Brady would be traveling for basically the entire month of July meaning that I would have a month of uninterrupted time with my baby girl! I tried to ask Brady where he was traveling to and his answer was, “A lot of places.” So he obviously didn’t want me to know where he was going. That was cool because I didn’t actually care, I was just curious/nosy. As you know, Brady and I don’t talk much — especially after I falsely accused Caroline of being pregnant. And since we don’t have to see each other at drop offs, I hadn’t seen him in a while and was mostly keeping up with them via Caroline’s Instagram (which rarely includes updates about Brady).

Anyway! Winnie and I spent the 4th of July with Brendan and his family. His dad and stepmom were having people over for a barbecue and to watch the fireworks in the evening. All of the usuals were there (Brendan’s extended family, some of Margot’s friends, etc). But a couple of months ago Brendan told me that he and his parents were going to a special dinner to meet Danielle’s new boyfriend. I felt some type of way about that because there was no special dinner to meet me — I just happened to be invited to birthday dinners where Brendan’s family happened to be.

I guess everything went well because Danielle’s boyfriend was at the 4th of July barbecue also. He was actually so hot — he was tall and looked like Janet’s husband from the Valley. Except more polished and better looking. Tbh, I was quite impressed that Danielle pulled such a hottie since I’ve always found her to be rather bland, boring and off putting. Undeserved, but good for her. You’d think having a hot new boytoy would make Danielle more pleasant, but she was still acting like speaking to me physically pained her. So whatever. I would speak to her cute boyfriend instead.

That weekend, Brendan, Winnie and I went to their family cabin — just the three of us. We haven’t really done that and it was actually fun! I’m not historically a cabin kinda girl, but we basically just sat in and around the pool, ate the delicious food Brendan provided, watched silly movies like Trolls, and made s’mores.

I took some time off work to spend with Winnie which was much needed. We did cultural things around the city (I even went on a ferry, if you can imagine), had a day at the spa and did some back to school shopping in New Jersey. Oh and Winnie also did a little photo shoot to commemorate her summer before starting school with one of Lola’s photographer friends. It obviously turned out really cute and this is embarrassing, but I jumped in some of the pictures (just for the memories) so basically we had a mommy and me photoshoot.

It was when we were at the old school shopping mall in New Jersey that I got a strange phone call. Take a wild guess who it was. I’ll wait.

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It was Brady’s mother! I haven’t talked to that woman in so long — I’m talking years — but when I saw her name pop up, I had to answer. Because I was curious, but also because Brady was traveling with little access to his phone so what if she was calling to tell me that something had gone wrong? What if his body had washed up on some beach and she was there to identify it and was now breaking the news?

“Hi,” I answered.

“Oh! Hello,” Brady’s mom said. “I was prepared to leave a message.”

This was her way of throwing shade since I haven’t answered a call from her in years. She stopped calling eventually and I haven’t had a single thought about her. I assumed Brady was keeping in touch with her because it’s his mom, after all.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of my son. I don’t suppose you’ve heard from him?”

“Brady?” I clarified. Obviously she was talking about Brady, but she does have two sons so why was she saying it like that? And this was several weeks into his little excursion so it was crazy to me that 1. he hadn’t told her and 2. it had been several weeks and she was just now reaching out to see if he was okay. “No, he’s traveling for the month and doesn’t have his phone.”

“That’s good to know,” she said in her passive aggressive/condescending kind of way. “Anyhow, I would like to see my granddaughter before the fall, and I don’t know if Brady told you, but we have a trip planned with my sister Kat in November and I’d like her to be there.”

“I’m sure that will be fine,” I said.

“I was thinking that I could see her this coming weekend for two days. We won’t go far, but I have some gifts to give her and I’d like to spend some time with her,” she said.

“Yeah, perhaps. I need to check our schedule to make sure we have nothing planned.” We obviously didn’t have any plans except to torment Brendan, but the way she was saying “my granddaughter” and referring to Winnie as “her” like she forgot her name was rubbing me the wrong way.

“Of course. I wouldn’t expect you to drop everything for me,” she said in a way that made me think she did expect me to drop everything.

We hung up and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to say no. I know it sounds mean, but I just had an icky gut feeling about Winnie being alone with Brady’s mom. It’s one thing if they were all hanging out, but I did not like the idea of Brady’s mom infecting Winnie’s brain with all of her troublesome views and ideas. So later on, I texted her letting her know that Winnie and I actually did have plans (we didn’t) and she could coordinate with Brady when he got back if she wanted to see Winnie. She did not reply.

A couple weeks later, Brady called me to let me know that he was finally back from his trip.

I’m like, “OMG, welcome back! How was it? What was your favorite part?!”

Brady and I definitely aren’t friendly or friends, but I think I was just relieved that he was still alive. He was vague with his answer and said something like, “Yeah, it was fine. Nothing special or anything to write home about.”

Clearly. We agreed that I’d drop Winnie off to reunite with him the following morning. Despite my concerns of her forgetting that he exists, Winnie was super excited to go back to her dad’s and to spend a week with him. She went around her room and packed up her favorite toys, books and clothings pieces to take with her.

So the next morning Winnie and I hopped our happy asses in the car to Brady’s house. I didn’t actually care to hear about his trip at all, but I wanted to let him know that his mother had contacted me and possibly guilt him for not telling her where he was going. Why was she coming to me of all people to inquire about his whereabouts when we historically have not gotten along?

Brady met us outside and I hopped out with Winnie to watch their reunion and catch up. You know Miss Winnie had a ton to catch him up on. Brady actually hugged me too which was unexpected, but I wasn’t upset about it. And because it’s me, I checked him out while he held Winnie. I’m like, oh he’s looking pretty good — kinda muscular by his standards and like he got some sun. And then I clocked something.

“Wait, is that a wedding ring? Did you get married?!” I blurted out.

“What?” Brady said, stalling.

I just blinked at him. He fucking heard me.

“We did, yes,” he finally said. “I was waiting to tell you both in person.”

“Woooow,” was all I could muster. I literally didn’t have any words.

“What?” he said back all defensively.

“Nothing, that’s just…so crazy,” I said. “I thought you were like, backpacking through South America or something, not getting married.”

“The point of the trip wasn’t to get married. We decided at the last minute—”

I interrupted him. “And what’s the rush? You haven’t even been engaged for a year. Was there a wedding? I thought y’all were planning a wedding and stuff.”

“You know I’m not really into the wedding thing,” he said.

“I thought you weren’t into the marriage thing either, but here we are,” I said.

Brady (and Winnie) gave me a funny look. “Why are you so upset about it? If you wanted to go off and marry Brendan, I would have no issue with that.”

“I’M NOT UPSET!” I screamed. The nerve! “I just think it’s really weird that you went and got married — to this girl you barely know — and didn’t say anything, not even to your own child!”

“I told you that it wasn’t something that was really planned! Otherwise obviously I would’ve told you!” Brady said back, getting louder with me.

“Yeah, I’m so sure!” I said sarcastically. “The way you’re handling all of this is so weird, but who’s surprised? It doesn’t take any effort to just say: ‘My girlfriend and I are probably going to elope on this trip so don’t be shocked if we come back married.’ You deliberately kept us out of the loop and it’s actually really screwed up!”

Winnie, who had been silently taking all this in from Brady’s arms, said, “Mommy, stop it.”

So I guess I was going a little hard.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just really caught off guard,” I explained.

Brady and Winnie ignored me while they discussed her overnight bag and went back to the car to get it. He eventually put Winnie down and she hugged me before going into the house. Then he turned back to me to talk about if he was going to drop her back off or if I wanted to pick her up.

“I’m really not upset, by the way. I don’t care if you and Caroline go off and have 8 kids on a farm or if you divorce in a month. I just think it would be nice if you thought of your daughter sometimes,” I said.

Brady gave me another weird look. “Of course I think of her, but okay sure, Reese. Are you reacting this way because you don’t like Cara?”

What the fuck?

“What? I like Cara. I barely know her, but I like her just fine,” I said.

“Okay, it doesn’t seem like it and she has expressed that to me that she doesn’t feel that way. So for your daughter’s sake, I ask that you at least pretend to like her because she isn’t going anywhere.”

I was thisclose to losing my fucking shit.

“I told you I like her! What’s not clicking?!” I screamed.

“Okay,” Brady said.

“Congratulations on your fucking wedding and marriage, I hope you live happily ever after!” I went on.

“Okay, Reese. You can stop now,” he said.

The entire interaction really got under my skin. I genuinely do not care about Brady and his love life — I’m very happy in my own relationship with my man who is better (for me) in every way. I was just pissed that he was going out and making huge life decisions with little to no regard for his daughter, whose life it would be affecting too. And I super didn’t appreciate the whole narrative that Caroline was trying to spin — I have been nothing, but nice and polite to the girl (besides telling her truthfully that Brady is a cheater because he is and it’s not my fault that she chose not to believe me). And do you know the absolute craziest part? The next week I went to pick Winnie up in Connecticut and Brady barely acknowledged me. And then later that night, he texted me to say, “You looked nice today.” Absolute sociopath.

I started hanging out with some of the girls in the office: Haylee, my favorite iPad baby who just turned 22, Olivia (not to be confused with Winnie’s friend with the same name. I’ll call her Liv if it’s easier), a sweet 27 year old from Pennsylvania, and Chanel, a bitchy NYC nepo baby. They talked me into happy hour one summer Friday and I reluctantly agreed, but told them I could only stay out for a couple of drinks.

You can probably guess that I didn’t only have two drinks and definitely stayed out well past my curfew. Someone told the bartender it was my 25th birthday and he believed them and provided lemon drop shots all night (like I truly was turning 25). They are all obsessed with me and all of my stories and wisdom. They’re all in different situationships across the spectrum of seriousness and I gave out unsolicited advice all night like, “That’s a classic fuckboy move. Don’t reply to him and I will bet my entire life he’s going to text you tomorrow night,” and “He’s walking on eggshells because he doesn’t know what you want. So just be direct with him because obviously he likes you.”

Over the next few days, they all let me know that everything I said was going to happen, happened and they wanted advice on absolutely everything and I gave it out despite my vow not to give out relationship advice. These girls needed help and they were my little pupils. We started going to happy hour every Friday where we’d bitch about work and our coworkers, talk about pop culture and influencers and I’d sometimes sprinkle in stories from my past (these girls haven’t lived long enough to have the same experiences). And since Brendan doesn’t always take half days and Brady picks Winnie up on Fridays, I had nothing but time for drinking and gabbing.

So I guess it didn’t really occur to me that I haven’t had a solid friend group since I moved to New York. When Brady and I were together I just spent all my time with him, then I had a baby and then immediately got with Brendan, who I started spending all of my time with. So I don’t know, I guess it was nice to actually have girl friends to hang out with. Plus, Brendan always has a full schedule — whether he’s working or getting dinner with an old friend from school or helping his sister rearrange her apartment — he’s always doing things. But still, we spend a lot of time together — mainly because I’m always available for him. Then I started hanging out with my new friends and I was no longer always available. Obviously I’m obsessed with him and want to spend every minute with him, but he’d be like, “I’m going to go to the cabin with my dad, but then I’m coming right back so I should be free around 8. Do you wanna hang out then?” And it’s like, I already have plans, my dude!

It started to happen…a lot. Main reasons being: it was Hayley’s birthday and she was having a big bash that I couldn’t miss, we were meeting Chanel’s situationship out and I needed to see him to whip him into shape, a little pub has half price bottles of wine so we needed to check that out, Liv started dating a DJ so we all went to his show and so on. Don’t even tell me that I’m too old for this shit because I’m well aware, but as a former party girl, I think I was enjoying reliving my glory days.

Even though Brendan and I spend time together on weeknights, by the time we get off work, have dinner, hang out with Winnie for a bit, it’s time for bed. And sometimes Brendan “works late” or has plans on weeknights so it’s not like our lack of time together was all my fault.

One Friday morning, Brendan called me at work. He said he wanted to make reservations for us at this restaurant later that night, but would I be available to go?

I’m like, “Yah maybe. I’m obviously going to happy hour at 2:30 so it depends on how late that goes.”

“Okay…” he said. “Do you plan on making time for me at all this weekend?”

Excuse me? I guess he was fed up with me not being completely open and available for him.

“Maybe if you’re not a baby about it!” I said back. Just because I wasn’t available at the exact times he was available didn’t mean I wasn’t making time for him and it was actually quite rude of him to insinuate that. He lives a full and happy life outside of me and I can’t exactly say the same for myself.

“Okay, forget it then. Nevermind,” Brendan said.

“Oh my God, we can go to dinner tomorrow, probably,” I said.

“I’m busy tomorrow. I’m hanging out with my sister,” he said and the irony was completely lost on him.

So we hung up and he didn’t follow up about dinner.

Later on, the girls and I headed to happy hour and sat outside drinking white wine and eating pita and hummus. We talked through Chanel’s situationship and came to the conclusion that it was over so she was suddenly on the prowl. I’m like, “Perfect! What’s your type? I’m an excellent wing woman.”

She told me her very specific type and after several drinks at the first place, we hopped in an Uber to go downtown. At this point it was getting dark and we ordered rosé and sat by the window so we could see all the comings and goings of the establishment. We didn’t stay long as Hayley broke a wine glass and caused a scene and it was all very dramatic. Plus we all decided that we wanted to dance. We got upstairs to the next place and I immediately ordered a vodka Red Bull for $30. So…that’s where the night was headed.

Things I remember:

1. Chanel pointing to a group of guys who were decidedly her type, dragging her to the dancefloor to meet them; telling them that she looks mean and is mean, but she’s fun.
2. Meeting Lucas, Anthony, Jimmy and Matt, who were all under 26 years old and didn’t understand half of my references and cannot remember 9/11.
3. Dancing, gabbing with the young boys and pounding aperol spritzes out of plastic cups.
4. Liv getting sick and going home.
5. Suggesting another venue where they played old school hip hop so I could show these youngsters a good time; walking to the next place with Lucas’ arm around me.
6. Dancing more. Shots. Meeting another group of men even younger than the first.
7. Lucas with his hands on my hips and telling me that I do not look 34. (TYSM)
8. Meeting a beautiful, stunning girl who looked like a 00’s Devon Aoki and demanding to be Instagram friends with her.
9. Another aperol spritz.
10. Hayley going home.
11. Finding a group of fellow millennials to appreciate Ludacris when he came on.
12. Dancing very closely with Lucas.
13. Going to the bathroom stall with Chanel and asking, “Am I being bad? I feel like I’m being bad.” She let me know that I wasn’t and my next concern was getting out of the stall so we weren’t kicked out for doing coke (we weren’t).
14. Green tea shots.
15. More dancing.
16. Facetime-ing Brendan because Jay-Z came on. No answer.
17. Sitting on the circular bench in the middle of the dancefloor to text Brendan…
18. Lucas joining me on the bench in the middle of the dancefloor, petting me and nuzzling my neck; telling me to put my phone away to dance with him.
19. Screaming at Lucas and him telling me I’m cute when I’m mad (ew).
20. Rounding the troops to go to the next venue, sweet talking a doorman to let us bypass the ridiculous line and giving the doorman my number.
21. Crowding around a bar and meeting another guy who was closer to my age; exchanging numbers with him.
22. Having a deep conversation with another guy about gun control; exchanging numbers with him.
23. Tacos.

I got home after 2 AM (which I know because I texted our group to let them know I was home) which is insane because we’d been out since 2:30 that afternoon. I was still in my work attire and still had all of my work stuff with me including my laptop which miraculously made it home with me in one piece. I woke up a few hours later at 4 AM to barf up all the wine, aperol, vodka, Red Bull, shots and tacos. It was disgusting. And then a few hours after that, I woke up again with a bunch of missed calls, texts and Facetimes from all of the random men I’d given my number to. Like what the fuck is wrong with me? I was obviously not in the slightest bit interested in any of them so I blocked them all and pretended it didn’t happen.

So after that little bender, I’ve decided to lay low. I can’t even go to happy hour anymore without feeling ashamed and embarrassed so I’m back to spending all of my time with Brendan.