Have I mentioned how much I despise Florida as a concept? But I guess I can admit that it’s starting to grow on me a little bit. I know that Brendan used to go with his ex-wife quite often, but it still feels like an escape for us. I’m obviously still weirded out about him galavanting with me all around the places he used to go with his ex, but I think I’m starting to get over it. What else can I do?

We got to the airport before our trip and I couldn’t wait to complain to Brendan about my conversation with Mike. We grabbed drinks in the lounge (of course Brendan is an airport lounge kinda guy) and I unloaded on him. I was like, “I love how she couldn’t even handle her one job and now I’m suddenly good enough to be his VP after years of doing it for her. At this point I don’t even want to fucking do it anymore. I just want to go back to my old job and have all my free time back. I’m over it!”

“Really? I thought you’d be excited,” Brendan said.

Apparently Mike had spoken to Brendan about my potential promotion because he wanted to get his opinion before he asked me.

“No offense, but why?” I asked.

“He just wanted to know if I thought he should ask you and if I thought you’d do it,” Brendan explained.

“And you told him yes?” I clarified, fuming.

“Yeah, I told him that you deserve it and that he should offer it to you.”

“Wow, so you think I should take it?”

“I do, but it kind of sounds like you don’t want to?” he said.

Did my disgusted scowl and clenched fists give it away? Clearly we were not on the same page and he didn’t care if I had free time to hang out with him or not.

“I don’t know. I told him I’d think about it while on vacation so I guess we’ll all see what I decide,” I said.

“Okay,” Brendan said, like it didn’t matter to him either way.

Whatever! So anyway, the rest of the trip was fine. I really want to emphasize that it was just fine, nothing more and nothing less, because after a week of waking up early, giving 15% effort at going to a workout class, eating whatever high protein brunch the chef made, taking a walk or laying around the pool, drinking 2 glasses of wine at dinner while sitting side by side and making future plans, coming home for some sort of sexual activity for approximately one hour before falling asleep and doing the same again the next day, I’d had enough fun and was kind of ready to get home. Brendan, on the other hand, revealed that he’d been thinking about investing in property in Florida.

“I come here often enough and I think it’d be nice to have my own place to escape the city in the winter,” he explained.

“But it’s Florida,” I pointed out.

“Yeah. Perfect weather. I love it here,” Brendan said.

He hadn’t mentioned anything about wanting permanent ties to Florida in all the many conversations we’d been having about our future and I was beyond annoyed.

“So you wanna help me pick out a place?” he asked.

“Well, obviously.” If Brendan was insistent on making Florida a thing, then I would happily use his money on the perfect dream vacation home for us and Winnie. I created a Pinterest titled “Florida 🌴🌊🍹🏠” and came up with an interior and exterior color palette, general vibe and aesthetic, landscaping story and window treatment ideas to present at a later date.

We headed to Puerto Rico on a tiny plane on Friday afternoon which I hated, but got over once we arrived at the chic little resort that Miguel and Jasmine had chosen for their wedding festivities. There were welcome cocktails later that night down at one of the bars at the resort and we stayed out late drinking with the wedding party.

The ceremony was the following day and it was really beautiful and I sobbed (as I do). It was a traditional catholic ceremony, I guess, which I didn’t necessarily see for Miguel and Jasmine. The ceremony was extremely long and Jasmine looked stunning.

Then we took shuttles from the church back to the resort for the reception and the reception was…fine. Well, it started off fine. I wore a long, flowy dress by Zimmermann and we walked down the candlelit path to where the reception was being held. The ballroom overlooked the beach and I appreciated the sunset and lighting setup, the music situation (a classy DJ who wasn’t super cheesy), the open wine-beer-tequila bar (that’s all you need really), and the passed appetizers which I’m sure were amazing (I didn’t have any). To no one’s surprise, Miguel and Jasmine both come from insanely gorgeous families and I’m obsessed with all of them. Miguel’s mother, who bears a striking resemblance to Paula Abdul, followed me on Instagram and has been sending me videos and inspirational quotes since the wedding. Love her so much. And I danced for hours with someone’s toddler who had no business being at the reception in the first place, but he was so fucking cute and I wanted to drop him in my carry-on and take him home with me!

The trouble began toward the end of the night and a few of us were hanging out at the bar. All of the elders and children had gone to bed and Miguel mentioned going out dancing. It was Brendan and me, Miguel and Jasmine, Jasmine’s sister and her wife, and their sexy relative, Freddie, who I would’ve been deeply attracted to, but he had been vaping all night. Jasmine had changed out of her gown and into a beaded little swan number that I’d need details on later.

“This was like, so incred. Is it everything you hoped for?” I said to Jasmine.

“For sure, but I’m just happy for it to be over and now I’m a wifey,” she said. “So what about you guys? Do you see yourself married?”

“I mean, yeah I want to of course,” I said. Up until then the conversation had mostly been between Jasmine and me and I put my hand on Brendan’s shoulder. “But I don’t know if we’re both ready for that.”

“What does that mean?” Brendan asked.

“Well. I imagine that if you’ve already been married once you wouldn’t be rushing to do it again. I certainly wouldn’t,” I explained.

“That’s totally valid,” Jasmine said in that blank, spacey kinda way.

“And having more than one big wedding in your lifetime seems crazy to me and I want a big wedding.”

Brendan didn’t say anything, but was looking at me like I should probably shut up.

“And like,” I continued, teetering into dangerous territory. “I think you should be 100% over your first marriage before getting into another. Like, talking about it shouldn’t be weird and you shouldn’t have all of your pictures still posted everywhere, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said, sounding like Kourtney Kardashian.

“Now you’re gonna piss me off,” Brendan said.

“Okay, nevermind. We can talk about it later,” I said to Jasmine.

“You guysssss,” Miguel, who had unbuttoned his dress shirt down to his navel, said as he leaned over to us. “Tonight is gonna be fun, right?”

“Right,” Jasmine agreed.

Brendan took his beer and walked away from the bar, clearly annoyed with me. I stood there with a stupid look on my face as if I hadn’t brought this on myself.

“I think he’s mad. Maybe you should go check on him and see,” Jasmine suggested.

“No, he’s fine,” Miguel said. He grabbed me and pulled me in between him and Jasmine. “You want another drink? What about a shot?”

“Yeah, let’s all do shots!” Jasmine said.

“No, I don’t want a shot,” I said.

“But it’s our wedding. Once in a lifetime,” Miguel said. At that point he had his arm around my waist, much like he does with the 23-year-old happy-hour-whores that he loves so much.

So I took the shot and then said, “Okay, I’m going to find my man.”

Miguel pretended to grab onto me so I couldn’t leave, but I broke away and continued on. Unclear what his motivations were on his wedding night, but I’m not his type so I don’t know why he was trying anything with me. The party had significantly died down so I easily found Brendan standing near an exit with one of he and Miguel’s friends.

“Hiiiiii,” I greeted him.

“Hi,” Brendan said.

“Are we fighting?” I asked.

The friend took the hint and walked away.

“No,” Brendan said.

“Okay, but you’re mad at me?”

“No, but you all of a sudden have an issue with me being married before. What do you want me to do about that?” he said.

“I don’t have an issue with you being married. I feel like having a starter wife was good training for you.”

Brendan did not find my joke funny.

“My issue is that you get really weird when your ex-wife is brought up in any capacity and you refuse to talk about it, yet you still have all of your pictures plastered all over Instagram talking about how much you love each other,” I explained calmly.

“Okay, we can talk about it then. What exactly do you want to know?” Brendan said.

What I really wanted to know was: if he loved Reagan as much as it seemed and the marriage still failed, how could he ever get married again? Like, how was I/us different? But that seemed like something really dense to get into at that moment so I said, “I can’t think of anything right now so I’ll come up with some stuff and write it down.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Maybe if I didn’t constantly have to see all your pictures together on Instagram, it wouldn’t bother me so much.”

“So you want me to delete them?”

OBVIOUSLY. Do you remember when Brendan said that I had to be very direct with him because he can’t read my mind? He was not kidding about that. God. “That would be ideal.”

“Okay, I’ll delete them,” Brendan said.

So…it finally happened. The next morning when I checked (you know I checked), all of Brendan’s offensive sappy pictures were gone from his Instagram. And to put it into perspective, without all of those pictures, he only had like 20 pictures left on his feed so you can see why it bothered me so much. And I know bringing it up at Miguel and Jasmine’s wedding wasn’t my best decision, but the pictures are gone now so I will count it as a win.

After talking to my dad about it, I decided to take the promotion. I didn’t have a real reason not to and since I was already doing the job anyway, it made sense to be compensated for it. But I was not happy about it. And of course Mike wasted no time forwarding me emails with no context to deal with and looping me into things I have no prior knowledge of or experience doing. So things have been going great.

The Saturday after I got home, I dropped Winnie off with Brady. And when I got there, half the house was in boxes and he let me know that he was moving into a new house the following weekend so Winnie could stay with me. I was aware that Brady sold his house months ago, but I hadn’t heard him talk about it again and hadn’t considered that he’d eventually be moving out.

“So where are you going?” I asked him.

“Only about 15 minutes away. Not far,” Brady said, purposely vague.

“Works for me,” I said. “Did you buy a new house? Do you have pictures?”

“No…I’m moving into Cara’s,” Brady said.

What? I just stared at him, wondering what the actual fuck was going on?

“Oh. So y’all are actually serious?” I finally said.

“I guess so. I mean, I don’t know. She’s owned her house for a few years and it’s closer to work,” he said.

“And Winnie is going to live there with you too?” I clarified.

“Yes. She has a room at the house.”

I kind of felt like I was going to faint or implode or combust. Why was I just now finding out about this? Brady can obviously do whatever the fuck he wants, but I was having a hard time accepting my child living with some lady we barely know. Caroline seems sweet enough, but she could be a child eater for all we know. And even Brady didn’t seem all that convinced.

“Well, I hope this is a good idea,” I said.

“Yep,” Brady said.

“And Winnie is okay with it?”

“Sure. I think she’s excited about it.”

In my mind, he was lying and that Winnie was unaware of the move. Winnie tells me everything and I know she would’ve mentioned something this big to me if she knew about it. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised since I think Brady and I moved in together the first time after less than a year. But there’s a child involved now. I don’t know. Let me know if I am wrong for being bothered or if I am just bitter?

I have so much more to tell y’all, but I’m struggling so much to find time. I’ll try to post again soon!