I got up to fetch a paper towel while Greg continued to ruminate about our current situation. He regarded me silently while I cleaned up the spilled scotch. Thankfully he didn't start bitching about his booze being wasted and that I owed him a new bottle. I'd end up having to buy the whole damn liquor store.

"Did you think you could get away with it?" he asked, not looking in my direction while I tossed the now soggy paper towel into the trash.

"Once or twice, if I was lucky," I answered. I may be a lout, a cad, a cheater, but at least I'm honest about it. Usually after the fact, but a little bit of honesty can go a long way in those situations.

"How many times did you cheat on Julie before she caught you?" Greg asked with a wonderful blend of genuine curiosity and biting rancor.

"I don't know."

"Does that mean you don't know the answer or does that mean you lost count?"

"I'm not going to answer that question at all," I replied tersely, grabbing the sponge and scrubbing the syrup off the wall. "Now neither of us has to worry about it anymore. And in case you didn't notice, I'm no longer married. It's a moot point."

"I'd like to know what Julie has to say about that 'moot point'." he said in an overly acerbic tone that told me he wasn't done with me by a long shot.

My back was to him but I knew he had that smart-ass grin plastered all over his face. Torturing me on purpose, just to see how long it will take for me to break. In a sick way I was curious myself, to see if I could withstand his barrage of verbal firepower.

"Be my guest," I responded, trying to put some aloofness in my tone, hoping it would make my sarcastic friend back off a bit. "But seeing as she hates you as much as she hates me, if not more,
she'll probably tell you where to stick that 'moot point'." The syrupy stain was gone. I flung the sponge back into the sink and reclaimed my place at the table.

"Julie was too much of an ice-princess for my taste. She can hate me all she wants, " Greg said with a diminutive yet wicked smile. Trying to get through my skin and burrow under it.

"She wasn't an ice-princess. She was smart and funny and gorgeous. Everything a red-blooded American male could ever want. Everything I was looking for."

"So what happened? How did your cookie-cutter marriage finally crumble?"

"I ran into a nurse at a bookstore and we got to talking. We started to meet for coffee once a week. Then it got to be lunch three or four times a week. That went on for a few weeks. Just lunch, hardly a crime. Then one day said nurse needed a ride home and I was invited in for a drink..."

"A garden-variety quickie. You're an idiot."

"I know."

"You're beyond an idiot," he continued. "You're an imbecile."

"I get the point already," I snapped. I was going to get it with both barrels before the night was over, and I wasn't bulletproof. He won, I didn't have the energy to fight him anymore. If there was a white flag around I would have waved it. "Being invited in for a drink...I saw it coming from a mile away. It was so obvious it was pathetic. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up."

"Idiot."

"Enough, please."

"So where is this nurse now?" he asked, starting to wear me down.

"In Nebraska."

"What the hell is in Nebraska besides hicks and tornadoes?"

"To be closer to a sick relative. At least that's what I was told, but I doubt that's the whole story."

"And this the one you were caught with?"

"Yes."

"Idiot."

"Will you please stop that?"

"How did Julie catch you? You never told me all the juicy details. I'd like to hear it."

"Too many nights of not coming home and lame excuses," I sighed bitterly. " She naturally got suspicious and hired a private detective to follow me. A blind man could have followed me and got the goods. God, I was such a clod, so damn careless...you'd think I would have learned to cover my tracks better by then."

"Caught you with your pants down."

"Basically." I was getting tired and having visions of him strapping me to the chair and interrogating me all night. "I was humiliated and Julie hit the roof. But the affair itself wasn't what really pissed Julie off and caused her to file for divorce."

"Do tell."

"The nurse's first name was Thomas," I said cooly. "That's how Julie found out. And that's why she hates my guts."