritize several times a day. It’s such a joy working for him.

Despite this, I am really liking my job. I love having a smaller office because first of all, less personalities but also it’s a lot easier to get ideas approved and implemented. And I have a lot of ideas. Whenever I think something can be done better or more efficiently, I tell Mike and he rolls his eyes and tells me that we can do it as long as I agree to take ownership of it.

I also love that we work with so many different vendors and partners. I get to talk to new people everyday and it makes up for not having a ton of people to talk to in the office.

I love this woman we work with named Nancy. She is basically what I’m going to be in twenty years. At our first meeting, she arrived wearing Manoko Blahnik flats and a furry cape.

“Hi, great outfit. Should we get to work?” she greeted me.

I appreciate people who don’t bullshit around. She’s also super business savvy and transparent which is great.

“Listen, if we installed all IKEA furniture, this client wouldn’t bat an eyelash. We are fine,” she told me once.

And she has the most chic dyed blonde bob that I can totally imagine myself sporting when I’m over fifty.

Another time, she said, “I am so glad Mike finally found someone else to do this job. I love Mike – we all love Mike – but he’s not the best at nurturing relationships, is he?”

I mean no, but he did find me after a year to ask me to come work for him so there’s that.

We had a budget meeting the other week that was supposed to be just me, Thomas and some others, but one of Mike’s meetings got rescheduled so he insisted on coming with me. Brendan was also there, uninvited.

So instead of the meeting going how I’d planned, Mike kept interjecting and asking questions that I’d planned to cover later on. Just let me do my job, dude.

At first when he would ask questions, I would coyly smile and say, “I was getting to that next.”

Brendan gave me a look like, “I can’t believe you just said that to your CEO,” but Mike can handle it. Eventually though, I just started answering his questions.

Afterwards, we all walked back to the office together and Brendan said to me, “He seems tough.”

“He is, but I am too,” I confirmed.

Everyone at the office is always really surprised that I say (mostly) what I want to Mike. I actually feel like I walk on eggshells around him, but I’m at least honest. Everyone else just shuts their mouths and nods.

Brendan laughed because apparently he thinks I’m so funny. He started telling me about his team and the growing pains he was going through with his company and how he and his dad had completely opposite views on running a business.

“My dad is a workhorse and expects everyone else to be. He ran a really strict and tight ship and I’m not really that way. I’m not a control freak and I think that makes people think I’m either lazy or don’t know what I’m doing,” he explained.

“Yeah, I think Mike is more like your dad. I can understand where you’re coming from though, I am a firm believer in only hiring people you can trust to do their job without having to babysit them,” I replied.

A little while later, Brendan nudged me through his coat pocket and said, “You never know, maybe one day you’ll take his job.”

We all got back to the office and grabbed coffee/tea in the kitchen. This turned into me, Brendan, Thomas, Sam and Kristina standing around for twenty minutes laughing and talking. After they left, Kristina cornered me in my office.

“Oh my gosh, Brendan is hot, isn’t he?” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, but he’s married so calm down,” I said to her.

“Ugh.” She pretended to pout and crossed her arms defiantly.

I’m supposed to be working primarily with Thomas and whenever he emails me, he always copies Brendan and Mike. And Brendan usually responds and ends up taking care of whatever it is that Thomas was trying to get done. So much for not being a control freak, right?

Since Brady has decided to live at work, I’ve been going through his messages. I mainly just want to see who he has time to text since he has no time to text me.

Apparently, no one. Not even his mother. She sends him messages once every few days with either links to articles or asking him questions and he never responds to her. But she is persistent and continues messaging him. The latest article she sent him was something like “things you should know before marriage.” Not sure what she thinks is going on, but obviously Brady and I are not getting married anytime soon.

Anyway, I should go. I/we have lots of travel coming up, but I’ll be sure to update y’all. Bye!