George changed.
Carla doesn't know when it happened, how or even where, but he has. He's not the same man she fell in love with five years ago.
Lando's the one who noticed first, the thought whispered to her when George had plucked the wine out of...
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"Good evening," a familiar voice coo's jokingly from beside me. A warm breeze fans around me on the sun lounger as I shift in my spot, it makes it all the more tempting to slip back into the lazy mid-afternoon slumber. The screech of an overexcited child (more specifically George's sister's child or my unofficial nephew James) pushes any hope of further sleep away. George's hands are cool as they brush against my upper arm softly his eyes shining down on me as I wipe sleep away from my own.
I've barely been sleeping.
When I do manage to sleep it's scarce and light and interrupted with the slightest shift, shuffle or huff from George beside me. The best shut eye I get is on a morning when he quietly slips out at the buzz of his alarm to work out or run for an hour before I can even think about opening my eyes. Without him beside me I can relax, the guilt not so great when he's not at my side. I've been topping up my REM on sun loungers around the pool of the five star hotel we're in whilst he entertains his niece and nephew in the pool or on the beach.
I've not been much fun over the last ten days and whilst I've heard quiet complaints from James, Jess and even George's mum Alison, George has never uttered a word of complaint. He quietly defends me to each of them with a mere shrug of his shoulders. "That's what holidays are for." or "She's been so busy with work." Are what he hums softly when anyone asks. I can feel my heart clench each time I hear him mumble the defence without so much of a waver of questioning to his voice.
Ever since that night George has gone out of his way to show me what I mean to him.
He returned on time for dinner every night before the Belgium race, even surprising me with food prepared by him on my return from work on the Wednesday before his flight. I was showered with apology gifts and deliveries through the whole weekend: new shoes, flowers and wine deliveries appeared at the door to the house for the whole weekend. He even earned an impressed glance from Megan when she stayed over on Saturday. After the race in Belgium George returned from his 2nd place podium, beaten only by Charles, with a smile on his face and a new iPhone box in his hands declaring it was his new 'work phone' so that he could focus more when we were together. He made a point of setting up the device before turning it off for summer entirely for me to see. Of course he can't completely disappear from Mercedes, various people from the team still need him at random intervals calling him on his usual phone but he has been less stretched when we're together, less distracted. He's putting the effort in, the effort that he knows has been lacking over the last few months.
I don't know if the fact makes me happy.
"It made me shit scared the thought of losing you Carls." George had quietly admitted on our trip to St Ives, the words falling out of him as we took a hike around the Cornish cliffs. His eyes stayed on the sea as he spoke and I found myself bursting into thick tears at the admission. I think George thought it was because of the pain he's caused me over the last however many months, the anger I felt at him the night of our ill-fated date. It wasn't. My tears were entirely self serving. The guilt ate at me with a sharp stab that hit me in my chest and it felt like I couldn't breathe. The thought of losing him over the things I've done also terrifies me and it's exactly why I can't tell him any of it.
