Since it was freezing cold on Friday night, I decided to stay in and have Kendra and Preston over. I didn’t really want to be out and about with the huge gash on my face anyway. Brady was going to the bar with Chris and some of their friends and you’re not going to believe this, but I was totally okay with him going out without me. 

Kendra and Preston arrived at around 7:30 with wine and we ordered Chinese food for dinner. Preston told us that he’s seeing Dillon and Mr. Murphy, but still separately.

“I love what I have with both of them separately and I don’t want to ruin that by trying this three way relationship thing. So I’m not going to – for now,” Preston explained.

Kendra got a little offended saying that Preston was basically cheating on both of them. Preston denied it and said that he and Dillon aren’t “technically” together so it doesn’t really count. Kendra didn’t buy it.

After a text message at 10:45 PM, I didn’t hear from Brady for the rest of the night. I found it odd because we were right in the middle of a conversation. An hour later I texted him and said, “Do you want to come over after you’re done partying without me?” 

No response.

I started to get worried/suspicious, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions and text Chris. I figured he was probably having fun and didn’t want to be that guy who was on the phone with his girlfriend all night. I didn’t want to be that girlfriend either.

I didn’t tell Kendra and Preston what was going on because I didn’t want to hear all their theories. They would probably tell me he was cheating on me and having sex with another girl as we were speaking. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. So I continued drinking and laughing with them until we passed out in my living room.

On Saturday morning when I woke up, Brady still hadn’t texted or called me and not hearing anything at all was concerning. I called him and his phone went straight to voicemail. Weird. So I texted Carly to see if she’d been over to their place at all or heard anything and she said that she hadn’t – she worked Friday night and went home afterwards.

Finally, I decided to text Chris. I asked him to have Brady call me if he talked to him. Chris responded, “Will do!” which made me believe that at least Brady wasn’t dead.

Kendra and Preston were hungry so we decided to meet Carly and Dillon at a BYOB brunch place. We stopped and got champagne and vodka then headed over there. While we were waiting for our table, Brady finally called me.

“Hey,” I answered nonchalantly like it hadn’t been over thirteen hours since I’d heard from him.

“Hey. I’m sorry. I lost my phone at the bar,” Brady said.

“What?” I scoffed, already not into his story.

“I just got it back. Fortunately for me, someone was honest and gave it to a bartender,” Brady explained.

“Were you really that drunk?” I asked, surprised and a little annoyed. Brady never does stupid, irresponsible shit like that so I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. 

“I must have been.”

He apologized and asked if I wanted to come over. I told him I was about to get breakfast and invited him to come.

We got our table and I ordered lemon french toast and bacon. By the time Brady and Chris arrived, I was pretty tipsy from the champs. Not quite drunk, but way too drunk for 1:00 PM on a Saturday afternoon. 

“Oh, look who’s alive,” I said sarcastically when Brady walked in. I made the entire table shift seats so he could sit next to me.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that. I feel like an idiot,” Brady said when he sat down.

I rolled my eyes. “I think it’s really weird that you ‘lost your phone’ and didn’t bother to call me and let me know. I was worried.”

“Well, I couldn’t call you if I didn’t have my phone,” Brady said, kind of laughing.

“Chris has a phone. I’m sure all of your other friends have phones. It’s not like you don’t know my number – you called me from work that time you left your phone at my apartment,” I said.

Everyone at the table was kind of silently eating/listening to our conversation.

“Reese, can we talk about this later?” Brady asked in a hushed tone.

I glared at him. “Why, so you can have some time to think up a good story?”

“No. There isn’t a story to think up. I lost my phone and didn’t get it back until this morning. I couldn’t call you because I don’t have your number memorized. I have my contacts saved to iCloud which is how I was able to call you from work.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I couldn’t exactly do that while I was at the bar.”

“Convenient,” I said. “I just really don’t believe you.”

Brady looked down at his menu with his jaw tight. He didn’t say anything so I continued eating and drinking and gossiping with Preston and Dillon. Brady and I didn’t talk for the rest of the meal.

After we ate, I made plans to get manicures with Kendra, Preston and Dillon and when we got outside to the cold day, I felt Brady’s eyes on me. I turned and he was staring at me expectantly.

I stopped walking and said, “What?”

“Let me guess, you think you did nothing wrong?” he said.

“What? What did I do?” I asked impatiently.

“Seriously?” Brady asked. 

I glared at him. “Seriously.”

“You berated me in front of everyone. That was uncalled for.”

“So you think you did nothing wrong?”

“I left my phone at the bar!” Brady yelled. He yelled. “I apologized. What else can I do? You’re being so unreasonable!”

“Don’t fucking yell at me,” I said.

“Reese, are you coming, doll face?” I heard Preston call from the distance.

“Give me a minute!” I shouted back.

I turned back to Brady and he was still staring down at me intensely. “Go with your friends. It doesn’t matter. We aren’t going to resolve anything anyway.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked with a frustrated sigh.

“I don’t know, perhaps show me a little respect?”

“I do respect you,” I said, crossing my arms. I did feel a little bit bad that he felt that way, but I wasn’t about to back down.

“Yeah?” Brady said. I sensed he wanted to say more – a lot more – but he just said, “Okay.”

“It’s cold so I’m going to leave,” I said abruptly.

He waited a beat then said, “Okay. Me too.”

We both said goodbye very briefly then I ran to catch up with my friends. Once we got settled into our manicure chairs, Kendra asked me what Brady said. I told her the story and she said, “I do think it was a little inappropriate to confront him like that in front of everyone. It was like you wanted to put on a show.”

Which was a little bit offensive. I denied it and she told me that I needed to apologize and make it up to him because I had embarrassed him. I told her that he embarrassed himself.

I didn’t hear from Brady the rest of the day on Saturday. I ended up staying home and watching both Sex and the City movies and falling asleep at 10:30. I probably deserved that.

I slept in on Sunday, woke up and watched tv for a few hours then took the longest shower ever. I wrapped myself in a towel and blow dried my hair until it was just barely damp. As soon as I turned off my blow dryer I heard my phone ping and a light knock on the door. I froze. I don’t really talk to anyone in my building and I wasn’t expecting anyone so I was a little bit freaked out.

I tiptoed to the kitchen where my phone was laying on the counter. I had two missed calls from Brady and a text message.

“Are you home? I’m at your apartment.”

I let out a sigh of relief as I realized it was probably him who was knocking. Sure enough, when I opened the door, Brady was standing there looking sheepish with a familiar pink box in his hand.

“Hey,” I said casually, opening the door to let him in.

“Hey,” he replied. He walked passed me and sat at one of my stools in front of the counter.

“How did you get up here?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Your doorman let me up. I think we are friends now,” Brady said, taking off his coat and stuff. 

I followed him to the counter and peeked in the box even though I knew what was there. Donuts. I fucking love donuts. I threw my arms around my sweet boyfriend and he hugged me back. He was still a little bit cold from being outside and since I was still in just a towel, I felt a shiver race through my body.

“Love you,” I heard myself say. I didn’t even mean to, I don’t think. We hadn’t said that to each other in weeks. Maybe that’s how you know it’s real.

“Love you,” Brady whispered, kissing me.

We both seemed to completely forget about the stupid fight we had on Saturday and spent the rest of the day feeding each other donuts.

I already know, the fight was all my fault. I absolutely should’ve waited until we were alone to confront him about it. Hindsight is 20/20 and etc. But I had every right to be annoyed though, didn’t I? Even if he lost his phone, he should have found a way to let me know. Or is that being “unreasonable?”