Last week was fairly uneventful. Brady and I planned a trip to his grandparent’s house in Florida for the second weekend in June. He’s even going to take a day off from work so I’m super excited! He said his grandparents travel a lot and won’t be there so we are going to have the entire house to ourselves. Yessssss. We are going to fuck like chimps all over their house.

On Friday night, we (I) drank an entire bottle while watching Netflix. Brady realized that he needed to go to Home Depot and I decided to be a great girlfriend and tag along. It was almost closing time, but I assured the guy who greeted us that we wouldn’t be long. Brady was looking for something for his grill and decided to try to look for it by himself. He seemed kind of confused so I snuck away to find a worker to help us. Obviously Brady was too proud to ask.

I found the guy we saw at the door and flagged him down. He was a good looking African American guy with dreadlocks.

“Hiii!” I greeted him. “Can you come help us?”

He said yes and I led him to the aisle Brady was in.

“I found a friend to help us!” I exclaimed to Brady. He stood up and the two of them discussed what he was looking for. My dreadlocked friend gave Brady some advice and then the two of us watched Brady look through his options.

“Thanks so much. He wanted to try to figure it out himself because he thinks he’s so smart. Men,” I said to the worker.

He laughed.

“I’m Reese by the way,” I said.

He introduced himself as Manny and we started talking about his hobbies outside of the Home Depot. I’m not sure why, but I was flirting hardcore with him. So much so that Brady turned around and gave me a weird look. I waved and he just kind of laughed. So I thanked my friend for his help and sent him on his way.

Brady ended up working on Saturday which was annoying so I spent the day shopping with Preston. I needed new bathing suits for Florida, obviously. I bought a ton of bathing suits for Mexico when Brady and I were going to go, but those are Mexico bikinis. I had to get Florida bikinis.

Since we were having people over on Monday for Memorial Day, Brady sent me to go shopping on Sunday afternoon. He gave me his credit card and I took his car because I didn’t have mine. I was driving back to Brady’s and there was a freaking monsoon happening in Chicago. There was some fallen debris in the street that looked like a cardboard box so I decided to keep driving and run over it.

Well it wasn’t cardboard. I think it was a piece of wood or something because I heard a huge crunching noise and the car swerved. Oops? I stopped to assess the damage and decided it was minor enough that Brady couldn’t be mad about it. It was the rain’s fault!

“Hiiiiii!” I shouted through the house when I got back. Brady was in the dining room and I needed him to help bring the food in, but I also needed to warn him about the car. “Oh my gosh, guess what happened?”

He looked up and shrugged. “What? What’s going on?”

“Well, when I was driving back it was raining cats and dogs and something fell in the street and I hit it. Your car is totally fine, but I just wanted to warn you before…” I explained and before I could even finish Brady was up and walking to the garage. I followed him.

“It’s on the passenger side,” I called to him. I walked slowly and waited for yelling or screaming or something, but nothing. I found Brady on the passenger side of the car, running his hand over the scrape. Neither of us said anything for a minute.

“It’s not even that bad. I bet they could just paint over this,” I said.

“This whole panel will have to be replaced,” Brady said calmly.

“You really think so? Honestly you can’t even tell.”

“Are you blind?” he asked, looking at me.

I shrugged.

“This isn’t minor damage, Reese. This whole piece has to be replaced and the tire and axle will need to be looked at because they are probably damaged too.”

I felt like he was attacking me so I just shrugged again. I felt him staring at me expectantly.

“I’ll pay for it to be fixed obviously,” I said.

Brady ignored me and walked back in the house. So I ended up having to bring all the food and stuff in by myself. I avoided him for an hour while I put things away. Later on, I found him watching tv in the basement with a beer.

“Hey,” I said and sat down on the couch next to him. He glanced at me and didn’t say anything. Ugh.

“It wasn’t even my fault!” I started whining.

“What do you mean it wasn’t your fault? Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe you didn’t see a huge fucking object in the street? What were you doing? Texting? Looking in the mirror? What?”

I didn’t like his tone of voice so I started pouting. “Brady, don’t yell-” I began.

“Don’t start this shit,” he said, pointing at me.

I got up and went upstairs to cry. I got in Brady’s bed with all my clothes then got hot and took them all off. I started dozing off until I heard Brady come in. I had my back to the door so I could only hear him getting undressed. I felt him get in bed and spoon me. The feeling of his warm body against mine made me so happy so I quickly rolled over and kissed him. And we ended up having sex without apologizing to each other or anything.

We weren’t expecting people until around three on Monday afternoon so I slept in. I woke up when I heard Carly talking loudly in the hallway. I haven’t seen much of Carly lately, but we still talk almost everyday in our group chat with Kendra and Preston. I got up and got ready and found Brady, Carly and Chris in the kitchen.

“Hey baby!” Carly squealed when she saw me. She hugged me. “Take a shot with me.”

“Right now?” I asked. I’m all about day drinking, but it was barely noon.

“Come on! It’s a holiday,” she said. Carly had a point so I agreed to it.

By 2:00 I was completely drunk. I blame Carly. I was kind of embarrassed that I was as drunk as I was so I decided to take a long bath to hide out. I fell asleep in the bathtub. When I finally woke up two hours later, I had a huge headache and I felt gross. I jumped out and got dressed in a romper and wedges.

The party was in full swing by this time. Kendra and John were there and Luke and a bunch of Brady and Chris’s friends, coworkers and classmates. I went outside to find Brady and he was talking to a guy and a girl who I’ve never seen before. I sat on Brady’s lap and heard him mention something about Illinois bars.

“Yeah, it’s a completely different thing here,” the girl said.

“What bars? In River North?” I butted in. I should have minded my own business.

Brady and the girl just looked at me and it took me a moment to realize that they were talking about the bar exam, not a bar with alcohol. The girl was a lawyer.

The guy and girl continued talking and I turned to Brady. “Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed.”

Brady laughed and kissed me. “You’re so cute.”

Later on, a lot of us were hanging out in the kitchen taking shots. I was clinging on to Brady because that’s bae and he always smells so good. “7/11” by Beyonce came on and allegedly I started twerking on Brady in the middle of the kitchen. I say allegedly because I don’t remember this happening, but after debriefing with Luke on Tuesday, he told me that’s what happened. I do remember Brady putting a protective arm around me and refusing to let me go though. Guess I was embarrassing him.

Some time later, I went to find Kendra and everyone. Kendra and Carly were sitting in the living room talking to Luke. John and Chris were not too far away.

They were talking about Kendra’s wedding and what they had planned so far. Maybe I was mad because all the attention wasn’t on me, but I said something like, “Oh, who cares? The wedding is going to be just a boring as your relationship.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

“Reese, that was mean,” Carly said gently.

“Oh my fucking gosh, I’m kidding!” I rolled my eyes.

They continued talking and I was bored so I kept cutting in and being kind of annoying. Luke was giving her suggestions about reception food and hairstyle ideas. He’s all like, “With your pretty skin blah blah blah,” and “You have such a good bone structure so blah blah blah.” And Luke is supposed to worship me, not Kendra so I was vocal about how unhappy I was about this.

Finally, Kendra said, “Reese, would you just shut up?”

I gasped, surprised. “Well aren’t you in a pissy mood? What, are you refusing to have sex with John again so you need to get laid?”

Kendra narrowed her eyes at me. “No. I don’t need to get laid, but perhaps you do? Maybe call Carly’s brother and have sex with him again since you seem to enjoy that so much.”

I was drunk so I started laughing even though no one else was.

“What?” Carly said, looking all confused. Kendra looked at her and nodded.

“When?” she wanted to know.

“Like two months ago. Does that sound right, Reese?”

I didn’t say anything.

“When you and Brady were broken up?” Carly asked and seemed to be doing the math in her head.

I didn’t confirm or deny and just took a drink from my tequila sunrise.

“I can’t fucking believe you.”

“I told her it was a bad idea and she just continued to do it,” Kendra said like she was my mother and I was her misbehaving daughter.

“No wonder… It all makes sense now,” Carly said.

“What does? It literally only happened a couple of times. It’s not that big of a deal at all,” I said.

“You slept with my brother, Reese!” Carly exclaimed loudly and I quickly turned to make sure Chris and John hadn’t heard her. “I told you not to do that more than five thousand times. Why am I not surprised?”

“What?” I whined defensively.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Can’t you be honest and not lie for once in your life?”

I didn’t say anything. Carly was doing an amazing job of making me feel like shit.

“Does Brady know you did that?” she asked.

“No. Please don’t tell him,” I answered.

She gave me a sort of surprised look. “Oh, I won’t. You two can talk about all the different people you fucked while you were on a break if you want, but I’m not getting involved.” Carly stood up and walked away.

Kendra got up and went over to John so just Luke and I remained. He was probably super confused about what was going on, but I didn’t feel like explaining to him what happened. Plus, I was thinking about what Carly said. “All the different people we fucked,”? What was that supposed to mean? I had sex with Kyle and that’s it. Does she know of a ton of girls Brady hooked up with?

“Wanna take a shot?” I asked and Luke said yes so we headed to the kitchen.

We took our shot then I went outside to find Brady. He was sitting at the patio table talking to the lawyer girl and it smelled like they’d been smoking.

I went and sat next to Brady and heard him and Lawyer Girl talking about Instagram. And then I watched him unlock his phone and hand it to her so she could put in her username. Ew. Why did they need to follow each other on Instagram? She isn’t even cute and her outfit sucked. I realized that even if she does decide to follow Brady on Instagram, he has nothing but pictures of me so I started giggling to myself.

“What are you laughing about?” Brady asked and playfully put his arm around me.

I kissed him then said, “I’m going to get in bed!”

I jumped up and actually did get in bed and waited for Brady to follow me so we could hook up. He walked in two minutes later.

“I missed you!” I said as he climbed on top of me.

“Did you?” he said, kissing my neck and pulling down my romper.

“Mmhm.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and enjoyed him undressing me and kissing all over me.

We undressed each other and just when I felt that he was about to put his head between my legs, I got up and flipped him over. I tried to be sexy as I worked my way down his body. I wanted to give him the best blow job of his life because he just deserves it. He didn’t even last five minutes before he started tugging on my hair and saying my name in agony. Mission accomplished.

Brady grabbed my elbow and yanked me on top of him. He started bouncing me wildly and I moaned his name. I was being loud and he shushed me once then just laughed and enjoyed the fact that he was making me go crazy.

“I love youuuuu,” I cried.

“I love you more, baby. I love you so much,” Brady said back.

After we both finished, we laid side by side on the bed. Suddenly Brady said something like, “I want to be with you forever.”

I nodded and agreed with him.

“Are you going to marry me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, snuggling close to him. “Of course I am.”

“Really?” Brady sounded surprised.

“Yes. But you have to ask sweetly. Get on one knee.”

I felt him get out of bed and watched Brady get on one knee in just his boxers. He said my full name and then, “Will you marry me?”

Obviously this wasn’t my dream proposal, but Brady looked so adorable that I giggled and clapped.

“Where’s my ring?” I asked.

“Oh, I haven’t gotten it yet.”

My face fell. “You’re seriously proposing and you don’t even have a ring for me?”

“No because I want you to pick out whatever you want. We can go to the jeweler together,” Brady said, not missing a beat.

I was still pouting so he got up and kissed me. “You can have whatever ring you want, seriously.”

Obviously I was picturing Jessica Biel’s engagement ring and wondered how quickly the jeweler could whip up a dupe with a larger center stone.

We stayed in bed talking about our wedding and children and pets until we fell asleep. On Tuesday morning, Brady accidentally woke me up when he was getting ready for work. I rolled over and peeked at him and noticed that he looked tired and sick. We probably went a little too hard for Memorial Day, but usually he handles it well.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“I’m fine,” he snapped like I was pestering him. Whatever. So I turned back over and slept for a few more hours.

Kyle texted me on Tuesday. He said, “Hey, what’s up?”

I hadn’t heard from him in forever so I just said, “Hey Kyle. How are you?”

“No complaints. Long time no talk. Is everything okay with you?”

I debated telling him about getting back with Brady and Carly finding out about us, but decided against it. “Everything is fine. I started a new job so I’ve been so busy!”

Kyle said, “Cool. I thought we decided not to tell Carly what happened.”

I felt my face getting hot. “What?”

“She said you told her about you and me. She’s really pissed at me about it. I’m not mad if you told her, I just thought we weren’t going to say anything.”

Wait…

“I imagine she’s not too happy with you either.”

To be honest, at this point I had completely forgotten that Kendra blabbed about me and Kyle. I hadn’t talked to Kendra or Carly at all since the party.

I was really confused about what to say to Kyle so finally I just said, “Yeah, sorry. Guilt got the best of me.”

He replied, “No worries. I hope you’re doing well. If you ever need to talk or anything, just let me know.”

I sensed an innuendo so I didn’t reply. I feel really awful about it. Carly will probably never speak to me again and I’m sure Kendra has already found a replacement bridesmaid for me. I’m the worst friend ever.

So basically I’m still recovering from the weekend. I feel like everyone is pissed at me right now. I haven’t reached out to Kendra or Carly and Brady was distant all day Tuesday. Blah. Oh, and my parents are still at war with each other. My mom called me last week asking to borrow money (the horror) because my dad cut her off. I let her know how ridiculous it all was then called the bank and had some funds transferred to her. I hope I never rely on my husband so much that if we get in a small disagreement I don’t even have money to eat. That’s pathetic.

Okay I promised the threesome story so here it is. I don’t know if y’all know this but my first semester of college I went to a small private school in Texas. I went there for a few reasons, but mostly because I would basically be going to school for free and my parents were all about free.

Anyway, as you can imagine, this school was not a good fit for me. Only one or two other people from my high school went there so I didn’t really know anyone. I roomed with this girl named Erica and I feel like I lucked out because she was the only girl who was even kind of similar to me. She graduated from a Catholic high school, but liked to drink and hang out with boys like me. She was really pretty but she refused to wear makeup and didn’t know how to match her clothes though. So she was lucky to have me also.

We lived in a coed dorm and all of our neighbors on every side of us were guys. None of them were that cute (think World of Warcraft, Halo, Guitar Hero, bacne) except one of the guys who lived across the hall from us. Nick. 6’3, soccer player, dark hair, full amazing lips. He wasn’t my type because he was kind of skinny, but I had to work with what I had. Usually we’d all pregame in Nick’s room then walk to the various house parties around campus. We were all pretty close in a brotherly/sisterly kind of way.

About a month into the fall semester, we were all hanging out drinking in Nick’s room on a Thursday night. We had no plans of going anywhere, we just wanted to drink. I didn’t notice, but slowly everyone started trickling out until just Nick and I were left alone. He suggested we take a shot (of whiskey, ew) then we sat on his bed talking about class. We had an economics class together and he was really good at it while I kind of sucked. I was drunk so I started messing with stuff on his desk and being kind of annoying. And then he pulled me back on the bed and kissed me. We made out for a few minutes until I realized that it was wrong and so weird. So I jumped up and ran out.

We started hooking up whenever we got drunk after that. We would come home from our respective parties, wait for his roommate to go to sleep, then I’d sneak over there. No one knew except Erica because it was just weird. We were like a little family. Nick and I never even talked about it. We’d just have sex in his loft bed then I would jump down and go back to my room.

One night Nick came to my room which was not a part of the plan. But whatever. Erica was still awake but told us to do whatever we wanted to. Nick said, “Why don’t you join us?” and Erica and I laughed because obviously it was a joke.

Nick tried to hook up, but it was weird because Erica was there and awake. So I kept pushing him off and telling him no. He must have gotten fed up and whispered that we should go get in Erica’s bed. I thought, “Sure, why not?” and I jumped up and he followed me. I didn’t want her to feel left out, you know?

“Hiiii,” I said, climbing on the bed next to her. “Wanna play with us?”

Nick sat on the end of the bed and wiggled his eyebrows at her. I can’t remember exactly what Erica said but the next thing I remember is Nick laying down on the bed and Erica and I were on either side of him. She leaned down and they started making out. When they pulled away he said, “Now you two kiss.”

Erica and I looked at each other, shrugged then leaned over Nick to kiss. This was my first time like really making out with another girl. Nick watched us make out and felt up our boobs. When we pulled away, he pulled my shirt off so I was just sitting there in my bra. I got on top of him and straddled him and Nick and Erica started making out again. He pulled the neck of her shirt down so he could motorboat her boobs. Ew.

I pulled Nick away and made him touch my boobs. I felt like this was me and Nick’s show and Erica was just an accessory. So she shouldn’t ever get more attention than me. Plus my boobs were much nicer.

I felt her messing with his belt, trying to take off his pants. Ugh and now she was trying to take over. But whatever. I was gonna go with it. We got his pants down and pulled his penis out.

Erica looked at me then Nick and said, “Do you want me to suck it?”

Obviously he couldn’t nod his head fast enough and Erica smiled a naughty little smile before she actually started sucking his dick. Uh, okay. Even I hadn’t done that to him.

I pushed my boobs in Nick’s face and made him kiss them and stuff. I figured I could still take back control of this even though I could hear Erica doing crazy things to him with her mouth. Those Catholic school girls, they don’t hold back.

I felt/heard Erica get up and Nick pulled away from me so he could look at her. I turned to see what the commotion was and I was shocked to see that she was pulling her little running shorts off. And then she was naked from the waist down and she climbed on Nick and started riding him. I was horrified. She didn’t bother even mentioning a condom and she had a little patch of pubic hair. I have never been more disgusted in my life.

I hopped down from the bed and felt Nick try to grab me, but I pulled away. That was not how things were supposed to go at all. I went back to my bed and sat for a moment, but I couldn’t stand listening to them have sex so I went to take a ninety minute shower. I needed to wash all the filth off me anyway.

By the time I got back to the room, Nick was gone and Erica was waiting for me.

“Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed excitedly. “I can’t believe that happened.”

“I can’t either,” I dead panned.

“His penis isn’t that big. I don’t see how you can have sex with him,” she continued.

I wanted to say something like, “Because my vagina isn’t stretched out from being a whore!” but instead I shrugged and went to sleep.

After that I didn’t hook up with Nick again. He was like tainted, you know? He would text me all the time and ask what’s wrong and if I was pissed, but I avoided him. Plus, people on our floor had an idea that something happened that night (I believe someone saw Nick sneaking out of our room) and would make snide jokes about wanting to come to our room for fun. Ew. I would never.

I transferred after one semester at that shithole. I spent all of Thanksgiving break planning my departure and didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. So I didn’t go back second semester. Erica texted me saying that she got a new roommate and she sucked and was I okay? I laughed am evil laugh to myself and told Erica that I was perfectly fine and she was free to hook up with Nick all she wanted. She didn’t reply.

So yeah. Obviously I’m too territorial to have a threesome. Can you imagine if I had this kind of reaction with a guy I didn’t even like, what I would do if I saw a girl touch Brady? I would probably commit murder. So as much as I pretend to want to do that, I could never. For everyone’s safety.

After careful consideration, I decided to tell Brady about the situation with Matt. Not only was feeling guilty about it, I know that if Brady kept something like that from me, I would kick his ass. I determined that the best time to tell him would be on our way to Dallas because he wouldn’t be able to yell at me or kick me out, plus we would be together for the entire weekend so it’s not like he could avoid me.

The first thing Brady commented on once we got settled into our seats was the little shorts I was wearing. He said they were cute (probably because my ass cheeks were a centimeter from falling out). Life hack: if you’re a fairly small adult, shop in the kids section for adorable girly clothing items. You can save so much money! I have a closet half full of children’s clothing.

After the whole takeoff thing and we were safely on our way to Dallas I said, “I have to tell you something but you have to promise not to get mad.”

Brady laughed. “I can’t make any promises.”

“Promiseeeee,” I whined.

“It depends on what it is,” he said.

“It isn’t even that bad,” I said, starting to backtrack.

“Just tell me,” Brady said.

“K.” I already had everything I wanted to say planned out. “Do you remember that guy Matt? The one who I met when I got upgraded to first class?”

“Yeah.” Brady was adjusting in his seat and it was making me anxious so I waited until he was finished to continue.

“Well, he’s married. His wife texted me and I guess she read through all the inappropriate texts he sent me,” I explained.

Brady stared at me like he was waiting for me to get to the point.

“Last weekend when I was mad at you he texted me. I just wanted you to know…”

“What did he text you?” Brady asked.

“Um.” The thought of saying Matt’s text messages out loud made me nauseous. “You can read it.”

I pulled up the thread, scrolled up a bit and handed the phone to Brady. For some reason I didn’t think he would really take it and read it, but he did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brady with my phone in his hand and it gave me anxiety. I watched his face closely to gauge his reaction. He kept a straight face the entire time then handed me my phone back without saying anything or looking at me.

“So yeah,” I said, tucking my phone into my bag. “I just wanted you to know that happened.”

Brady glanced out the window then straight ahead without saying anything to me. I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but I definitely expected to him to say something.

“So… Yeah. That’s what I had to tell you. Are you mad?”

Brady didn’t say anything for a minute so I said, “Hmm?”

Finally he said, “What the fuck goes on in your head, Reese?”

I started to say, “Excuse me?” but he cut me off.

“We already had this conversation so I don’t understand why you continued entertaining him.”

“I don’t know. You were being mean to me.”

“Because I called you needy? Do you seriously need that much attention, Reese?”

“No…”

“What’s wrong with you? Why would you even show me that shit? You go out of your way to cause controversy.”

“Bradyyy, don’t be meannn,” I whined.

Brady watched me about to throw a tantrum and rolled his eyes. “You’re such a baby. Grow up.”

Whoa. Okay. I actually felt like I might cry when he said that. It’s not a good feeling when someone as nice as Brady puts you in your place. I watched him pull his laptop out of his bag and decided to give him some time to cool off. I put my earbuds in and listened to music until I dozed off.

I woke up thirty minutes later. I sat up in my seat feeling excited for the weekend’s festivities. I saw Brady glance at me out of the corner of his eye then look back at his computer and pretend not to see me.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry for entertaining him. Don’t be pissed. Let’s have a good weekend.”

“Okay,” Brady said, not looking up. So I shut his laptop. He looked at me and I gave him a huge smile and grabbed his hand. That made him laugh.

“I blocked him and I’ll never have to talk to him again. Don’t you worry,” I assured him.

“I just don’t understand why you put yourself in that situation in the first place,” Brady said.

I shrugged and gave a look like, “Oopsies?”

“He’s such a creep,” Brady mumbled. After that we didn’t talk about Matt again.

When we landed in Dallas, we immediately went to our hotel to check in. As soon as we sat our bags down I said, “Let’s go out!”

On cue, Brady yawned. “Aren’t you tired?”

I was, but I wanted to go out more. We compromised by going to the bar at the hotel. We were staying in the downtown area, and the bar was on the rooftop. You could see the entire city from the roof and I insisted Brady take some pictures of me with the Dallas skyline behind me even though I looked like shit from traveling all day. I like to be a tourist sometimes.

Then we sat down at the bar and started drinking and talking. I described to Brady the cast of characters who we would be probably run into at the wedding including Brandie and her soon to be husband, Daniel, Lauren (who he’s heard a ton of stories about already), Ronnie (a friend of my ex’s from college who visited Chicago a few months ago) and possibly my ex. I didn’t have any confirmed reports that he would be there, but I knew there was a strong chance.

After some shots and drinks, Brady and I went to a corner to dance. We were drunk and couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but Brady dances pretty good (when he’s drunk) for a white guy from Massachusetts. He can keep up with me pretty well. So I grinded on him until I felt him get a boner then I turned around and we made out/talked about how much we love each other.

“Let’s go back to the room,” Brady said and I nodded enthusiastically.

Drunk hotel sex is the best.

The wedding wasn’t until Saturday evening so we spent the day exploring. I know I’m not really allowed to say this since I’m from Houston, but I love Dallas. Something about about it just feels like home to me. It almost reminds me of college for some reason, but I love it. Plus, I feel like I kind of know the city from visiting so much (my ex is from Dallas mind you) so I kind of showed Brady around.

Oh this is cute. I was checking sixteen hours of Instagram posts while we were at lunch and saw that Brady uploaded the picture he took of me from the hotel bar. I actually looked pretty cute and his caption was, “My girl.” I can’t even. 

The actual wedding was at a beautiful church in Highland Park. We sat next to Lauren and her boyfriend, who I hadn’t seen in close to a year. She’d texted me on Friday night to see if I was in town yet and I forgot to respond so I felt like a bitch when I saw her.

“Ah, you’re alive!” she greeted me and we hugged.

“It’s been forever! Miss you!” I said as we pulled away.

“You’re so hot! Jeez girl, you can’t come here and show up the bride like that,” Lauren laughed.

I was wearing this dress which I was kind of hesitant to wear at first because it seemed a little showy for a wedding. But then I realized it was Brandie’s wedding and she would want me to look hot. Plus I wore my hair down so you couldn’t really see all of the back. Lauren was wearing a watermelon colored dress with a similar silhouette and even though her hair is several shades lighter than mine now, I knew everyone was going to mix us up.

We introduced our boyfriends to each other. It’s kind of funny because in college Lauren had never had a boyfriend before and now she has this serious boyfriend who she is obsessed with. She makes Facebook statuses like, “Can’t wait to see the love of my life, it’s been ten long hours since we’ve seen each other,” and “My soulmate surprised me with tickets to see my favorite band. He’s perfect, how did I get so lucky?” It’s so weird. We used to make fun of girls like that in college. I wonder if I’ll ever be so in love that I feel like I need to post statuses like that on Facebook. That’s not my personality at all to post sappy shit like that online at all, but I didn’t think it was Lauren’s either. Sometimes I wonder if that means I haven’t found my “soulmate” at all yet. Like I love Brady a ton, but there must be someone else out there who I will love so much that I need to make statuses about him. Right?

So I met Mr. Perfect and he was not at all what I was expecting. But good for Lauren. I’m happy for her.

After the introductions were made Lauren said something like, “How do you deal with her, Brady? She’s so crazy!”

And Brady said, “You know, I’m not really sure.”

I elbowed him in his ribs probably a lot harder than necessary. I get that it was supposed to be a joke, but rude. Lauren is just as crazy, if not crazier than me.

The ceremony was really nice. I cried. I always cry when people I know get married. It’s just so sweet I can’t help it. I saw a ton of people from college and we stayed in the church for a while catching up.

The reception was on the top floor of a high rise building in downtown Dallas overlooking the city. By this time it was dark and the view was so pretty. I think the place is usually a nightclub because there was a booth for the DJ plus tables and booths lining the walls with a dance floor in the middle. Wedding reception goals. It was so Brandie.

I introduced Brady to everyone including Brandie and Daniel. I was keeping an eye out for my ex and started to think he wouldn’t be there. I was okay with that.

There was an open bar, but luckily I was too busy catching up with everyone to drink a lot. I think Brady was kind of overwhelmed with it all. Can you imagine: a tall bride wearing a mermaid gown surrounded by ten fast talking girls in tiny dresses who all squealed when a Ke$ha song came on? We’re so fucking lame. So Brady went back to the table to wait for me.

We saw Ronnie first. The last time I saw Ronnie I started sobbing uncontrollably when he mentioned my ex. What a hot mess. So this time, he hugged me and shook Brady’s hand and asked who all I’d seen so far. And then I asked who he was there with. I meant like as a date, but Ronnie said, “Devin’s here. Somewhere.”

I legitimately thought I was going to vomit and had to turn my head away to hide my face.

“Okay. I haven’t seen him,” I said.

So once I knew for sure my ex was there, I was on high alert. I couldn’t stop looking around for him. I didn’t want to be caught off guard doing something stupid, you know?

We finally ran into him when Brady and I went to the bar for another drink. And he caught me off guard. I grabbed my tequila sunrise and turned to look around (for Devin) when I felt someone tap my arm rather violently.

“What’s up?!” Devin said all affectionately like we are long lost friends. He was wearing a white dress shirt with way too many buttons undone at the top, black cuffed skinny pants and these ridiculous red loafers. He’s so fucking flashy I can’t even stand it.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Hi.”

I think Devin expected a different reaction from me (my eyes lighting up, me falling over to kiss his feet, hugging him or something) and he laughed. Devin has such a good smile with his perfect teeth. That’s like the only good thing about him. That and his…nevermind. “How have you been though?”

“I’m great,” I said shortly. I realized that with his red shoes and my red dress, we kind of matched and it irritated me.

Devin’s eyes traveled the length of my body a few times and then he said, “You look sexy!” like he was surprised. Did he expect me to be ugly/fat/frumpy?

“Anyways, this is my boyfriend,” I said, ignoring the inappropriate comment. I can’t lie though, Devin calling me sexy made me feel something. I’m not sure what, but something. I reached behind me and grabbed Brady’s arm.

The look on Devin’s face was priceless. He looked so surprised. I assumed Ronnie would have told him that I have a boyfriend since they talk pretty often. Or someone would have told him (I have him blocked on all social networks). But I guess not.

“This is Devin,” I said to Brady, trying to communicate that I didn’t appreciate being called sexy like that with my eyes.

Brady barely looked at me before reaching out to shake Devin’s hand. Brady really is clueless sometimes and sucks at eye communication. Devin still seemed to be in shock and didn’t take his eyes off me as he shook Brady’s hand. I got that protective feeling. Brady isn’t very big and Devin is a tall former college athlete. Like it’s unfair.

“Hi, how are you?” Brady asked.

Devin laughed and shook his head. I don’t know what he was laughing at, but I started sharpening my claws.

“So what are you doing in LA? I heard going pro didn’t work out for you.” I gave a look that said, “Tsk, tsk, what a shame.”

“Promotional marketing,” he said, not acknowledging my jab at him.

“Okay. For who?”

“We have Nike as a client.”

“Nike? A huge company like Nike needs you to do promotional marketing for them?” I looked skeptical.

Devin smiled the same smile he gave me when I asked if he had sex with one of the volleyball players in college. “Apparently.”

I wanted to fucking punch him. But I’m mature now so I said, “Okay well I hope you have a great night!” I grabbed Brady’s hand and pulled him away until we were on the other side of the room.

“I hate him,” I declared once we were alone.

“Yikes. I can tell,” Brady said smiling.

“He’s such a dick, right? He’s so cocky and annoying.”

“He didn’t seem too bad,” Brady said. He’s always defending my enemies so I dropped the subject before I got mad.

We danced and listened to the toasts, watched the bride and groom cut the cake and danced some more. After Brandie threw the bouquet (I didn’t even try to catch it, don’t wanna jinx myself!) we all just hung out and drank and ate cake. Since the wedding started later and it was night time at this point, they didn’t have to bother with serving dinner at this point. Such a smart idea! Stealing.

I was hanging out with Brady, Lauren and her boyfriend near our table and Devin, Ronnie and their friends came over to us. Brady was talking to Lauren’s boyfriend so Devin seemed to take advantage of the fact that he wasn’t paying attention.

“So you think you’re over me?” Devin said with a smirk.

“Oh my God, go away,” I groaned.

“You’re not. I can tell you’re not,” he grinned.

“You wish. I literally do not ever think about you.”

“That’s far from the truth and we both know that,” Devin said and I rolled my eyes. “I know he can’t handle you.”

“Who?”

Devin nodded toward Brady.

“Oh shut up, Devin. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just leave me alone. You’re so fucking annoying.”

“You’re mad because you know it’s true.”

“No I’m mad because you were a waste of my time. You don’t even have a real job.”

Devin started laughing. You know how I know I’m over him? Years ago I would have engaged in an argument with him but I just flipped my hair and turned away.

“Stop by tonight and I’ll remind you why you’re in love with me,” I heard Devin say.

I turned around and gave him a look to show him how disgusted I was. He bit his lip and stared me down.

“I would actually rather die,” I said.

I turned back around and heard Devin call me a bitch. Whatever. I don’t give a shit what he thinks anymore. Brady looked at me and I must have looked pissed or upset because he glanced at Devin then asked if I was okay.

I said yes and pulled Brady away so we could go to the bar. I was not drunk enough for this. The next time we saw Devin, he was sitting at one of the tables with Ronnie and their friends. As we walked past, I saw Devin lean down over the table then sit back upright and rub his nose. They were snorting coke at Brandie and Daniel’s wedding reception! I would have someone murdered for doing that. I think Brady saw the violation also, but we didn’t discuss it. We actually didn’t discuss Devin again which was fine with me.

The wedding and reception (aside from my asshole ex boyfriend) were really good. I loved catching up with everyone. After the reception, Lauren and I suggested we go to a bar nearby because turn down for what? Plus we looked really cute.

When Brady and I finally got back to the hotel, it was close to 3 AM and we were drunk. I was exhausted. I fell back on the bed and asked Brady to undress me. He took off my shoes and then pulled my dress off.

“I love you so much,” I said happily.

“I love you,” Brady said, starting to get undressed himself.

“Do you think we’re soulmates?” I asked.

“Mmhm.”

“Do you think we’re going to get married?”

“Mmhm. If you say yes,” Brady smiled at me.

I squealed. “And we can have a wedding even better than Brandie’s!”

“Or we could skip the wedding all together and just get married.”

I scrunched my nose. “Why would we do that when we could have a huge wedding?”

“Okay. We can have a big wedding. Whatever.” Brady laughed like I was being ridiculous which I was. Someone once told me that if you can’t get married at the courthouse and be happy then you are getting married for the wrong reasons. I mean I get that, but why get married in the courthouse when you can have a big, beautiful wedding and reception?

On Sunday I didn’t want to get out of bed like a typical Sunday. Plus the hotel bed was super comfy. Brady finally said the word “brunch” and I jumped up. Bitches love brunch. I showered and put on shorts, a Wildfox jumper and Converse. I didn’t bother with makeup and put my hair in the highest pony ever.

At the restaurant I couldn’t decide what I wanted so I ordered wild berry pancakes, smoked salmon eggs benedict (I don’t even like salmon, why did I order that?), chocolate covered donut holes and French fries. When the server sat it all on the table I was so, so excited to go to town. Brady found it adorable and insisted on taking a picture of me and my feast.

Obviously I didn’t even finish half of it even though I tried. It was so good. After brunch we went shopping and I got some very necessary pieces for summer. Ronnie texted me during the day and asked if I was still in Dallas. I debated responding to see what he wanted then decided against it. Ronnie is guilty by association.

So what a fun weekend. I hope one day my wedding is as fun as Brandie’s. I was so tired at work on Monday, but I was really busy with projects. Guess who texted me during lunch?

Andrew.

He said, “Hey Reese. I’m having trouble finding this file you were working on. Any idea where it could be?”

I replied with the location I left the file and he said, “Thanks a lot! I didn’t think to look there. I hope you’re doing great!”

I thought it was sweet so I said back, “Thanks Andrew! I hope you are too!” We could be cordial right? I never knew when I would need him.

A little while later Andrew said, “I’ll be in Chicago this weekend. Perhaps we could get dinner? I’d love to hear about your new job.”

Oh no. No no no. I bit my lip and said, “I don’t think my boyfriend would like that. I love my new job so much though!”

Did he ask me on a date or did I jump to conclusions? Dinner sounds like a date though so I don’t feel that bad.

Andrew said, “Ah, ok…have a good week Reese.”

Speaking of the weekend, we (Brady and Chris) are supposed to have people over for Memorial Day. As long as no one dumb shows up (Jessica, Maddie, Paul, etc) it should be a good time!

In honor of her wedding on Saturday I thought I’d share a story about my friend, Brandie. Brandie is one of my favorite people ever. She’s from a really wealthy family, but she’s actually really humble and down to earth. I remember once she was trying to buy a Louis Vuitton bag online and checked her bank statement before. She was like, “Oh my God, I only have $110,000 left in my account.” She didn’t mean it in a pretentious way either.

Brandie was very generous with her money too, which we all loved. Whenever we would do anything she insisted on taking care of it. I remember once we stopped at a convenience before going to the movies and we all picked up chips and Starburst and gummy bears and Diet Cokes to sneak into the theater. We got in line behind one another to pay separately but Brandie demanded we all put our junk on the counter so she could pay for it. She spent like $80 total. Love Brandie for that.

Anyway, Brandie was generally just a really nice person and got along with everyone. She’s kind of like Carly.

One time, our group was going to a house party off campus: me, Lauren, Brandie and a few of our other girlfriends. We pregamed and got ready, and Brandie’s boyfriend (now fiancé) drove us all to the party in Brandie’s BMW SUV. We got drinks and settled in the kitchen so we could mingle and gossip and take pictures for Facebook. I sat on the kitchen counter with a cup of jungle juice in my hand.

[Just so you can visualize – I wore big hoop earrings and my hair in a bun on top of my head – very Kim Kardashian circa 2009-2010. I was so tan and my hair was ombré before ombré hair was a thing (my highlights had grown out) so my roots were darker and my bun was light. Trendsetter.]

So I was just sitting there giggling with Lauren about something when I heard some belligerent girl talking to Brandie. She was saying something like, “Your boyfriend blah blah blah,” and Brandie was backing away slowly because the girl was loud and had a beer bottle dangerously close to her face. I couldn’t tell at first, but the girl was yelling at sweet Brandie who is the nicest person ever and would never deserve to be yelled at.

Obviously I needed to intervene so I shouted, “Watch who you’re talking to, girl!”

Crazy girl turned and looked at me, confused. “What?”

I leaned down closer to her face so she could hear me. “Don’t talk to my friend like that, you psychopath.”

This must have triggered something because homegirl drew back and launched the empty bottle at the cabinets behind me. The beer bottle shattered into a billion pieces just barely missing my head. Once I realized that I was okay and no glass had hit me, I was shocked and livid that this crazy girl would do something so dangerous and reckless. The glass could have hit me in the spine and I could have been paralyzed!

So I lunged at her. I slid off the counter and I lunged at her with my hands out to wring her stupid little neck. We fell to the ground and we fought for probably only ten or twenty seconds. I felt someone pull me off her, but I was kicking and clawing demanding to get back at her.

I heard Brandie’s boyfriend telling me to calm down and realized he was the one who pulled me off the crazy girl.

“Oh my gahddd Reese, are you okay?” I heard Brandie say.

Lauren was saying something like, “Bitch are you done? Do you want to get your ass kicked again?” I love Lauren. Technically no one got their ass kicked, but you know. Gotta say whatever sounds good.

So yeah. No one can say I’m a bad friend. I almost got kicked out of a party for Brandie and she’s been forever grateful. I got a reputation of being a scrappy little thing after that even though I really didn’t get in other fights (except with my ex). I didn’t mind though. Kept the crazies at bay.

Anyway, back to present day. Tuesday was a struggle for me. Luke texted me on Tuesday evening saying, “Let’s go out and have a drink.” And since I had already gone to the gym, was literally in bed watching Chopped and Brady was working I said okay.

Luke suggested a place that’s so swanky that I felt like I needed to wear my long sleeved little black dress, booties, sparkly statement earrings and my YSL bag. Luke was all like, “Oooooooo, look at you!” when I met him outside and he looked like the heart eyes emoji.

Luke had on a v-neck and a bright blazer and super chic captoe shoes. He’s fabulous and I can’t wait to introduce him to Preston. We went inside and immediately started flirting with the bartender who told us our first round was on him. So one drink turned into too many to count. We sat at the bar talking about work and life and charming the pants off the bartender cuz that’s what we do. One of the last things I remember is getting up to use the bathroom, stumbling and Luke grabbing me and saying, “Oh girl, you gotta keep it together better than that.” I laughed at him.

I woke up on Wednesday morning, panicked, not knowing where I was or what day it was. I was relieved when I figured out that I was in Brady’s bed. I felt around until I found my phone and discovered that it was exactly 8:00 AM. I needed to get home and get ready then make it to work before 10:00. I slowly peeled myself out of bed (I was still wearing my dress) preparing to gather my things. I found a fresh glass of ice water on the nightstand and realized that Brady probably put it there before he left for work. I drank it all in under five seconds.

I started looking for my bag and realized that couldn’t find it anywhere. I literally tore up Brady’s room trying to find it then tore up the living room and kitchen. Finally I texted him, asking if he knew where I put it.

“I don’t know, I’m sorry. Are you sure you had it? I don’t remember you having a bag when I picked you up,” Brady replied.

A horrible feeling washed over me. If I left my $2,000 bag at the bar I would never see it again and it literally had all my belongings in it. My ID, all my cards, my apartment and car keys, my limited edition lipgloss that can’t be found anymore. I calmly sat on the couch and started calling the bar. Of course, they were closed. I actually wanted to jump off a bridge.

I took a long shower and got dressed in something I’d left there. I tried calling the bar a few more times before calling an Uber to take me to work.

Luke came and found me immediately so we could discuss the night’s shenanigans.

“Did you exchange numbers with the bartender or anything?” I asked after I told him about losing all my stuff.

“I didn’t. And you’ve called the bar?” Luke said back.

“A million times!” I cried. I was starting to worry that I would never see my shit again. I would have to pay for new apartment keys, jump through hoops to get a new drivers license and new credit cards and find a lipgloss that is similar to the sold out one. I was stressing.

To take my mind off of it, Luke talked about how the night went besides losing my stuff. I didn’t remember a lot of it. He said that Brady picked us up and I made him stop so we could get food (McDonald’s, obviously) then take Luke home which was not on the way at all.

“Tell him I appreciate it so much! He is so sweet!” Luke gushed.

Aww. He’s right – Brady is so sweet. Especially since he gave me his card so I could get food and stuff since I didn’t have any money. Like what would I do without him?

Around the time I was leaving Brady’s work, I got a Facebook friend request from a guy named Wyatt. And after looking through some of his profile pictures I realized it was the bartender from the night before. I quickly accepted then had my Uber driver stop at Potbelly’s so I could pick up my lunch. When I got back in the car, Wyatt had sent me a message.

He let me know that he had my bag safely in his possession and did I need him to bring it to me or anything? I almost cried, I was so happy. I told him where my office is and asked if he would be in the area at all. If not, I told him I would meet him literally anywhere to get it. He replied that it wasn’t any trouble and that he would let me know when he was on his way.

I could not believe my luck! Wyatt could have taken my stuff and run with it, but he didn’t. Just when I thought everyone in the world sucked, this happened.

When Wyatt finally showed up at my office I couple of hours later, I couldn’t help throwing my arms around him and practically kissing his feet thanking him.

“I owe you a drink!” I declared.

“Okay, you just let me know when,” Wyatt smiled.

I ran back to Luke and told him what happened. “Can you believe Wyatt brought my bag all the way to me? He didn’t have to do that.”

Luke agreed and said I needed to be thanking my lucky stars that an honest person found my things. He’s right.

Anyway, this weekend is Brandie’s wedding and I’m so excited to see her again! It’s been probably a year since I’ve seen her. And I’m excited for everyone to meet Brady. He’s soo different than my ex, it’s funny. I can’t wait.

Brady and I were doing so well and were practically newlyweds…until Friday. I went over after the gym and we had plans of staying in and watching tv/being lame all night. I even brought birthday cake Oreos for the occasion. We started watching tv on the living room couch with my feet in his lap.

We watched an episode of Say Yes To The Dress (guilty pleasure) and then Chris came in the living room and said, “Dude, are you coming?”

Brady jumped up and followed Chris without saying anything to me.

“Uh, where are you going?” I asked.

“I’ll be right back,” Brady called and I watched them walk through the the kitchen toward the dining room.

Uh, okay. I wasn’t sure what they were up to, but I was too lazy to get up and investigate. I got through two episodes of House Hunters before Brady came back.

“Hey beautiful,” he said, collapsing at the end of the couch. I eyed him out of the corner of my eye and noticed the familiar red-eye, low eyelid look. Ugh.

“You were supposed to watch tv with me,” I whined.

“Relax. We can watch tv now,” Brady said calmly.

“But you missed like two episodes! Where did you go?” I continued. I know I was being kind of bratty, but that’s what I do.

“You’re so goddamn needy,” Brady said and I was so shocked that I think I actually flinched. He got up and walked back toward the kitchen.

“Where are you going now?” I called after him.

Brady did a hand gesture like he was shooing me away and disappeared into the kitchen.

I saw red. I wouldn’t say that I have an anger problem at all, but I had visions of going in the kitchen and knocking every ceramic and glass dish on the floor. And taking a piece of the broken glass to Brady’s face. How fucking dare he call me needy? I mean, I am, but still. I don’t know why he was acting surprised.

I sat there until I no longer had visions of destruction then got up to get in Brady’s bed. I’d left my phone charging in his room and when I checked it, I had a message from Matt. It was probably the worst time ever to hear from him since I was so pissed at my boyfriend.

“How was your week, Reese?” Matt asked.

“It was wonderful. Thanks for asking. How was yours?” I replied.

We began texting back and forth and I found out that he was out at the bar with his team. It was a lot of harmless small talk at first and then Matt said, “Can I tell you something?”

I said, “Yes.” I don’t know what I was expecting him to tell me, but I’m always pretty annoyed when people preface things. Like, “Can I ask you a question?” Just fucking say it.

“I think you’re incredibly sexy. I love the way you talk and carry yourself and you have an amazing body.”

“Thanks,” was all I said back.

“I can tell you’ll never give me the chance, but I want to know what you taste like.”

Whoa. I had no idea how to respond to that so I said, “😳” and that’s probably exactly how I looked too.

“I can take care of you, Reese. You tell me what you want and I’ll make sure you’re satisfied. Just give me the chance,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I should’ve ignored him/explained that I have a serious boyfriend/blocked him.

“Anything you want. Money, a car, a house, vacations. You can have whatever you want, I just want you.”

A year or two ago, I would have jumped on this opportunity. A hot older man who wanted to fund my lifestyle just for having sex with him? Sign me up! But when I read that, I was thinking, “Ew, this guy thinks he can literally buy me.”

“I don’t need any of that stuff. I have my own money and I’m happy with what I have.”

“What do you want then?” Matt asked.

“Maybe you should try winning me over with your personality and not money,” I said.

I didn’t get to read his response before Brady walked in. I felt guilty so I threw my phone down, but I still glared at him.

“What are you up to, babe?” he asked, climbing on top of me.

“Being pissed at you,” I said, trying to push him off, but he wouldn’t budge.

He laughed like I was fucking joking and said, “What else is new?” He made his way down my body and I tried to stop him until I realized what he was doing.

Okay, fine. I was going to let him eat me out, but he wasn’t off the hook. Afterwards, I turned and faced the wall and ignored his advances until we fell asleep.

When I woke up on Saturday morning I was actually more pissed off than I was the night before. I wasn’t even being that needy! Brady was still sleeping so I snuck out of bed and showered and got ready in the bathroom. When I got out, Brady was awake.

“Hey. Where are you going?” he asked.

“Out,” I said. I knew he wanted to stay in bed and cuddle because that’s pretty much all we do on the weekends now, but revenge. I actually planned on going to an animal shelter and looking at dogs.

Brady could tell I was upset, but is too much of a pussy to ask why so he just said, “Okay.”

“Bye!” I said and walked out without another word.

I spent like three hours at the animal shelter just walking up and down the rows of cages and looking at all the dogs. They were so cute, the way they were looking up at me with their hopeful little eyes. I wanted to take all of them home. I talked to the girl who worked there about what kind of dog I was looking for and stuff. And then she wanted to show me cats. Ew.

I took some pictures of my favorites and wanted to send them to Brady, but I was mad at him so I didn’t. After I left the shelter, I texted Preston and asked him to have a drink with me. He had just gotten off work so I met him at a restaurant near his job. He surprised me by showing me his new tattoo. I didn’t even know he was considering getting one.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” Preston explained. He got a cross on his tricep which is kind of funny considering he’s not religious at all. He said he just liked the way it looked. He went with Nicole and she got a dream catcher on her ribcage (she would).

“So what else is new with you?” I asked.

“Nothing really. Same old. Nicole’s on her way,” Preston answered.

Ugh. So I quickly told him what happened with Brady before she got there and started being all loud and inappropriate.

“But you were being needy,” he said.

“I know, but he didn’t have to be mean about it.”

“And you didn’t have to pout about it. Have you talked to him?”

I hadn’t. In fact, I hadn’t looked at my phone in a while so I dug it out of the bottom of my bag. I had several text messages from both Brady and Matt. Brady was being super nice and sending me stupid stuff from the Internet and saying that he was going to take me to dinner and I get to choose where. I didn’t say anything back because I was annoyed that he wasn’t even acknowledging what happened.

When Nicole arrived, we decided to go to Tourist Central aka Michigan Ave. After we walked around for a while we got cold and decided to go to my apartment. We had wine and Oreos and Nicole told us stories about the crazy things she’s done in relationships which honestly weren’t that crazy. I think it’s really dumb when people claim to be crazy and they aren’t, like why do you want to be crazy?

Brady texted me again saying, “Are you coming back here tonight?”

“No,” I said back thinking he would finally get the hint.

Preston and Nicole wanted to go out so I agreed because I had nothing better to do. I dragged my feet getting ready because I actually didn’t want to go. We went to some douchey place in River North because Nicole knows people there. We sat at the bar and I started talking to this guy named Phillip. I enjoyed talking to Phillip because he didn’t immediately try to hit on me or buy me a drink and seemed to just want to talk. And he was telling me about how he was thinking about applying to the same school Brady went to for pharmacy school and I said, “Oh my boyfriend went there!”

It didn’t change the dynamic of our conversation either (I don’t think). So maybe I’ll stop being afraid to mention my boyfriend to guys right away.

After we left the first place, we met up with some of Preston’s coworkers down the street. It’s funny because I think I’m a pretty fashionable person, but Preston and his coworkers looked like they belonged in fucking Paris or something. They had on black and layers and jewelry and things even I’m not daring enough to wear.

I eventually went home at around midnight. On Sunday, I got up, went to the gym, showered, put on a cute outfit and had brunch with Kendra and John. As soon as I left brunch Brady called me. Perfect. I planned on going over there anyway.

“Hi,” I answered.

“Hey. Do you want to get food?” he asked.

“You’re about an hour late. I just ate.”

“Okay,” Brady said. I wanted to fucking strangle him.

“Well, I’m coming over so see you in ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

When I got to Brady’s I let myself in and found him straightening up the kitchen. He’s going to transition into a househusband so nicely.

“Hey,” Brady said cautiously.

“Can you come over and clean my kitchen too?” I teased to break the ice.

“Of course I will,” he said and I made a mental reminder to hold him to it.

“We need to talk,” I said. “Put your apron away and I’ll meet you in your room.”

I ambushed Brady when he walked into his room. I guess I had been holding it in long enough.

“First of all, you were so fucking rude the other night,” I said.

“What did I do?” He looked confused.

“You said I was ‘so goddamn needy.’ Like I’m sorry for not wanting to get ditched by my boyfriend.”

Brady looked all defeated like he loves to do when I yell at him. He’s so annoying.

“And you didn’t even apologize for what you said so you either didn’t notice or you didn’t care and I don’t know which is worse.”

Silence.

“So what do you have to say for yourself, Brady?” I crossed my arms across my chest.

“I owe you an apology.”

“Because I confronted you about it?”

“No. I didn’t know you were mad about it, honestly.”

“Why wouldn’t I be mad?”

“Well, I guess I didn’t realize that I said that.” Brady looked up at me and I kind of felt bad for yelling at him. So I softened a little.

“If smoking is going to make you like that then I don’t think you should do it,” I said calmly. “You turn into a douchey frat boy and I don’t like it.”

“Okay. I completely agree. I’m sorry.”

I was satisfied with that answer so we just chilled the rest of the night. I definitely didn’t let him live it down and said, “Or am I being needy?” at every opportunity I got. But he should have expected that.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I had a ton of messages from Matt. I opened the thread and the last message said something like, “He’s a lying, cheating dog anyway.”

Huh? So I scrolled up and read them all.

“Hey there. My name is Stephanie and I just wanted to let you know that Matt is married and I am his wife.”

“We’ve been married for five years.”

“You should also know that we have a one year old daughter together.”

“I don’t know what happened between you two, but you can have him if you want him.”

“He’s a lying, cheating dog anyway.”

I reread the whole thing several times. She sent it at around 3:00 AM so my guess is that she woke up in the middle of the night and went through his phone. Guess I’m not the only crazy girl out there!

I did the only thing that made sense next: I Facebooked her. Her profile popped right up and sure enough the profile picture was of Matt, a pretty blonde woman and a bald child wearing pink. I tried to figure out if I’d missed any signs that he was married. He didn’t wear a ring any of the times I met him, he was constantly texting me and he flat out told me he wasn’t married and had never been married. What the fuck? How can you hide something that big? You have to be seriously sick to lie like that.

Obviously I didn’t reply, but Matt texted me later saying hello like nothing happened. What. The. Actual. Fuck. I was super weirded out and wanted nothing to do with him so I finally just blocked his number. Good riddance.

So yeah. Matt is even more slimy than we even thought. I’m in disbelief. He hid an entire wife and baby! Who even does that?

Anywho, I’m really craving steak nachos so bae is taking me to find some. 🐷 L8r.

Tuesday was like the most epic day ever because it was Cinco de Mayo AND Taco Tuesday. I couldn’t even contain my excitement and let Brady know in the morning that we were getting chips, salsa, tacos, burritos, chimichangas and margaritas for dinner.

Directly after work, I met Kendra in Lakeview to look at a condo for her and John. The place was super cute with wooden beams, an updated kitchen with chic black cabinetry, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a ton of vintage charm. And honestly, it wasn’t a ton more than the budget I established with my banker lady when I thought I was going to buy a condo.

“I’m going to send pictures to John,” Kendra said and started taking pictures on her iPhone. “He really needs a spot to put his pool table.”

I suddenly felt an a pang of jealously. How fucking cute are they, already making plans for their furniture and home together (although I’m kind of confused as to why he still has a pool table in 2015). I want to get married and buy a condo and pick out really expensive decor. I feel like being in a relationship only makes me want that more. I had to resist the urge to text Brady and ask if it was okay if I started looking for condos for us.

I mentioned to Kendra our dinner plans and she kind of invited herself and John. So Brady came and picked us up and we met John at the restaurant. I ordered a margarita before we even sat down. I was kind of annoyed about our double date at first, but then we started having a lot of fun. Plus, maybe if Brady sees how happy and engaged they are he will propose to me.

After three margs, I asked Brady if we could get a dog. I don’t know if this is my version of baby fever, but I have puppy fever. I need a fucking dog.

“Why?” Brady asked.

“Because they’re so cute and sweet. I never had a dog growing up so I feel like I missed out. It’ll be like our little baby,” I explained to him.

“They’re a lot of work, you know. Especially a puppy.” he said all matter-of-factly.

I pouted. “I know, but I don’t mind. I’ll do a ton of research so I can be the best doggie mommy ever. And it can stay with you so you’re not so lonely after Chris leaves.”

“We will have to look into it,” Brady said. “I work a lot and it wouldn’t be fair for a dog to be in the house all day like that.”

“But I get off at a decent time and since I have a key now I can help with the outdoor duties!” I was impressing myself with how well I was making this all come together.

The final verdict was: “We will see.” I hated when my parents used to say that to me when I was a child and I hated it even more when Brady said it.

We went back to Brady’s and I used his laptop to shop while he showered (using my own credit card, thanks). I ended up ordering four pairs of shoes and two bracelets so nothing too crazy.

I worked really hard on Wednesday and stayed at the office until almost 9:00 PM. Matt texted me during the day. He said, “How’s my favorite girl doing?”

I responded, “Favorite girl?” I don’t even know why I said anything back to him.

“You missed Miami. Would’ve loved having you there.”

I rolled my eyes and didn’t say anything back. He texted me again later saying, “Can I take you to dinner this weekend?”

“I have plans with my boyfriend,” I said and he didn’t reply.

The weather was awesome on Thursday and since I worked so hard Wednesday, I decided to leave a little early to enjoy the day. I got the bright idea of surprising Brady at work. I haven’t done that in so long! I got there and asked the desk girl to page him while secretly hoping that Jessica or Maddie or one of his work mistresses showed their face. But they didn’t.

“Hiiiiiiiii,” I said in my super high pitched annoying voice when Brady approached.

“Hey. What are you doing here?” he asked.

Is it just me or is that super rude? Like I’m here to visit you obviously. I actually said that and added, “Can you sneak out for a bit? It’s so nice out!!”

Brady seemed to think about it for a moment before agreeing to it. Yay. I didn’t have anything planned so we walked down the block a bit and talked about our days. We stumbled upon a gelato shop and of course, I insisted we go in. We ended up taking our gelato to the park and sitting on a bench right in the sun. I busied myself watching all the dogs and adorable children (I actually do not like children at all, but these kids were so well behaved and cute. I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me).

I’m not sure how, but we started talking about threesomes. Brady asked if I’ve ever had one.

“Ummmm, not exactly,” I said awkwardly. This probably wasn’t particularly a story Brady wanted to hear, but remind me to share it with y’all later. “Would you want to do that?”

“I think every guy has a fantasy of being in bed with two women,” he answered.

“Oh my God, really?” My eyes widened. While I think Brady and my’s sex life is awesome, it’s not like we are that daring or try new things that often. We like what we like.

He shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“So if I brought another girl over, you would seriously have sex with both of us?” I asked.

“I mean, I’m not going to say no…”

“Brady!” I exclaimed.

“I’m just kidding.” He paused. “Unless you wanted to.”

I licked on my gelato and considered it. As you can imagine, I’m not really interested in sharing. Especially sharing an actual bae who I love. But honestly, I don’t know why, but I’m super curious to watch Brady be intimate with another girl. Is that weird? But maybe we could try it. I know the perfect person!

I slid my dress up so I could take advantage of the sun and get a little color on my legs. We sat there and watched the parents and children and animals. I fell in love with this Maltese named Bella who ran over to me like she knew me. She belonged to an elderly couple who told me that she likes to meet new people, eat human food and nap a lot during the day. It sounded like we had a lot in common so we were instant friends. She wouldn’t leave my sight and even climbed in my lap and napped in the sun for a few minutes.

I turned to Brady and discreetly said, “Can I keep her?”

Brady laughed nervously because he knew I was serious and would offer the couple my entire designer shoe collection for Bella. She was perfect and I almost cried when Brady said he needed to get back to work. I thought about giving Bella’s owners my number in case they ever need a baby sitter. But that would be weird?

As we were walking back, we passed a man and a woman, probably not much older than us. She was pushing a (super chic) stroller and the guy was carrying a little baby that couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old. She had on what looked like it could have been a working mom outfit (relaxed jeans, striped top and sensible flats) and he looked like he had probably just gotten off work. Or maybe she even surprised him at work and made him take a break like I did. And they had a little furry dog with them. I got this weird feeling of envy in my chest. They looked so happy and married and content.

I feel like I’m going through this phase of wanting to settle down since Brady and I are so good right now. Is this what growing up feels like? I don’t know if I like it or not.

Hiiiiiiiiiii.

So exactly one year ago, I posted my first blog post on this site. I can’t remember what triggered me to start a blog, but I thought it would be a cool way to get some unbiased feedback from people who don’t know me. I knew that I wasn’t going to hold back and that people would probably be really harsh, but that’s exactly what I needed.

Back then I was super, super single and had only had one or two relationships in my life. I thought this blog would be a funny look inside my ridiculous dating adventures in Chicago. I’ve gotten myself into some…predicaments. I never thought I would actually find a real boyfriend who I am obsessed with and love. Like this was not a part of the plan. It’s okay though because I’m super happy.

I feel like I need to say thank you so much to every person who has commented because I have changed so much in a year. If anyone was following me back then, you know I was a spoiled, ungrateful brat who cried and yelled until I got what I wanted. I partied and drank several nights out of the week and obviously I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to deal with that.

Although the harsh comments sometimes made me mad and defensive, they honestly have helped me in a way I didn’t know they could. I’m so much more aware of my actions now and how I talk to and treat other people. I’ve caught myself thinking, “What will happen if I blog about this?” before doing something and realizing that y’all wouldn’t approve. So I didn’t do it. I have no idea what I’m doing in my relationship and I have tried to take all the advice I get on here about how to make my relationship work. So I can’t thank y’all enough for helping me become a better version of me.

Obviously I’m still a work in progress and hope I continue to get better, but if you read my blog last year I hope you can tell the change in me. I feel like a different person and I love it. I will continue blogging as long as y’all want me to! Love everyone as always!! ❤

-Reese

So Diana was right: I love Luke. I feel bad that we got off on the wrong foot because I think we are going to be best friends. We hung out on the floor of the design room on Thursday and he told me his life story and how he came out to his family. His mom was one of the mom’s who said, “I know,” when he told her he was gay. Preston’s parents said the same thing. He loves Britney Spears (I’m not sure how or why) and I like some of her old stuff so we danced to old school Britney in my office on Thursday afternoon. Afterwards, Luke was like, “You were so intimidating at first. I thought you were going to bite my head off.”

“What? Me?” I said, pretending I’ve never had anyone say that to me before.

“I was just wondering how this little girl can give such deadly looks.”

“That’s just my face,” I explained.

I told Luke that I have a blog. He’s the only person I’ve ever told and I don’t think he would judge.

I spent the night with Brady on Thursday and I didn’t plan on going into the office on Friday so I slept in a little bit. I insisted Brady call and tell his boss he would be late so we could sleep in and have sex and I could make him an amazing breakfast. I’m super surprised, but he did it and it took minimal coaxing. He finally left for work at like 11:30 AM. I told Brady that I wanted to go run some errands, but since Chris was out of town, I wouldn’t have a way to get back in. I suggested just borrowing Brady’s keys since he would be working, but he said I could use the spare set. So now I have keys to Brady’s place since he hasn’t asked for them back. Finally. Totally gonna pop in at random to make sure he isn’t doing anything sketchy.

Kidding.

So I got up and got ready to go get my nails done. I brought my laptop to the nail salon so I could work while getting my pedicure. Best idea I’ve had in a long time. I got a lot of work done and then I took a break to get on Facebook. I happened to end up on Brady’s page (okay, I searched him) just to see if there were any new updates. I never paid attention to our mutual friends before (we don’t have a ton) but I happened to glance at them and saw a profile picture of a girl with dark hair wearing a bikini. It was my friend from home, Brittany. Ew. I didn’t even know they were Facebook friends and I definitely don’t see why they should be. I want to hack into his account and delete/block her.

I realized that I RSVP’d to a friend from college’s wedding in Dallas on May 16th. I completely forgot about it and hadn’t even gotten a plane ticket. The bride was one of my close friends and we were even closer because our boyfriends were teammates. So I’m about 90% sure my ex is going to be there especially since he’s from Dallas too. At first I couldn’t decide if I wanted to invite Brady or not, but then I realized that I need everyone from college to know that I’m not still hung up on that loser. Plus Brady is hot so.

The weather was really nice on Saturday and one of Brady’s friends invited us out on his boat. I was a little skeptical because the last time I was on a boat I got sick. It turned out to be fine though. I felt so New England. His friends were talking about remodeling their homes and going to gender reveal parties and graduating from B school. Meanwhile I was wondering where the tequila was. Hopefully I’ll grow up soon.

That night Brady and Chris had people over because there was a boxing match on. Apparently it was a big deal, but I had no idea about it until Chris mentioned it. I was like, “Whatever. As long as there’s alcohol.” It was really annoying because people were like really into the fight. I thought it was just an excuse to drink. Plus Brady and some of the other people kept going outside to smoke during the commercial breaks. It was just really lame and I wanted everyone to leave. I didn’t want to seem antisocial and leave so I just sat there not socializing.

I didn’t want to get out of Brady’s bed on Sunday so I laid there while he went for a run, cleaned, showered and picked up Thai food for dunch.

“Get in bed with me!” I whined.

So he did and we ate our food in bed. Brady said something along the lines of, “I don’t understand how you don’t have bed sores by now,” which I thought was kind of shady, but also made me realize how lazy I was being. Oh well.

I mentioned the wedding and asked if he wanted to come.

“Maybe. I’ll need to look at my schedule,” Brady said.

“I already bought our plane tickets,” I lied. I really just wanted him to agree to go with me.

“Okay, I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?” he said.

“Not really. Thanks boo!” I leaned over and kissed him then pulled out my phone to actually look at flights.

“I feel like I’m going to be the last of my friends to get married. If I ever get married,” I said after I found the flight I wanted.

“Why do you feel like that?” Brady asked.

“Because I’m like crazy. Don’t act like you don’t agree,” I answered.

“Not crazy. You’re fun and wild. But I love that about you.”

*big smiling emoji face* Does anyone remember when Brady called me laidback when we first met? I wonder at what point did he realize how wrong he was?

“But too crazy to marry, right?” I said.

“Noo….” Brady dragged the word on like he was uncertain. Almost like it was a question. “I would love to marry you Reese, but there’s a lot we would need to work on.”

“Really? Like?” I obviously know the main ones: communicating, my jealousy, probably my partying, spending habits, etc, but I was curious to know Brady’s view of things.

“Well any relationship, particularly a marriage, requires compromise. Sometimes I don’t feel like you’re willing to compromise,” he said.

Whoa whoa whoa. Way to call me out. And I felt like I was great at compromising so I was confused.

“How? Like when?” I asked, trying not to sound defensive.

Brady laughed kind of nervously and didn’t answer me. I blinked at him, waiting.

“For example, last time we went out to dinner I told you that I wasn’t in the mood for Mexican, but you were so that’s what we had to get…”

I thought back to Thursday night when we went to a Mexican restaurant for mahi-mahi tacos and margaritas. Brady didn’t seem enthused about it, but I can’t remember him explicitly saying he didn’t want Mexican. Looking back, I don’t think he ate much (even though those tacos were bomb). I felt awful.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not telling you this so you’ll apologize.”

“I know, but I feel really bad now. Do you think I’m controlling too?”

“Uh, maybe a bit. You’re pretty bossy. I don’t mind-”

“Oh my gosh, why do you put up with me?” I was replaying every moment of our relationship at this point.

“Because you put up with me.”

I was still thinking about all the non-compromising and controlling things I’ve done.

“There are things we both have to work on together. I’m not pointing my finger at you.”

Like all the times he wanted me to go running with him to keep him company, but I whined until he said nevermind. Brady goes shopping with me every time I ask with no hesitation.

“It’ll take time, but I’m willing to work on it if you are.”

I looked at Brady and smiled. “You’re sweet.”

I do this thing where I ask Brady the same three questions everyday. “Do you love me?” “Do you miss me?” and “Do you think I’m pretty?” It definitely started off as me fishing for compliments, but now it’s just our thing.

“Yes. Yes. Yes,” Brady said and I knew what he meant even though I didn’t actually ask.

I was about to say, “Tell your mom we are back together,” but realized how bossy that sounded so I said, “Maybe you should tell your mom we are back together.”

“Oh. Why does it matter?” Brady got up and started cleaning up our Thai food mess and I felt the entire mood change. I think he wanted to have a distraction so he didn’t have to talk about his mom with me.

“So she can invite us places. I’m sad we missed Florida,” I said.

“We can go places on our own.”

“Okay.” I could sense he wasn’t feeling the direction the conversation was going so I added, “I’m going to plan a weekend getaway for us.”

“Sounds good. Just let me know.” And Brady left to take our trash out. I wish we had more moments like that and I wish I hadn’t ruined it.

I went home on Sunday night so I could do laundry and wash my hair and stuff. I’m trying not to keep a ton of stuff at Brady’s at this point. That just seems needy. Plus I keep thinking about that episode of Sex and the City when Carrie purposely left things at Big’s place and he gave it back. The horror. Brady wouldn’t do that (not directly to me anyway), but still.

When I woke up this morning, I had a text from Brady from earlier. It said, “I don’t like when you’re not here when I wake up.”

Ugh. We are so sweet to each other now I can’t even handle it. I love it though. Maybe we needed that break to realize how much we mean to each other. Brb, barfing.

Oh get this: the other night I had a really vivid sexual dream about that guy Trevor I wrote about from high school. Maybe writing about him and thinking about him (he was hung like a horse) put me in some sort of mood. When I woke up I wanted to get on Facebook and message him my number. Obviously I didn’t and just woke Brady up to hook up, but is that normal?

The first person I saw when I walked into the office on Monday morning was a tall, big shouldered guy with the kind of cheekbones I try to contour into my face with makeup and eyebrows I would kill for. He broke into a sexy smile when he saw me.

“Are you Reese? I’m Luke. We’re going to be working really closely together,” he said. He had a deeper voice than I was expecting. He had longish highlighted hair that was perfectly falling in his face. He was very masculine, but something about how well put together he was made me question his sexuality.

Diana didn’t make any mention of anyone I was working with so I was confused. “Okay. What’s your position?”

My look and tone must have been bitchy because Luke kind of winced then threw his shoulders back defensively. “Creative director.”

Diana definitely didn’t tell me there was going to be a new person with a director level position. I know I’m a brat, but I wanted to be in charge. So I just said, “K. We’ll talk later,” and went to find Diana in her office.

“Hi! I just met Luke,” I said, sitting down.

“He’s going to be great! I think you guys will get along wonderfully!” Diana enthused.

“What’s he going to be doing?”

“He’s going to be in charge of the creative side. So while you’re making sure everything is being put into action, he’s going to be designing it. So you’ll be the main one coming up with concepts, he will make them come to life. He’s going to be your little assistant,” Diana said.

“So he’s not the ‘creative director’?” I clarified.

“‘Creative team lead,'” she said.

Ha! So he wasn’t a director. I couldn’t wait to confront him about it later. Which was later that morning after the staff meeting. There’s a new “product development suite” with my new office, a design room (that is honestly jankity), an open space of cubicles, and a conference room for design meetings with the team. My first order of business is turning that design room into a more inspiring space.

I was walking through taking before pictures when Luke walked in. He walked past me and started flipping through a notebook and I guess he was still mad about our first encounter that morning.

“So when did you start?” I asked, trying to start over.

“Last week,” Luke replied, not looking up at me.

“Where did you come from?” I pried.

“Milwaukee.”

Okay, cool. Great talk. I continued taking pictures and talking to Luke and he finally kind of started to open up. I was still thinking about what happened with Matt so I blabbed all of this to Luke. Then I asked if he was seeing anyone.

“Well, I’m gay,” he said back and I realized that he probably thought I was making a pass at him. I was mortified. But at least I know for sure he’s gay now. I think Preston will love him. He’s way more manly than the guys Preston usually goes for.

I didn’t hear from Matt until Tuesday morning. I was feeling guilty about the whole thing though so I came clean to Brady about it. I told him about meeting Matt on the plane, exchanging numbers, the pub crawl and Matt squeezing my ass and giving me $200.

“Why did you even go if you knew he was interested in you?” Brady asked, looking confused, but not mad.

“Well, that’s the thing. I didn’t know he was interested in me in that way,” I said.

“Reese, you’re not an idiot. You knew what his intentions were,” Brady said and looked back down at his laptop basically dismissing me.

“Uh, no I didn’t. He didn’t act interested in me until Friday night. Am I supposed to just assume every guy wants to fuck me?”

“Stop acting like a dumbass.” He gave me a mean look and my mouth dropped open because that was rude. I slid off the table I was sitting on and stomped to Brady’s room.

I got in bed and waited for an hour for him to join me. When Brady walked in, I glared at him and didn’t say anything. He got undressed and got in bed.

“What are you doing?” he asked, snuggling next to me.

“Acting like a dumbass,” I said.

It’s like Brady was waiting for me to say something like that because he started yelling.

“You allowed a man to grab your ass and kiss all over you! Why else would he ask for your number, Reese? Do you think he really wanted to talk stocks with you? You don’t know anything about that stuff! Why are we even having this conversation? You should know better.” He turned away from me.

I felt bad. Brady hardly ever yells at me. And he was right. I hate being yelled at and usually get really defensive, but I knew this was on me.

I leaned over him and kissed him and he kissed me back. I said, “Sorry. Are you mad?”

“No. Just don’t do it again,” he said.

I promised I wouldn’t and I know that I can’t do that to Brady again. So when Matt texted me, “Miami next weekend?” on Tuesday, I texted back, “Can my boyfriend come?”

Matt didn’t text me back, but called me around lunchtime. I didn’t answer. That afternoon he texted asking for my birthday. Meaning he was probably trying to buy a plane ticket for me. So I didn’t respond.

My dad was in Chicago for work on Wednesday. We made plans to get lunch like we always do when he comes to town and I invited Brady even though I knew he would be busy with work. To my surprise though, Brady asked where we were going and what time and then said he could probably make it. Yay!

We went to this Mediterranean restaurant that my dad loves and ordered crostinis, scallops, and tartare. My dad asked me about my new job and Brady about his. Then he said, “Your mother has been staying with your grandma for the past month.”

“Huh?” I said back, confused.

“She can stay there until she gets her act together. You know, she charged $18,000 for-”

“Daddy, you can tell me about it later,” I said quickly. I didn’t need Brady knowing about our ridiculous family issues.

“I’m not going to put up with this any longer, Reese. Make sure she knows that.”

I feel like if Brady and I get married it’ll be like my parents’ relationship. I’m going to shop and spend money and Brady is going to passive aggressively send messages through our kids. I can already see it happening.

Not even an hour after I got back to the office, my mom called me.

“Hi Mom,” I answered.

“So Brady can find time to have lunch with your dad, but not me?” she greeted me.

“Mooooom,” I groaned.

“I don’t appreciate you two ganging up on me,” she sniffled.

“We aren’t ganging up on you.”

My mom is so dramatic.

“Then why did you take Brady to lunch?”

“We were fighting when you were here, Mom!” I practically screamed.

She didn’t say anything.

“Dad’s pissed at you,” I said.

“And I’m pissed at him. Don’t take his side Reese, you don’t know what happened.”

My parents are so childish. And I think it’s incredibly inconsiderate of them to try to involve me in their fights and make me pick sides. So I told my mom I had a meeting to go to and hung up.

She called back later on in the afternoon to apologize and to ask what my dad told me. I was like, “I’m not getting involved. Call him and ask him.”

I went to Brady’s that night after happy hour with Kendra and John. He was working and I let him for a little while before I started being annoying.

“How do you know you’re not gay?” I asked.

“What?” he said back, barely looking up at me.

“How do you know you’re not gay?” I repeated.

“Because I’m not…”

“But how do you knowwwww?”

“Reese.”

“What? How can you be sure?”

“Because I’m not attracted to men.”

“How do you know? Have you thought about it?” I leaned in close. This was getting interesting.

“No!” Brady exclaimed. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Has anyone thought you were gay? Has a man ever hit on you?”

“No.”

“Could you imagine yourself sucking a dick?”

“Are you just trying to piss me off? No!”

I could tell Brady was getting irritated with me, but I couldn’t stop.

“No, I’m just wondering. How can you know if you don’t like something if you haven’t tried it?”

“I’m not talking about this anymore. You’re being ridiculous,” he said.

I left him alone until later on when he came in his room to get ready for bed.

“Are you moving away?” I asked.

“What? No,” Brady replied.

“You said your mom had a job opening for you. Are you going for it?” I elaborated.

“Oh. No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m okay here. My job is fine and I don’t want to sell my place. I need to be far away from my parents too.”

“Why?” I agree with him on the parents thing because mine are obviously insane, but I wanted him to say it in his own words.

“I don’t like being around them. Reese, you know this,” Brady sighed.

“But when I first met you, you said you were considering moving back home,” I pointed out.

“I was considering moving to the east coast, not back home to be near my parents,” he explained.

“Oh east coast… Like New York City? Where your ex lives?” My face lit up with excitement.

“What? No!” Brady was sounding frustrated again. “Why are you interrogating me?”

“Whattttt? You’re never open with me,” I pouted.

We were both quiet as Brady walked to the edge of the bed. “Okay, what else do you want to know?”

“I feel like your relationship with your parents has gotten a lot worse the past couple of months. Did something happen?” I asked.

“No,” Brady said automatically.

Then I had a realization. “Is it because of me?” It would make sense. I’d overheard Brady’s mom saying she didn’t like someone (probably me) in November and she said I was controlling because Brady was spending Christmas with me. Since then he hasn’t had anything nice to say about them (his conversation with Brittany, him telling me he would be okay with never speaking to them again, etc) and he hasn’t gone to visit them.

“Of course not.”

“Are you sure?” I didn’t believe him.

“I’m sure. It has nothing to do with you. We’ve never had a good relationship,” Brady said. I’m not sure why, but my chest started to feel heavy.

“I know you don’t like talking about them, but can you tell me about it one day?” I asked.

Brady finally got in bed next to me. “Mmhm.”

And then he kissed me and we hooked up so we didn’t have to talk about his parents anymore. So 1. He’s obviously not gay. And 2. I really wish I could get him to open up to me about his parents. Because right now, I feel like he’s being irrational. Yeah his parents are super republican and stuff, but it’s like, they’re still his parents. What if something happens to them? Won’t he feel guilty for hating them? I just want to shake some sense into him.

Brady and I went to dinner on Monday night. We don’t hang out every single day like we used to and it’s okay because when I do see him I get so excited.

After we ate, Brady suggested we go to this chocolate shop a couple of doors down. I was pretty full from dinner, but I’ll never say no to chocolate. I ended up getting chocolate covered strawberries, marshmallows dipped in chocolate and pretty much the whole top row of the display case. All together we spent almost $50. No regrets though.

On Tuesday Andrew started being a dick to me just like Brady predicted. I woke up early to start working because I didn’t want to leave with a ton of stuff to be done. I started answering emails from my home office at like 6:30 AM and didn’t stop for breakfast until like 11 AM. I was proud of myself.

I was sitting at my little dining table eating a waffle and scrolling through Instagram when Andrew texted me.

“Can you send me your completed operations report right away?” he asked.

Shit. Out of everything I had worked on, that was the one thing I hadn’t gotten to. I just needed to plug in some numbers though so I replied, “Sure. Just give me a few minutes.”

I abandoned my waffle and OJ and grabbed my laptop to bring to the kitchen with me. Andrew had sent me three messages basically lecturing me. He said, “Just because it’s your last week doesn’t mean you can slack off. We’re still paying you so you still need to do work.”

Whoa. What the fuck? Obviously he had no idea that I actually was still doing work and more work than I did usually. Whatever. I didn’t even reply.

Later on, we had a conference call with other sales directors and Andrew’s immediate boss. I was listening and taking notes, but kind of daydreaming too. Andrew put me on the spot and asked me a question, but luckily the answer was right on the page of my packet that I was looking at.

“Wow. Everyone, let’s clap for Reese. She finally knows how to read,” Andrew said sarcastically. And then he actually paused so people could clap.

I was so fucking pissed off that I almost hung up and texted Andrew to tell him I was done. But I took a deep breath and finished the call and didn’t talk to Andrew for the rest of the day.

I went to Brady’s after he left work. After Andrew ruined my day, I needed bae to make me feel better. We took wine to the living room and Brady did work while I told him what happened.

“I was afraid that would happen,” Brady said. “I don’t think you should do anything crazy though. Just try to stick it out until Friday.”

“He’s such an ass! I’m going to report him to HR before I leave. I hope they fire him,” I grumbled. I almost wanted to tell Brady what happened that one night in Tennessee, but luckily I caught myself before I blurted it out.

“You should file some sort of formal complaint. Maybe they won’t fire him, but it’ll be good to at least let them know what’s going on. And in the meantime, just be thankful that you only have to deal with him for a few more days,” Brady said.

I instantly felt better. “How are you always so positive? Does anything ever upset you? Don’t you ever just want to kill someone?” I asked.

Brady shrugged. “Of course things upset me, but never enough to ruin my day. I have so much more to be grateful for. I won’t let a stupid coworker put me in a bad mood.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

“You have way too much going for you to let that guy make you feel worthless.”

Aw. I really, really need to be more like Brady. Maybe I need to go to a third world country and witness some real life problems for myself.

I was in a much better mood on Wednesday and managed to avoid Andrew the entire day. Brady texted me around five saying that he was off and wanted to see me so I invited him over. I can’t lie, I was a little bit nervous because I feel like every time Brady gets off early and wants to see me, I’m in trouble. I sat there racking my brain trying to think of what I could have done wrong. Nothing was jumping out at me except exchanging numbers with Matt, but even then, Brady couldn’t possibly be pissed at me for that.

Oh well. I showered and put on a hoodie and little knit shorts, threw my hair into a bun and waited. I buzzed him up and paced, nervous that he was going to yell at me. I think I was a little bit scarred from the time he screamed at me for messaging Jessica. When I heard Brady’s light knock on the door I practically ran to answer it.

I was surprised to find Brady standing there with a bag from a bakery near his work and a couple of white roses. Awwwwwwwwww.

“Hiiiiii,” I said happily, but cautiously.

“Hey. I brought you something,” Brady said walking in. He sat the bag down and motioned for me to look in. Cheesecake.

“Oh my gosh. Are you trying to make me get fat so no one else wants me?” I was mostly kidding.

Brady laughed. “Exactly.”

He dropped to his knees and just as I started to ask what he was doing, he started kissing my thighs. Oh. Ohhh. Neither of us said a word as Brady painstakingly slowly pulled my shorts off. He looked up at me, almost for approval, before pulling my underwear down and helping me step out of them. So I was standing in front of a kneeling Brady with just a hoodie on.

He started kissing my thighs again and then put one of my legs over his shoulder. And then Brady began eating me out. Yesssssssss.

“Shit,” I mumbled. I almost couldn’t handle it. I had to lean over and put my hands on Brady’s head because my leg was about to give out. Have I mentioned how good Brady is at cunnilingus? I’ll keep him around for that, if nothing else. Also, have you ever had someone eat you out so well that it almost hurt? Like it was unbearable. I was conflicted between telling him to stop because I couldn’t handle it and pushing myself further onto him. And then I came.

Brady stood up and wiped his chin and I had to lean against the counter to steady myself.

“Do you want to eat cheesecake now?” I asked.

Brady laughed and stepped forward to pick me up. “No.”

He carried me to my room and we finally consummated our relationship. And I didn’t even have to seduce him. I think he was probably just as horny as I was.

Afterwards, I was half asleep, but we laid in bed talking.

“Why did it take you so long to have sex with me? Were you trying to torture me?” I asked.

“What are you talking about? No,” Brady replied.

“Because you haven’t tried anything in like two weeks. It was deliberate right?”

“Yes it was deliberate!” Brady exclaimed. “Last time I tried something you practically tied my hands to your bed. I didn’t want you to do that again.”

I couldn’t even pretend that wasn’t hilarious. I threw my arms around him and kissed his cheek. “You’re so presh.”

“No, you’re presh.”

On Thursday I got a really interesting text message. Remember BJ the intern (insert eye rolling emoji here)? I literally haven’t talked to him since last summer. He texted me saying, “Hey boss lady. I’m interviewing for a job in Atlanta and was wondering if you could write me a letter of recommendation? I’ll owe you big time. :-)”

Ew. That kid has some fucking nerve texting me asking for a favor. I was half tempted to tell him that I would do it then sending a scathing letter letting his future employer know what an asshat he is. But I’ve matured. So I didn’t text back.

Friday was my last day of work and lucky for me, Andrew was in Chicago. He ignored me the entire morning then invited me to lunch – a totally work free lunch. I couldn’t think of an excuse to get out of it fast enough.

At first Andrew just asked me questions like what I would miss most about the company (traveling) and if I thought I was ready to take on new challenges (obviously). Then he started giving me like an impromptu performance review and told me what he thinks I need to work on. I didn’t ask for that. I feel like Andrew is that boyfriend who would tell you he doesn’t like your outfit for date night and you should change.

At the end of lunch, Andrew said, “Well I hope you keep in touch, Reese. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t reach out to me for any reason.”

Gross. But of course, I nodded and said okay. Then he proceeded to give me his personal cell phone number since until then all I’ve had was his work number. Joy. Doubt I’ll ever need to use it.

Brady was running in some sort of race on Saturday so he wasn’t interested in doing anything that night. So I decided to meet Matt at the pub crawl. I invited Preston and his new best friend, Nicole. I filled Preston in on Matt on our way to the bar.

“So you don’t think he’s into you?” Preston asked, looking skeptical.

“I don’t know. I think he’s just friendly,” I replied. Honestly, Matt had been kind of flirty – telling me to come over after work for a glass of wine, asking what he needed to do to see me – but I’d been completely unresponsive to his advances.

“Mmkay, girl. You just let me know if we need an escape,” Preston said. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

When we got to the bar, Matt was standing outside waiting for us.

“Hey you,” Matt said smiling. The last time I’d seen him was when we were getting off the plane and he looked a little different without his hat and travel attire. Plus he was clean shaven when I met him, but he had some stubble on Friday night. He’s on the taller side with an athletic build and nice, brown hair.

Matt pulled me into a hug and kissed my cheek and I knew Preston was standing behind me judging so I pulled away quickly. I introduced him to Preston and Nicole and Nicole shook his hand and asked how we knew each other. I turned around and rolled my eyes at her. I explained the whole story to them on the way to the bar. Nicole is just so annoying. I don’t think she has a filter so she just says whatever pops into her little brain. It doesn’t help that she has a thigh gap the size of the Grand Canyon so I can’t stand to even look at her.

“I met this little beauty in first class on the way back to Chicago from Dallas.”

“Ohhhh,” Nicole looked from him to me and back. “So what’s this pub crawl for?”

Matt explained his job to her – how he runs this company and has hundreds of people under him and likes to show them his appreciation sometimes hence the pub crawl. We got inside, Matt introduced us to a few of his employees then ordered a round of beer for all of us.

“You must be a busy girl,” Matt said.

It took me a second to realize that he said that because I never got back to him about hanging out. Oops.

“Yeah. Switching jobs has been hectic,” I said which was kind of a lie.

We chatted for a while, just mindless small talk about work. He said he only works Monday through Thursday and likes to get away on the weekends. He has condos in San Diego and Miami and when I told him that I want to go back to Miami because I haven’t been in a couple years, he told me that he would love to take me. I didn’t say anything back.

I met some more of Matt’s employees who wanted to do shots with us. They had obviously been out for a while because they were all completely drunk. They were actually really fun. He works with this big guy with a crazy mustache who seemed to be the life of the party. They called him “Big Ben.” Big Ben kept saying to Matt, “She’s cute, man. Watch yourself.”

Since I was a little tipsy I started asking questions. I found out that Matt is 33 and grew up in New York City, but he’s been in Chicago for almost ten years.

“So you’re 33 and you aren’t married?” I asked.

Matt took a drink from his beer before saying, “Nope.”

“And you haven’t been?”

“Nope.”

I think I made a face because Matt said, “What? A guy in his early thirties should be married?”

“I mean… Kinda. I just feel like if you aren’t married by now, is there something wrong with you?”

He laughed. “That’s such a naïve thing to say. How old are you again, Reese?”

“Twenty five,” I said.

“Ah. And you’re not married?”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ve been waiting for a girl just like you, Reese. That’s why I’m not.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew it was the perfect time to mention Brady. But I didn’t. I should have, but I just didn’t.

A few minutes later I told Matt that I would be right back and went to find Preston and Nicole. I hadn’t seen them since we first arrived.

“Hey chick,” Preston said when I reached them in a corner of the bar. “We’re gonna go.”

“What? Already?” I exclaimed.

“We’re getting bored and I have to work in the morning,” Preston explained.

“Okay, well I’m leaving too. Let me just say goodbye to Matt.”

“Noo, no, no. You stay and have fun. Don’t let us ruin your night, doll.”

“Okay. Well, you suck for leaving,” I said. I can’t lie, I was a little bit nervous about Preston leaving me alone with Matt.

After Preston and Nicole left we all headed to the next bar. I only had one more drink before I got tired and started yawning.

“Am I boring you that much?” Matt leaned down and whispered in my ear.

“No, sorry! I’m just getting sleepy. I had a long day,” I said. “Thanks for inviting me though. I had fun.”

“Do you want me to call you a car?” he asked.

“No. I’m calling an Uber.”

Matt nodded and walked me outside to wait.

“Make some time for me next week,” he said and it sounded almost like an order.

“I’ll try. I’ll probably be super, super busy with my new job.”

“Too busy for a quick dinner with me?” Matt looked boyishly smug when he said this and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Unfortunately yes. I’ll let you know though, k?” My phone buzzed to let me know that my Uber was arriving. I was almost relieved when the Toyota Camry stopped at the curb.

“Oh, this is me!” I squealed.

Matt grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hug. “Get yourself something good to eat then.” His hands slid down my back and grabbed a good handful of my ass cheek.

“Whoa!” I said, pushing him away. Flirting was one thing, but I never gave him permission to touch me like that.

He laughed and kissed my cheek quickly. “Goodnight, Reese.”

I said, “Bye!” hastily before jumping in the car.

Later on when I was at home getting undressed, I saw what looked like a dollar hanging out of my jeans pocket. I never carry cash so I was confused and picked up my jeans to investigate. I found two hundred dollar bills in the back pocket of my jeans and I realized that Matt must have stuck them in my pocket when he was squeezing my ass. That’s why he was touching me like that. And that explained the, “Get yourself something good to eat,” comment too.

Ew. How tacky. He thinks he can buy me with $200? Maybe $2,000 – just kidding. I felt guilty and terrible and decided I was going to tell him immediately that I’m happily taken and I can’t accept his money.

I texted him, “Matt, what’s this money for?”

“Since you aren’t going to make time for me to take you to dinner, take it and go somewhere nice.”

Ugh. I said, “I can buy my own dinner, thanks.”

“Just take it and quit being difficult. Goodnight, Reese.”

I felt like he was dismissing me which pissed me off. I started typing about seven different messages bragging about having my own money and a boyfriend, but then I decided not to respond at all.

I went to brunch with Kendra on Saturday. She says she and John finally have a date picked out: September 26th which is not that far away at all. She started telling me all the details I needed to know about getting fitted for a bridesmaid dress and stuff.

“Wait. You haven’t even asked me to be a bridesmaid,” I said.

“Well, obviously. As if I have a choice,” Kendra rolled her eyes.

I was already smiling and clapping. So excited! I love being in weddings.

That afternoon I made Brady go shopping with me. We spent an hour in the handbag department trying to find the perfect small, but not too small crossbody bag. It’s a lot harder than you may think. I narrowed it down to my four favorites and ran to every mirror to try them on and see them from different angles. And then I made Brady take pictures of me wearing the bags so I could see how they photograph. I finally decided on this one and this one. And a pair of Converse (who the fuck am I?) and a floral printed a-line dress to wear for my first day of work. Brady picked it out so I just had to get it.

We grabbed dinner after a long day of shopping. Brady asked what I did the night before and I immediately felt my face getting red hot with guilt. If I was feeling guilty then obviously I was doing something wrong, right?

“Um, I went with Preston to a pub crawl. This guy’s company covered the bill so…yeah.” I said.

“What guy?” Brady asked, looking confused.

“Just this guy. I met him a couple of weeks ago. He invited me and told me to bring whoever. You were being lame last night.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah so. I got home pretty early. I was tired.”

“Did you have fun though?”

“Noooo because you weren’t there,” I said, kissing him.

I really felt like shit later that night when I  got on Instagram and saw that 

Brady uploaded a picture of us from a night out around the holidays. I’m completely drunk in the picture, but we both still looked cute. Someone commented, “She’s beautiful.” And Brady replied, “I know. I’m lucky right?”

Don’t bother telling me because I already know: I’m a horrible person. I don’t know what to do. Matt hasn’t talked to me since Friday which is fine, but now I feel like I owe him something because he gave me this money. I don’t even understand why he gave it to me.

Anyway, I actually probably will be busy this week, but hopefully I can get another post up. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for any updates! Bye!