I tried to turn my Miami work trip into a weekend getaway with Brady, but he wasn’t having it.

“I have way too much work to do, I can’t leave for the whole weekend,” he told me.

“Oh please. It’s not like the hospital will burn down if you aren’t there,” I said. It was condescending, but come on.

I got to Miami on Thursday with Kristina, who manages our account there. We had back to back meetings, but I was just happy to be in the sun. After meetings, we changed and I got dressed in a white jumpsuit for drinks. I really had no business doing that because I had a ton of work piling up, but when in Miami.

After three drinks, Kristina said, “But anyway. Where’s your boyfriend?”

“He claims he’s too busy at work to come. I’m gonna chop his head off,” I answered.

“No, I mean your work boyfriend. Brendan.” She gave me a delighted smile.

Brendan loves me. Not in a romantic way at all, but he thinks I’m brilliant (Mike’s words) and hilarious and comes to me for literally everything. He also happened to be in Miami at the same time as us.

“Oh, I don’t know where he is. Probably somewhere texting his wife,” I said back.

Brendan and I have gotten so close that he followed me on Instagram and his Instagram is filled with pictures of his sappy wife. Like him, she looks about 21 years old (but he’s actually six months older than me). She looks exactly how I pictured with big, far apart eyes with an equally huge smile. She kind of looks like Woah Vicky from Instagram (she actually looks exactly like her, but I don’t want to be rude).

“Tell him to meet us out,” she enthused.

“No.” I know when to draw the line. Nothing good would happen if Brendan came out drinking with us – I could imagine my lips loosening and blabbering about Mike and his prostitutes. Brendan and I may be friends, but I don’t know where his loyalty lies.

“You hang out with him all the time. Why keep him to yourself?” she pouted.

It’s true. Like I said, Brendan comes to me for everything and stops by the office like twice a week to check in on things which I get the impression he didn’t do before I started. But again, it’s not romantic at all. I think he’s genuinely like a nice person. He always talks to me about his family (he’s super close with his younger sister) and WASPy hobbies and super involved weekends. Usually our conversation goes like this:

Brendan: “This weekend my dad and I went to Maine with my uncle who is a pilot and owns a small plane. My family has a cabin there and we like to go ice fishing. We went snowboarding on Sunday and went to the sauna in my family’s house after. What did you do?”

Me: “I fell asleep on the couch on Friday night at 9, day drank with Lola all day on Saturday and passed out on the couch before dinner. I spent all of Sunday recovering.”

He doesn’t talk about his wife literally ever, but posts pictures with her with really sweet captions on Instagram. And because he doesn’t talk about his wife, I don’t talk about Brady.

Once we were tipsy and exhausted, Kristina and I finally called it a night. When I got back to my hotel, I checked my phone to see that Nick had replied to my Instagram story.

“Ever coming back?” he asked.

And really, I shouldn’t have responded cuz like, who is Nick? But still, I said, “Next weekend actually!”

“Can’t wait,” he said back. I don’t know why Nick thought my trip to Chicago had anything to do with him or that I would even see him while in Chicago. But I just didn’t respond.

Kristina and I stayed until Saturday evening just to have an extra day to explore. We day drank and shopped (I had to buy an extra bag to get all my shit home).

Brady had friends over when I got home. Excuse me? He didn’t have time to come to Miami with me, but he had time to mingle with friends? Not to mention, Sydney’s huge eyeballs were the first ones I saw.

“Hey, babe. I’m glad you’re home,” Brady greeted me brightly with a kiss as he took my bag from me.

“Hey. It would have been nice not to come home to a house full of people, but whatever,” I said low enough so that no one else heard me.

Brady continued standing there smiling and I walked around him and greeted everyone. Besides Sydney, Zeke was there with some of his friends and Brady’s doctor friends Owen and Connor. Sydney was the only girl.

“Heyyyy, Reese!” she squawked.

“Come drink with us,” Zeke said.

As if I had a choice.

I went to the bedroom to change and Brady followed.

“How was your trip?” he asked.

I shrugged as I changed into workout pants. “You should’ve come.”

I pulled my shirt off and with my giant boobs out on display, he took a big step toward me and pulled me into him.

“Mmm, I missed you so much,” he murmured into my ear.

And I pushed him off thinking, if you didn’t have 50 people over we could fool around and hook up, but now we have to entertain them. I’m getting old.

The evening consisted of playing drinking games and Sydney being very vocal about her sexual experiences/preferences. I really could have lived my life without knowing that Sydney’s favorite position is doggy style.

The following weekend, Brady and I went to Chicago for Kendra and Mia’s birthdays. I was so excited to get back and see everyone and had plans to catch up with Preston and Lexi and some others after dinner with Kendra and John.

I put on a black and white printed blouse, girlfriend jeans, and white booties and we met them at Tao. Kendra and I screamed and cried when we saw each other.

“Oh my God,” she said, wiping her tears. “You look fantastic, Reese! Your hair is so long and shiny. And you’re glowy!”

“Um, excuse me? You look so fucking thin and perfect. I miss us!” We hugged again.

We all sat down and ordered a whole lot of food. They are trying for another baby.

“Isn’t Mia enough for now?” I exclaimed.

Kendra smiled. “We miss when Mia was teeny tiny and we want all of our kids to be close in age… You’ll see once you start having kids.”

They all just looked at me, including Brady.

“Okay,” I said.

Kendra leaned over with her chin in her hands. “So is living in New York City everything you thought it’d be?”

“Yeah, I think so. I like it, but I miss Chicago way more than I thought I would. I’m a little bit like, homesick, I guess,” I replied.

She gave me a sympathetic look. “Of course you are. Chicago was your home for like six years. Do you think y’all will ever love back?”

“Maybe. He doesn’t want to be in New York long term, but we are both fine for now.”

We caught up and talked about work. Kendra is about to get a promotion so she’s been working a lot (but still not as much as Brady because she gasped when I told her his schedule). I pointed out that it didn’t seem like a good time to be trying to expand her family and she rolled her eyes.

After dinner, the four of us headed up Old Town to a bar to meet up with Preston and Lexi and Alex later on.

Preston brought his new boyfriend, Ethan. I hate Ethan. He was super condescending and had the nerve to dominate the conversation to talk about himself. Who do you think you are, Ethan?

At one point he went to the bathroom and Preston leaned close. “What do you think? I know you aren’t going to believe me, but I’ve never felt this kind of connection with someone before.”

Oh, for fucks sake. “Really, Preston?”

I’ll bet $500 they don’t make it to summer.

We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning, until Kendra and John realized they told their sitter they’d be home at 2:00 and it was several hours later than that. We climbed into an Uber with me squished in the backseat between Kendra and Brady.

I pulled out my phone and saw that I had some messages from Nick. I forgot about him, again.

One was a tongue out selfie. “Waiting for you at Bottled Blonde.”

Then he said, “You in town?”

I had my phone pulled up close to my face because I was drunk and blind.

Brady said, “Who’s Nick?”

I pulled my phone away. “Oh yeah, he’s this guy I know.”

And to my complete shock, Brady reached for my phone so he could read the messages himself. Luckily though, Nick and I don’t have a recent text history so there was nothing to see.

“Are you going to text him back?” he said, handing my phone back to me.

“No.”

The next morning, we woke our hungover asses up to get ready for Mia’s party. They rented out a restaurant and John’s and family came for the occasion. I thought everything was going well until Kendra grabbed my elbow and pulled me to a corner.

“What’s up? Why are you acting crazy?” I asked.

“John is getting on my nerves,” she whispered.

“Duh. He’s been on my nerves since the moment I met him. What’s he doing?” I said.

“He and his mom are criticizing everything I did. She asked why we had the party at this restaurant and not one we talked about previously because it is bigger and has better food and John stood there agreeing with her like, ‘Yeah, why, honey?’”

Oh, I’d kill him.

“Me and John talked about this on more than one occasion. He’s just being an ass trying to impress his mom.”

I was actually surprised to hear this. Kendra is really close with John’s family and she’s known them for years. She doesn’t normally complain about stuff like that. But welcome to my life, girl.

Speaking of which, Brady’s mom texted me the other day. I hadn’t heard from her in a while and Brady hasn’t mentioned her at all.

She sent a link to an article from CNN that talked about sleeping habits. Uh, okay? It’s like she was trying to find an excuse to text me.

So I said back, “Thank you, I’ll read this when I have a chance. How are you?”

And then she didn’t even respond so whatever.

Let’s see, what else?

Work has been very busy. So busy that I don’t have time to text Brady and annoy him all day which I feel like is making me miss him. I get so excited to get home to tell him all about my day and work and hear about his day. It’s a good feeling. He’s still working a lot also, but makes a point to come home before 8:00 each night so we can have dinner together. He works until 11pm or midnight at home though, but I guess that’s fine.

Brady and I are going to visit Hunter in San Francisco next weekend and I’m sure I’ll have come stories from that. Ciao!