Greg was as opposite from my first husband, Jeremy, as a person could get. While Jeremy was an engineer with OCD tendencies, Greg was a long-haired musician who always maintained a chill vibe. He played bass with an up-and-coming band, Breaking the Curve, who’d spent the last few years on the road as the opener to several national touring acts. As far as I knew, the BD lived on a tour bus ten months out of the year, and just what the heck was he doing in Phoenix anyway? I had no idea.

We weren’t enemies. I have an inability to stay mad at my exes. But we had never really recovered from our breakup, mostly because he’d cheated on me, and while I could forgive him for falling in love with someone else, because that just happens sometimes, what I couldn’t forgive him for was not doing me the courtesy of ending things with me first.

I mean if he knew he wanted to leave, and clearly he did, then he should have left me before he had his tawdry fling with the groupie girl. Oh, that sounds like I’m bitter about her. I’m not, not really. I just never understand women who hook up with married men. By sleeping with him, you just proved to yourself that the guy is a cheater; why would you then want him? It makes no sense.

As for Greg’s fling, it lasted all of two weeks after I’d thrown him out and before he got the call that the band was hitting the road. Shelby, the girl he left behind, showed up at our apartment a few weeks after that, looking for him. We shared some Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, cursed him, and then burned the last of the stuff he’d left in our apartment. It was wonderfully therapeutic, and I still get Christmas cards from Shelby, who went on to marry a firefighter and now has twin baby boys.

After a very stern lecture from Sophie, where she basically told me to ignore the BD, I sat on the text message from Greg all morning. Did I want to see him? Kind of, sort of. It had always bothered me that we’d never made up like Jeremy and I had. Of course, I had no interest in making up quite like that, but still, it would be nice to be able to call the BD my friend again. I blamed the pleaser in me.

By midafternoon on Sunday, having heard nothing from Nick, I answered Greg’s text. I kept it brief, said I’d love to see him if it worked out, and that I hoped he was enjoying the glorious weather in Phoenix. Since I was from New England, it was practically mandatory that I mention the weather.