Tag Archives: stalking

i think i’m in love.

I added Brady on Facebook on Sunday night and he accepted my request on Monday afternoon. I was so happy that I didn’t (really) have any work to do because I needed to snoop through his page and find his ex-girlfriend. I knew it was kind of a long shot since they broke up two years ago but there had to be some trace of her.

I quickly discovered that Brady doesn’t often use Facebook so I wasn’t missing much. I looked through his tagged photos and couldn’t help smiling as I saw him go through life backwards. It was like Benjamin Button. I looked through pictures of him with Chris, him with some of their other friends, him in Guatemala, etc. Then there was a photo of Brady and a girl with the caption “the happy couple!” So this was her. The photo was from April 2012 so the time frame was exactly right. I was so excited for my find.

They were at a baseball game and Brady looked adorable and young in the photo with his glasses on. The girl was named Anna and she had a long European last name. I’ll admit, she was really pretty. Her long brown bob worked perfect with her heart shaped face and she had the most endearingly deep dimples. She looked like a combination of Emmy Rossum and that fashion blogger Olivia Palermo – not a bombshell, but undeniably gorgeous nonetheless. 

I clicked on her page to find out more. Of course, her page was completely private and I couldn’t click on anything. It did say that she currently lives in New York City, she’s from Boston, Massachusetts and she studied biomedical engineering at Harvard. Of fucking course. I totally felt like Elle in a Legally Blonde. What did Brady want with me? This girl has so much more than I ever will. I do think I’m a great catch, but not for someone like Brady.

I asked Kendra to come to my apartment after work so I could show her Anna.

“She’s cute,” Kendra said.

“I know. And she went to Harvard. Why is Brady even talking to me? I studied marketing at ASU.”

“I’m sure that’s not all he cares about. She may have went to Harvard, but she was probably boring and sucked in bed. That’s probably why they broke up.”

“They broke up because she moved away.”

“And now he wants to move on with you. Reese, he’s talking to you for a reason. If he cared that you’re not a doctor and didn’t go to an Ivy League school, he wouldn’t be continuing to hang out with you.”

In some ways I do think Kendra is right, but at some point I’m not going to be able to fake it any longer. How am we ever going to sustain a relationship if I need a dictionary every time we talk?

Brady texted me on Tuesday morning saying that he would be getting off work early at around six and did I want to get dinner? I said yes and he said he would get me at 6:30.

I spent the majority of the day in my office, but went to the bathroom right after lunch. To my dismay, Amanda was already in there. She and Whitney have been avoiding me for the most part which has been nice. I would rather not deal with them at all.

“Hey,” I said. Amanda was standing at the sink washing her hands and just stared at me in the mirror.

“Cool! Great talk!” I said sarcastically and slammed the stall door shut. What a bitch.

Brady and I went to a Mediterranean place and got really fancy and complex salads. We talked about the usual things: work, friends, family. I found out that he has an older brother who lives on the west coast and makes a great living as an astrophysicist or something really intense. What the fuck do their parents have in their DNA? I just don’t understand. 

I told him about Whitney and Amanda, without going into the BJ situation too much because I didn’t want him judging me. I would judge me.

“The bitches are just crazy,” I said at the conclusion of my story.

Brady took a swig of his beer. “I wouldn’t say they are crazy.”

“They fucking lied to Tracey from HR right in front of my face!” I exclaimed, leaning close to him. I couldn’t believe he was taking their side. 

“But they only did so to protect their asses and make you look bad. They both have some resentment toward you over matters they are obviously quite passionate about. It is completely normal that they’re behaving irrationally.”

I didn’t agree with what he was saying, but I couldn’t help smiling.

“It’s human nature, especially within the female populace. I wouldn’t dwell on it. They are going to get over it on their own time. Meanwhile, distance yourself significantly and don’t get invested. You will only make yourself look bad to the higher ups.”

Wait. Brady was totally right. I am one of the higher ups so why was I worried about the two of them? A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep. Whitney certainly looks like a sheep.

After dinner, Brady invited me over for a glass of wine. He has an extensive wine collection in it’s own little wine cellar. It’s so bad ass. Brady said he doesn’t use it often and I told him that it must be a great way to get girls to come home with him. I mean, I was impressed. There had to have been forty bottles of wine there and I didn’t even know where to start. I wanted a glass of each.

Brady laughed and said, “Yeah. If only.”

I didn’t know if that meant he had trouble getting girls to come home with him or if he just didn’t partake in one night stands and hookups. Both of them seemed like they could be true.

I chose a glass of vintage red and a glass of sparkling white because I couldn’t choose. We went to the back patio to drink. After I finished my two glasses I had to have one more. Then once that one was gone, Brady grabbed my hand and led me inside.

“Do you want to stay?” he asked. “I can take you home really early. I have to be at work at 7:00.”

I nodded.

We went to his room and started getting ready for bed. All the wine made me tipsy so I changed into a t-shirt without going in the bathroom or trying to be discreet. Oh well. Might as well let him enjoy the view since we wouldn’t be doing anything. 

He got in bed after me and I immediately started kissing him. We made out for a while, but then I knew I had to show some self control so I pulled away reluctantly. I caught a glimpse of his tattoo and pulled the blanket back to see it. It was on his pec, just below where his eagle ended, and it said, “starve the ego, feed the soul.”

“Why did you get this?” I asked, running a finger along the tattoo.

“When I was younger, I felt very entitled. I had everything I wanted at my fingertips, a seemingly infinite trust fund. I thought I deserved the world just because I could afford it. I was becoming materialistic and greedy. I didn’t like who I was becoming and I knew deep down that’s not who I was.”

Entitled? Deserved the world because I could afford it? Materialistic? This all sounded like me.

“So I made some drastic life changes. Sort of found myself, if you will. Realized that none of that shit mattered if I hated who I was.”

“Was it a hard transition?” I asked. 

“Absolutely. I lost a ton of friends. I was in a state of depression for months. For a while I thought I wanted to sell everything and move off the grid.” 

I just looked at him and he laughed.

“Luckily I came to my senses and finished pharmacy school. What I do now is gratifying. I think I’ve finally found a balance.”

His story made me start thinking about my life. I’m everything he was before, right? A materialistic, entitled little see you next Tuesday? But at least I’m happy. I think.

We fell asleep and Brady woke me up at some ungodly hour because he needed to leave for work.

“I don’t want to get up,” I whined “Just leave me here and I’ll call and tell them I’m sick.”

Brady laughed. “Don’t do that. You’re fine. Reserve your sick days for when you’re actually sick.”

I opened one eye and peeked at him. He was standing over me looking clean and hot in his dress clothes and glasses.

“Do you only wear those for work?” I asked. 

He adjusted his glasses. “Not necessarily. Just when I’m having a day when I don’t want to put my contacts in. It’s one of those days.”

I smiled and got up and dressed so I didn’t make Brady late for work. He dropped me off at my apartment and as I was getting out of the car, he grabbed my hand.

“Focus on your work today, not those girls. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said back.

He kissed me quickly and said, “You’re amazing, Reese.”

I didn’t know if that was a pep talk for today or a general observation, but either way I melted. 

You guys, I think I’m in love.

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need to make him fall in love with me.

I had a lunch meeting with some bigwigs from a flash sale website on Monday and we were going to discuss selling some of our previous lines on their website. It would be an amazing collaboration because not only would we be able to get rid of all the stuff that was just collecting dust but we would also gain a ton of publicity and new customers. They flew in from New York City just to meet me so I knew the meeting had to go well and I had to show them a good time.

I met the Vice President of sales, Martin, the senior marketing manager, Rob, and their executive assistant, Lena, at a steakery two blocks from the office. It was a little bit intimidating and I thought about taking someone along with me, but I wanted to do this on my own.

“So Reese, tell me more about your company. Tell me things I may not know,” Martin said, after we’d make our introductions, got seated and ordered a bottle of wine. He was a heavyset older gentleman who was already drenched in sweat. 

I swallowed, set my wine glass down and gathered my thoughts. 

“Our products are sold in over one hundred and seventy different retailers in twelve countries and we collaborate with artists and designers all over the world. Our latest is with a batiker from Indonesia who I discovered on Pinterest. We make it a point to only source materials from socially and environmentally responsible manufacturers, which is something our consumers love. Last quarter, our net sales were up twenty eight percent,” I said.

“If you guys are doing so well then why do you have a bunch of extra product to sell on our website?” Martin challenged. 

I smiled sweetly. “We don’t have a logistics team. We put all of our effort into product development so yes, we’re definitely lacking in that area.”

“So basically, you have a warehouse full of unsold product and you need to get rid of it,” Martin countered. 

I took another sip of wine. “That too. But mainly I just wanted to increase our online presence. Our websales aren’t where we would like them to be so I want us to explore other virtual avenues. Your company is so reputable that I thought it would be a fantastic place to start.”

“I like you,” Martin said, grinning. “You’re honest.”

I smiled. 

“Let me ask you this,” Rob said, leaning close to me from across the table. He was a thirty something DILF type who looked like he used a ton of high end hair products. “If we come to an agreement and go forward with this, how do you see our professional relationship continuing?” 

“I would love to work out something long term. Maybe quarterly. I know that our products are going to do very well with your client base.”

Two hours later, Martin and I were playfully arguing over who was going to pay the $650 bill. I thought my company should cover it since they’d traveled all the way from NYC but Martin insisted on paying it. Finally, we decided to split it. The meeting had gone really, really well and since their flight didn’t take off for another three hours, they decided to stop by the office and meet Dave and Diana. Nothing was official yet but Martin said that he would love to sit down and look at some numbers and see if we couldn’t get a deal figured out. 

After they left, Diana called me into her office.

“Reese, how did you pull this one off?” she asked. 

I shrugged. “A friend from college works in their sales department and put me in contact with Rob, who then put me in contact with Martin,” I explained. 

Diana nodded. “They seemed to love you. And if this works out, it could be really good for us. It would be a great partnership to have.”

I beamed. “It will definitely work out.”

After I left Diana’s office, I ran into BJ in the hallway.

“Where have you been all day? I missed you,” he said. 

“I had an important lunch meeting,” I told him as I walked into my office. 

He followed me in. “So that’s why those people were here. The girl was hot. She had a nice ass.” 

I shot him a dirty look. 

“Almost as nice as yours,” he added with a smirk.

I ignored him, but silently celebrated the fact that the squat challenge was obviously working. 

On my way home from work, I logged onto Facebook Mobile and saw that Carly and Chris had become friends. I immediately clicked on Chris’s profile. Brady doesn’t seem like the type of guy who uses Facebook, but it was worth a look. I clicked through a few of Chris’s profile pictures and found a group photo with Brady, who was looking just as ravishing as I remember. And alas, Brady was actually tagged. I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only could I go through his entire Facebook page, but I also had a full name for Google research purposes. 

First I went through all sixteen of his profile pictures. They were mostly group shots, but there was also one of him at what appeared to be his white coat ceremony and one of him with a German shepherd. So he’s social and into animals. Precious. I found out that he graduated from high school in 2006 and pharmacy school in 2012 so if my calculations are correct that means he’s only two years older than me. His relationship status said single and there were no random girls commenting on his photos (except a girl named Angelina who said “Looking good buddy!”). So it looks like I don’t have any competition.

When I got home, I opened up his profile on my laptop so I could stalk on a larger platform. I mostly just went through his profile pictures over and over because they were the only ones I could see with his privacy settings.

Next, I Googled his name and found his LinkedIn profile and numerous newspaper articles from sports in high school and his PharmD. graduation announcements. I also read about his parents who are like a power couple in Massachusetts. There was an article about a dinner party they had on a yacht in the Hamptons which is seriously P. Diddy level cool. The conclusion I’ve come to is that Brady and I are getting married, I just need to make him fall in love with me.

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