Hunter arrived on Friday evening. I’d been kind of dreading his extended stay, but ran around making sure the apartment was spotless and filling the refrigerator with groceries and beer.

When I got home from work, Brady and Hunter were already there. We were going to dinner and then possibly out for drinks after.

“Heyyy, Reese,” Hunter greeted me when I walked through the door.

I’d decided I would play nice and try to have a better relationship with him (I give Hunter shit for everything he does even though it is not my place), so I said, “Hey! How was your flight?”

He gave me a side hug which I feel is sometimes even more awkward. Just hug me like a normal person. “It was nice. Flew right by. You can even tell you’re pregnant by your face. Wow.”

Brady knew the comment was rude and his panicky eyes quickly cut to me.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Our reservation is at 8:30 so we should start getting ready,” Brady said.

“Cool. I was gonna make a drink. Anyone want anything?” Hunter said.

“Whatever you’re having,” Brady said and then Hunter looked at me expectantly.

I walked off without saying anything. After showering, I changed into a red floral wrap dress and small heels. Recently I went on a shopping spree for non-maternity clothes that I can wear while pregnant while not looking pregnant. Am I still trying to hide it? I haven’t even bought anything (except a onesie from an Instagram ad) for the baby which concerned Kendra.

“Are you like, not excited?” she asked.

Honestly, I’m waiting for the baby shower she’s throwing for me. I don’t even know what I’m having yet! Plus, I’ve just been concerned about other things. Like the fact that Brady wants to move to Connecticut. More on that later.

When I emerged from the bedroom, Brady and Hunter were standing at the bar area with tall glasses of what looked like vodka Red Bulls.

“She’s alive,” Hunter said, smiling.

I rolled my eyes.

Brady grabbed my waist gently because he treats me like I’ll break and said, “You are so beautiful.”

“She is, but let’s go. I’m fucking starving,” Hunter said.

We went to a new American restaurant where I watched them pound down beer after beer. They barely even touched their food (in fact, I ate half of Brady’s macaroni and cheese). Hunter talked about Dom at dinner, which was a surprise since usually I’m the one who brings her up.

“The wifey is talking about baby number three,” he said. “Said she misses the kids when they were babies. We just got our sleep pattern back on track.”

“Really?” I exclaimed because the last thing those two need to be doing is having more children.

Hunter shrugged. “We always said we’d have a big family. Don’t you want your kid to have a lot of cousins to play with?”

Later in the evening, the place turned off the lights and took the tables away so it’s like a little nightclub. Brady and Hunter were drunk.

“Three shots of Maker’s Mark,” Hunter said to the bartender and then looked back at me. “Actually, make that two shots.”

That annoyed me plus I was stuffed and ready to pass out. So I went home.

They got home later, a little after 3am and made a ton of noise while making drinks in the kitchen. And then, they took their party out to the terrace where they continued being loud and probably waking the entire neighborhood up.

I got up and went to the door to confront them wearing just one of Brady’s Cubs t-shirts. Before I could say anything, Drunk Hunter said, “Take that fucking shirt off!”

And maybe it’s because I have inappropriate thoughts about Hunter already or because the t-shirt was literally the only thing I was wearing, but I could not believe the crude comment he made in front of Brady, who just smirked. I didn’t even know what to say and let out a little gasp.

“I…what?” And then I realized that Hunter must not like the Cubs and that was why he was telling me to remove my shirt, not because he wanted to see my pregnant ass naked. “Y’all need to shut up. It’s 4 o’clock in the morning.”

Another day in the weekend, I was in the kitchen making an arugula, prosciutto and burrata salad with a strawberry vinaigrette and meatballs and Hunter needed to get past me. We have a galley kitchen and it’s narrow and on his way past, Hunter touched my hip lightly. Like not my back or my waist, but my hip which was much lower than what I think is appropriate. His hands are huge. And of course after that encounter, I immediately had a dirty dream about him.

Other than that, I’m mostly just annoyed at how much Hunter eats. Obviously Brady and I eat a ton, but feeding Hunter is like feeding a village. I had to replenish the refrigerator before his first weekend was even over. And y’all know I hate for people to eat my food. Oh, and I also hate how he objectifies women and Brady does not hold him accountable for that. One day we were sitting on a restaurant’s patio and he was watching women walk past.

“Damn, legs for days,” he mumbled about a young girl in short shorts.

“Ew!” I said loudly and Brady acted like he didn’t see any of it. Hunter winked at me.

One night before Hunter came, Brady handed me his phone where a bunch of pictures of an empty house were displayed. It was beautiful – with wood planked floors, brightly painted white walls, vaulted ceilings, a big deck and a backyard.

“What’s this?” I asked because he’d given me no context.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I mean, yeah. Where is it?” I said back.

Brady took his phone back. “It’s in Connecticut. A lot of my coworkers who have children live there.”

“Connecticut,” I repeated.

“Really, it’s the only way we’d be able to get as much room as we need for all of us,” he explained.

“All of us? I’m pretty sure all of us can fit in New York without having to move out of the state.”

“We’d still be able to commute into the city. A lot of people do it. I think if we want to buy, that’s where we should be looking.”

So instead of entertaining his little Connecticut idea, I searched for two bedrooms in New York which actually proved difficult with our budget and requirements (I will not not have in-unit laundry). And Brady sent a couple more he’d found, equally as spacious and beautiful. I’m not fucking moving to Connecticut.

Mike hired a VP. And she’s my age (well, 30). He didn’t even tell me he was looking for someone. I walked in one Monday and this tall blonde was walking briskly through our lobby area. She waved quickly and continued on. I didn’t think anything of it until Mike sent out a company-wide email telling us to welcome Paige, our new Vice President, to the team. He went on to talk about her experience and accolades and said she’d be working on “strategy” with him.

I decided to stop by Mike’s office to confront him and I passed Paige in the hallway. She didn’t plan on saying anything to me, I could tell, and I can’t stand that. Especially in our small office and especially from someone in a high level role.

“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Reese,” I said.

“Oh, hi! Nice to meet you, Reese,” she said. She didn’t reach to shake my hand which is another pet peeve. Clearly I could’ve shaken her hand first, but she’s the VP, not me. So I stuck my hand out to shake hers.

“How’s your first day going?”

“Really, really busy. I’ll set up some time for us to TB later in the week, k?” Paige scampered off.

Kristina and I spent the rest of the day finding all her socials and discussing our first impressions of her.

At our touchbase later in the week, the first thing Paige said was, “Is it true that you’re pregnant?” Which I thought was really awkward.

“I am,” I said, opening my laptop. “I’m glad that the news made its way to you.”

“Congratulations. You look fantastic,” she said. I noted the huge princess cut diamond on her left ring finger – even more impressive than it looked on Instagram. And I watched as she looked for a ring on my finger.

I walked her through some of the reports and what I do on the daily. She’s actually really smart and well spoken and asks really good, relevant questions. Maybe she isn’t so bad.

And then, Brendan. We had lunch the other day. He stopped by the office and as usual, Paige was running out the door because she’s just so busy.

“Who’s that?” Brendan asked as she breezed past us.

“I don’t know. Mike hired her,” I replied.

We got to lunch where we ordered salads and talked shop a bit. There was a lull in the conversation and Brendan asked awkwardly, “So…how does it feel to be having a baby?”

I wasn’t expecting that. And I feel like I really don’t think about it because people don’t typically ask that. Usually it’s, “Do you know what you’re having and what what do you hope it is?” and “What are you doing for your gender reveal?”

“It feels really weird. I don’t think it’s hit me yet. Like, I’m going to be someone’s mom,” I said back. Every time I realize that, I start tearing up.

“That’s awesome. You must be excited.”

“Eh, yeah.” I don’t know if excited is the word. I have visions of a sweet, beautiful baby with blue eyes and then I immediately think of them growing into a teenager and hating me. And then I picture myself as a 45 year old. And then I want to vomit.

As I was calendar stalking, I saw that Paige had set up a intro meeting with Brendan (not Thomas, just Brendan) and that triggered me. Usually Brendan only works with me and/or sometimes Mike (they are besties) because Thomas handles their accounts. Not sure why Paige thinks she needs to meet with Brendan, but I’m not pleased.

Anyway, I find out what I’m having on Friday and I actually am really excited about that. I’m also excited for Hunter to leave on Sunday. Two weeks is way too long of a visit.

Mike and I had to go to LA for a day to check on a project and I was thrilled. I love visiting LA. At first I was going to go alone, but then at the last minute, Sam told me she booked him a ticket too.

“You’re coming too, right?” I clarified, thinking about how awkward it would be if it were just me and Mike.

“Nope,” she said.

Luckily, we were not flying together though so I didn’t have to spend an additional six hours alone with him.

“Don’t invite anyone over,” I warned Brady on Sunday evening before I left. I had visions of him inviting Sydney over for dinner and a glass of wine. I hate Sydney.

The next morning I met Mike in the lobby of the Loews Hotel. He made it clear that we had a tight schedule and that our day had to begin at 7am to keep up with East Coast time. I wore my best Cool Girl outfit: animal print skirt, Golden Goose high tops and a baggy sweater. Mike was wearing his standard suit sans tie, but this was West Coast so no need for such formality.

“Good morning,” he greeted me, not looking up from his phone. He was sitting on a bench with his legs spread open, leaning forward. “I like your outfit.”

“Thanks! I thought I’d dress down, but still fashion forward since we’re in California,” I said back.

Mike glanced up at me, dragging his eyes from my feet up to my face. “Let’s go.”

We had meeting after meeting which was annoying because I had the day perfectly planned out before Mike decided to come and add additional meetings to the calendar. And then he had the nerve to treat me like an assistant at the first meeting – a meeting I’d put together.

“Good point. Reese, add that to our notes.”

“Reese can pull together the numbers and email it to the group.”

And at one point, he shoved a packet to me that someone handed him, not wanting to deal with it. Like, I’m not your little bitch, dude. Then I realized that these were my meetings and I had to get him under control. After that, I was sure to be more vocal and took charge. I’m sure Mike was rolling his eyes at me behind my back.

By 2:00pm, we’d had four back to back meetings and mama was starving and cranky. I’d only had a banana in the hotel that morning. We had some downtime so I thought we’d stop and get food, but Mike said, “Let’s go through the deck for the next meeting.”

“Should we grab something to eat?” I asked.

“I’m fine with my coffee,” Mike replied, holding up the free coffee he’d snagged at the previous place.

Obviously I don’t drink even drink coffee so it’s not like that I had to hold me over.

“Okay. I didn’t have a very big breakfast so I’ll need to eat soon. Otherwise I’ll get hangry,” I said, trying not to snap. I can’t believe I said “hangry” to Mike.

“We will have some time after the next meeting. You can eat then,” he said dismissively.

But after the next meeting, he had our driver take us to visit a showroom he was interested in.

“I thought we were going to eat now,” I said.

“We probably won’t have time to eat until we get to the airport. Is that okay with you?” Mike said. Before I could even let him know that it was not fucking okay and I was about to keel over, he walked into the showroom.

Mike was right. We didn’t eat until 7:00pm when we got to the airport. We had a little bit of time to kill so we stopped in one of the sit downs. I ordered a burger and fries before even seeing the menu. I was ravenous.

Mike opened the dinner conversation by asking, “So do you like working for us?”

Oh boy. This was going to be fun.

But I was actually pretty honest about what I liked about work (the small office setting, freedom to be creative, our clients and vendors) and some of the pain points (everything else). Later on in the conversation, after the food came and I was stuffing my face, Mike said something like, “When Brendan gets back from vacation we will need to sort of the logistics of that.”

“Oh, Brendan is on vacation?” I said back with a mouth full of food.

Mike nodded. “I’m not exactly sure when he’s back. Will you reach out to Thomas to get him to send over some estimates?”

Naturally, immediately after he told me that, I pulled my phone right out and went to Brendan’s Instagram to see where he was, but he wasn’t even posting pictures or stories and that’s unheard of while on vacation. Maybe he blocked his story from me? Then I checked his tagged pictures to see if the wife had posted anything and she hadn’t – at least not that she tagged Brendan in. Then I checked he wife’s page. She was posting pictures in NYC.

“So how are your kiddos?” I asked after I put my phone away.

Mike glanced up at me. “They’re fine.”

I don’t think Mike has ever told me about his kids – the only reason I know he has them is because of the pictures in his office.

“That’s good. I can’t imagine being a kid and growing up in New York. I feel like I’d get into so much trouble,” I said.

“We live in New Jersey.”

“Oh.”

After a little bit more small talk, Mike announced that he had to go to the restroom. Perfect. More time to stalk Brendan. I pulled out my phone and began looking through Brendan and his wife’s Instagram pages again. When I looked up again, I saw Mike standing across the restaurant at the bar with his wallet out. The bartender was sliding a shot glass with dark liquor in it. And then, I watched as Mike took the shot. No way! I suddenly liked him more.

Mike didn’t put his phone away the rest of the evening which was great because we’d run out of things to talk about. I was more interested in finding out where Brendan was anyway.

The rest of the week was quite uneventful. Mike invited me to lunch and by invite I mean, we ran into each other in the hallway and he mentioned he was going to grab a salad and did I want to join?

Did I? No. I wanted Chipotle. But you can’t say no to Mike. We didn’t speak at all on our way to get salads, but at the restaurant he did the nicest thing he’s probably ever done. When we got the register and they asked, “Is that all?” Mike said, “And whatever she is having.”

“Thanks for lunch, Mike,” I said as we walked back to the office.

“You can thank the company. It will be expensed,” he said, not looking up from his phone.

That weekend, one of Brady’s friends invited us to dinner at a restaurant in the East Village. I was mostly excited to get out of the house and to eat. We arrived at the restaurant and met up with Connor and Owen, Owen’s girlfriend, Jess, Sydney and Sydney’s friend (I forgot the girl’s name but Sydney finally has a friend! Thank God).

The restaurant had big family style tables and Sydney made a point to plop down right next to Brady. I rolled my eyes. On the other side of me sat a friendly bald man who belonged to the group sitting next to us. Brady and Sydney were completely engrossed in conversation about politics so I started talking to Connor, Owen and Jess. Connor and Owen are both nerdy, but sweet doctors who work with Brady. They’re like nice guys I would never date because they probably only like missionary sex and are annoyingly particular about their beer. That’s exactly what they wanted to talk about. Beer.

“It’s lacking hoppiness. You’d expect an IPA to be more hoppy,” Connor said, sounding like a Chopped judge.

I rolled my eyes. The bald man next to me nudged me, grinning at my reaction to Connor’s commentary. We started talking. He lives out in Long Island City, but it was someone in his group’s birthday and he hoped he made it to the evening festivities.

“Tell me about it,” I said, also feeling exhausted (huge).

I talk a lot. He told me he has a pilot’s license and then started quizzing me on US geography. I failed that and instead impressed him with my knowledge of regional United States cuisine. I could tell him the most famous restaurants and dishes in the largest US cities – I even surprised myself. How/Why do I know any of this?

“Oh no, no, no,” I heard someone say. A tall blonde woman was approaching the back of the bench we were sitting on. She looked like she was from the Midwest and likes to eat beer cheese soup. “I see what you’re trying to do here. This is my husband.”

“Excuse me?” I said back.

“You’ve been talking to my husband for an hour. I know he isn’t wearing a ring, but we are married! And this needs to end,” she said.

I looked at the bald man, who said nothing and back at her. “You’re joking, right?”

“No, you’re joking right? He’s married and what you’re doing is inappropriate!” she said.

“Okay, you have one minute to get away from me before I am requesting the police to escort you out for harassing me,” I said very calmly.

“Harassing you?!” she erupted and then she started screaming belligerently, talking about me hitting on her husband. He sat there and did nothing.

At this point, Brady noticed the commotion and jumped up, but only because Connor or Owen or someone alerted him. He was too busy talking to Sydney.

“What’s going on?” he asked. He hadn’t put in his contacts that day and was wearing his glasses and looked completely adorable. At the same time, an employee came over and asked the same thing.

“I think she needs to leave,” the lady said as if she wasn’t the one who had just been screaming.

“I actually think she needs to leave. I’m pregnant and she is being violent,” I said.

“If the two of you cannot keep it down, you will both need to leave,” the employee said.

“You’re pregnant?” asked Connor or Owen.

Sydney gasped (Brady tells her literally everything, but apparently hadn’t told her that yet).

Needless to say, I did not leave until I was good and ready and the lady dragged her stupid husband to the other end of the table. Good fucking riddance.

For the long July 4th weekend, Brady and I wanted to get out of the city so we flew to his grandmother’s house in Florida. It was risky, but he was sure that no one else would be there. No one in Brady’s family knows I’m pregnant except Hunter. And it’s a bit hard to hide a belly when you’re in a bathing suit.

Luckily though, we didn’t have any run ins, not even with Daniela, the hot housekeeper I catch Brady texting sometimes. I asked him where she was.

“Ah, uh, I don’t know. I thought she’d be here,” he stammered.

We spent three days sitting by the pool eating fresh fruit and tacos and the last day, we walked around the town, going in and out of the shops.

“So when are you going to tell your parents? This feels wrong,” I told Brady at lunch.

“What does?” he said back.

“Having to hide that I’m pregnant. You went out of your way to make sure no one would be here to see me and I just think it would be easier if you just told them. The longer you wait, the more disappointed they’ll be that you have been hiding it,” I explained.

Brady nodded like he had it under control. “I was thinking we should tell them soon. I want to do it in person though so I thought we could have them over for dinner or something.”

“We? They already hate me so you should probably do that on your own…”

Brady didn’t say anything, but sighed like I was being ridiculous. I should probably be more supportive, but that’s a problem I just don’t feel like I should have to deal with. I’m sure I’ll end up being there when he tells them anyway.

Brendan was back at work the next week. We still hadn’t talked at all and I never figured out where he was vacationing, but shockingly on Tuesday, he stopped by the office and we were so happy to see each other that we hugged.

“I’m meeting with Mike now, but let’s catch up later in the week!” he said and ran off.

I was feeling so hopeful – friends again! But he was so busy with work that I didn’t see or hear from him again. So much for catching up. It’s probably good though. A few people in the office know I’m pregnant now (thanks Kristina) so I shouldn’t be spending so much time with Brendan. I don’t want anyone getting any ideas.

Anyway, Hunter is here and it’s a lot and I will fill y’all in later!