‘See.’ I point. ‘It sagged.’
Dominic does not reply. He’s busy patting all over the duvet cover with his hands.
I stare at him for a moment and then ask, ‘Are you actually doing the equivalent of a child licking food so that no-one else can eat it?’
‘Yep.’ He beams at me and then pats the top pillow too.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Saynothing, apart from “You win”, and go and make yourself comfortable in your bedroom and let me know when the bathroom’s free.’
I’m just staring at him. It’s very odd when someone who has been coming across as very uptight suddenly behaves like a complete toddler.
I end up shaking my head and saying, ‘Thank you. I will enjoy the big bed.’
‘Here to please,’ he replies.
And then we both just stare at each other for a moment, before I say, ‘Great then,’ and go back to the bedroom, unable to help muttering, ‘Toddler,’ under my breath as I go. I’m slightly smiling, though, too.
* * *
About ten seconds later, I return to Dominic’s room to ask him if he would like to use the bathroom first and to tell him that he absolutely must if he wants to, given that he’s made the bed sacrifice.
Clearly several mini dilemmas are going to arise now that we’re sharing. Will the first one who is ready wait for the second one to go down to meet the rest of the group? Will we tell any of the others about our strange sharing situation? Will we go down for breakfast together?
Dominic accepts my first-in-the-bathroom offer and then I – not at all extremely awkwardly – sit myself in an armchair in the corner of the bedroom while he’s in there, and busy myself on my phone, hoping greatly that I won’t be able to hear him at all. That would be, just, eurgh, and – worse – might mean that he could hearmeat some point.
Fortunately, the bathroom fan is loud and the door is thick and so I really have absolutely no idea whether he goes to the loo, showers, or just stands around for a while: I can’t hear anything at all.
When he comes out of the bathroom, I glance up and almost gasp out loud.
Dominic has clearly had a shower – his hair is wet – and Dominic straight out of the shower isgorgeous. His damp hair is no longer super-conservatively styled but very sexily mussed and Iloveits natural wave and thickness. Also, he must have got dressed in a bit of a hurry, and not completely dried himself following the shower, because his shirt is sticking a tiny bit to his visibly slightly damp body, showing that he’s in just as good shape as he was all those years ago when we…
I’m staring.
‘So.’ His voice is oddly hoarse. Maybe from tiredness. ‘I’m thinking I’ll go down now and meet the others. Give you some space in here.’
‘Perfect.’ My own voice comes out a little high and squeaky. I’m obviously tired too.
He grabs a jumper and is out of the door almost before I even have the word out.
I flop down on the bed for a moment, for a little rest – it’s a big relief finally to have the room to myself for a few minutes – and then get out my toiletries before going into the bathroom. It smells of a lovely, foresty, very masculine shower gel (or something), and I just… yeah, I don’t like it. I mean, Idolike the smell; it’s very nice. But I don’t like being able to sense the aftermath of Dominic’s shower. It’s too intimate.
I frown. I’m being silly. At uni, at various times, I often shared shower rooms with people I’d barely met.
It is, of course, because it’s Dominic, the man I spent many years wondering about, even, to my shame, occasionally during the early days of my relationship with Jed, not least because the reason that I first got together with Jed was that he reminded me of Dominic. I reallyshouldn’t, when I think about it, feel awkward around him now. Because he really isn’t the man I’ve always remembered him as. I thought he was fun, soulmate material. I was clearly wrong.
Yes, he’s attractive.Reallyattractive. But he’s also very uptight (other than when pat-claiming the sofa bed) and, crucially, my divorce isn’t even finalised yet, and we are both in our mid-thirties andentirelyable to ignore a little bit of physical lust. Entirely.
4
DOMINIC
I’m nearly forty-five minutes early for meeting the rest of the group in the hotel lobby. Not a surprise: I showered extremely fast, before almost sprinting out of the room and coming straight down here.
I should really get a grip on myself. There was no good reason for me to dash away from Flavia like that.
It just all felt a bit odd in the moment. Which it shouldn’t. We are not, in fact, sharing a room. We have separate bedrooms and are only sharing a bathroom. There shouldn’t be anything odd about that.
