Chapter Sixteen #2
Just after dawn the following morning, Frankie unrolled her yoga mat on the soft, cool sand beyond their terrace then stood looking out to sea.
She’d always loved this time of day best of all, but especially since coming here to Skelidos.
The morning skies were a calorie-free sweetshop, candy-floss pink tumbled with parma violets and streaks of honey-gold cinder toffee, vivid where it hit the ocean on the horizon.
Soon enough the sea would become the star of the show, brilliant turquoise rippled like a slice of agate with aqua and lapis, and Frankie enjoyed watching their battle to be the most beautiful.
What a gift, she thought. What a quiet, peaceful joy it was to have a ringside seat to such splendour.
‘Morning.’
She turned to see Seth had arrived, as he did most mornings. Her heart considered a flip, a reflex reaction more than a voluntary one.
‘Good morning,’ she murmured as he shook his towel out. She glanced back towards the villa, wondering if Angelo would come for a last session before he left, but all was quiet. Just as well. It would have been tricky to maintain her inner calm when she felt like planting her foot up his backside.
‘Just us this morning,’ Seth said, twisting his head from side to side and rolling his shoulders.
‘Seems that way,’ Frankie murmured, beginning to work through some simple stretches and breathing exercises.
They fell into companionable silence for a couple of minutes, and little by little Frankie felt the tension begin to ebb from her body.
‘Would it be all right if I have a go?’
And there was that tension again. She turned and found Gavin hovering uncertainly on the edge of the terrace, a towel under his arm.
‘You want to try yoga?’
He was just about the last man on earth likely to opt to voluntarily do yoga.
‘Is that OK?’ His face was a mask; it was impossible to guess his inner agenda.
Frankie shrugged. What could she say? No? That wasn’t very yogic, so despite the fact that it was going to seriously screw with her karma, she nodded and waved her hand for him to lay his towel down.
He seemed momentarily thrown and unsure what to do next, the flare of shy acceptance in his familiar grey eyes reminding her of a child in the playground who hadn’t expected to be allowed to join in a game.
‘Just lay your towel on the sand and follow my lead,’ she sighed, gesturing to a spot just behind her, alongside Seth.
Without turning back, she started from the beginning again for the benefit of her ex-husband.
How bizarre was this? If anyone had told her a couple of months previously that she’d be leading Gav and Seth Manson through a yoga session on a beach at dawn, she’d have laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. Yet here she was.
Twisting smoothly from her waist she looked over her right shoulder at Seth, who, to her relief, followed her movement and looked away over his own shoulder.
He really was a fine figure of a man, all hard edges and strong, tanned muscles.
But then wasn’t it his job to look that way?
His face and his sixpack were his fortune.
Twisting the other way, she looked towards Gav, who did as she did, looking away over his shoulder.
She took the time to notice that he’d definitely been taking better care of himself lately; his once ever-present beer paunch had all but disappeared, and while he’d probably never have a sixpack, he was easily the leanest and healthiest she’d ever seen him.
She’d expected him to huff and puff his way through their session, but he didn’t.
He was far from an expert, but he’d made a decent fist of copying her moves and followed her quiet breathing instructions.
As they lay on their backs for the cool-down at the end, Frankie’s hands moved absently in the sand, letting the grains fall softly through her fingers.
Behind her, Seth Manson opened one eye a fraction to look surreptitiously over at Gavin, noting that he still wore his wedding ring.
Gav did the same, but his eyes were drawn instead to Frankie’s left hand, to the lack of her wedding ring, indisputable evidence of the fact that she’d obviously found moving on easier than he had.
Not that that wasn’t painfully obvious anyway; she lived here now in this glamorous world of sunshine and rock stars.
He’d never have been able to offer her a life like this.
He was a regular bloke with a regular job and he’d always been content with his lot.
Or, more accurately, he hadn’t, he just hadn’t known what the hell to do about it; it had taken Frankie walking out to force their hands.
He didn’t blame her. Their marriage had been mothballed for years, so full of dust and holes it had disintegrated into a pile of solicitor’s letters, packing boxes and empty hallways.
For Gav, there had been no future filled with sand, sea and sunshine.
There had been only quiet rooms, dinners for one, and occasional pints down the local with his workmate Steve, who had tried to introduce him to online dating a couple of months back with hopeless results.
Gav had found himself having dinner in a place he used to take Frankie and the kids on birthdays and holidays, except this time he’d been accompanied by a redhead who kept calling him Kev and had a full sleeve tattoo when she took her cardigan off.
Rock bottom had turned out to be a miserable, lonely place, and while there he’d looked around and found there was a Frankie-shaped doorway that he wanted to find the key to again.
He knew it had been a risk coming here. He wasn’t fool enough to think that she’d be pleased to see him, but he’d caught the plane anyway, because he had something for Frankie that couldn’t be mailed or sent directly.
Rolling his towel up because the others were, he nodded a quick thank you in the direction of the most beautiful woman in the world as Seth abandoned his towel and started off for his morning run along the beach.
Did the man never stop exercising? Gav had joined the local slimming club back home, and much as he’d dreaded going in he’d found himself surrounded by a fun bunch of women who’d encouraged him and become his friends.
They’d even roped him into going to the gym after group, but it was nothing on the way Seth Manson’s body was obviously his temple.
‘Gav?’
Her voice stilled him.
‘Frank?’
He turned as she caught up with him, more pixie-like than ever in her gym kit with her hair kept from her face by a red band.
‘I wondered if you fancied lunch later, if you’re free?’ she said. ‘We could walk over to Panos’s bar.’
It was more than he’d hoped for, but there was no softening smile on Frankie’s face or sparkle in her eye to turn her suggestion into an invitation. It sounded like more of a summons to the gallows.
‘I was kind of planning to go for a hike along the coastline today,’ he said. ‘Would you have any objection to making it dinner instead?’
She looked mildly surprised, as well she might. He’d never hiked in his life back home, but things were different here. He was a couple of stone lighter for one, and that view deserved to be looked at.
‘Dinner it is, then,’ she said, and he nodded and walked away, schooling himself to not look back until he reached the stairs and took them at a jog.