The Divorce

55

By the time we had finished tasted all three of the fortified wines the waitress pulled out, we decided to go to the third winery another day.  Gabriel was still in denial that she was hitting on him. Although I could tell she was. 

The walk back along the dirt road to our accomodation was quiet, and quick and we had now a full hour and forty minutes to get ready for the party. Somehow we managed to avoid everyone that was hustling and bustling around the winery of our accomodation for the event. 

"I think you should shower first, I'll take longer...I have to do my hair and stuff," I told Gabriel as we unlocked the door.

"Sure."

I waited till Gabriel went into the shower before I plonked down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. My body was still hot, and I tried to shake that feeling off. Whist my heart rate was only high now from walking back, there was still this tightening in my lower stomach from perhaps not eating enough today. 

Perhaps I was feeling weird because Gabriel had been so...normal the last twenty four hours. He wasn't yelling at me in his boss voice to 'write' down notes, and he wasn't in his rigid uptight self he was in Greece. He was...carefree. He didn't care who was looking at him, what he was saying or who he was here. 

And there was no way that Gabriel was purposefully touching me, or flirting with me with his last few comments at the winery. There was no one watching to see if we were together or if I was the ex wife like in Greece,  there was no way he was flirting. 

It was almost nice to see him so relaxed, but it was also weird because he wasn't my friend, he was my boss. So I was finding it hard to relax around him like he was able to. There was something still stopping me from switching off like I did in Greece. 

There were many sides of Gabriel that made him the person he was, but it seemed like I had witness all of them in such a short time. My head was still spinning when Gabriel came out of the bathroom that it took him three attempts to call my name before I realised he was out. 

I sat up quickly, "Yep my turn!" I said standing up. 

He was out in a towel.

And just a towel.

With another towel in his hand drying his hair. 

I looked away quickly, very quickly and went to my suitcase, so quickly that all I saw was a splodge of tanned chest before I saw the wall. 

Maybe I should have kept staring at the ceiling. 

"I'll be out eventually," I said, keeping my eyes on the ground as I walked to the bathroom. Now that...was another side of Gabriel I had not needed to see for a few years. 

Did he realise he was half naked? 

I shook off the thoughts from my brain as I stepped into the shower. I washed my hair as quickly as I could, wrapping myself in towels as I went to the vanity trying to get ready. I ignored the hideous dress on the towel rack as I dried my hair. 

There was no way I was going to curl this hair, so I ended up just blow drying it and using the extreme heat from the blowdryer to  somewhat style it so it wasn't frizzy. But I don't think it really worked as it looked quite..voluminous with no tame in the mirror. 

Fuck it, tonight is once again for Katie and no one will be looking at me. I placed my hands under the running water and placed them in my hair to just make it re-wet and flattened again. 

I grabbed the dress from the rack, slowly putting it on this time. I didn't need to rip it for real this time. I stepped into it this time, and it was the same struggle to pull it up my chest but at least this time it was less intense on my shoulder.