Page 48 of One Year Ago in Spain
Matías smiled. “Sort of. I know it’s not in your comfort zone to deface something like a bridge, but since we do have the professor’s permission to create anything we want here, do you want to give it a try?”
She bit her lip. Her fingertips did their cute, unconscious fluttery thing. Then she took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
In the end, they didn’t scrawl their names over the rocks or anything resembling the art that graced the city’s alley walls. Instead, Claire wanted to paint faces on the round stones. Dozens and dozens of happy little faces.
She beamed at their work when she was done.
Matías beamed ather.
“It’s only a small rebellion,” she said, “and technically it isn’t even a rebellion because we were allowed to do it. But somehow, it still feels like it counts.”
“It definitely counts,” he said, spinning her toward him and kissing her.
The smell of paint lingered on her skin, and she tasted likesun and salt. Claire’s hair had come undone from its bun, the strands dancing around her face in the wind.
He liked Claire in the city, where she had everything beautifully orchestrated.
He also liked Claire in the forest, with a lightness in her eyes from letting a little of her control go.
He backed her up against a smooth tree trunk next to the bridge and kissed her harder, letting his tongue find hers. His hand slipped into the waistband of her jeans.
She pressed her body against the length of his, and he could feel the urgency of her wanting, as much as he wanted her.
But then she said, between kisses, “Not here.”
“We won’t get caught,” Matías said, already hooking his finger into the side of her panties. “There’s no one else here.”
“But they’re watching…” Claire said.
“Who?”
Claire glanced sideways at the bridge. Matías’s gaze followed.
“You mean…the stones?” he said.
She giggled, then fully cracked up. “Their cute little faces…”
Laughing, Matías hoisted her over his shoulder. He carried her farther into the forest, where there were no paths and no other art installations.
Then he lay her down on a bed of autumn leaves and they made love under a canopy of trees, the dappled sun on their naked skin, on someone else’s property. And that was how Matías helped Claire achieve her second small rebellion of the day.
Claire
When Claire arrivedat the hospital the next morning, there was a heated argument going on outside Matías’s room between Aracely and possibly the most beautiful woman Claire had ever seen. She had huge Ana de Armas eyes and thick black waves of hair. Her bold floral maxi dress dipped low at the neckline, then hugged the curves of her chest before billowing around her feet like rippling waves. Every man in the hospital ward was transfixed by her; every woman both hated her and wanted to be her at the same time.
Except Aracely, who seemed like she just hated her as she pointed repeatedly toward the elevator.
“¡Las visitas son solo para los familiares!” Aracely declared, practically shouting.
“Pero yo casi fui parte de la familia,” the woman said.
“Exacto, ‘casi.’ Tomaste tu decisión y le rompiste el corazón a mi hermano. Por eso él salió del país; no le dijiste nada después.”
A nurse behind the beautiful woman motioned with her hands at Aracely and whispered something in Spanish that Claire assumed meantPlease keep it down!
“Hola, Claire,” Luis said, slipping next to her. “You are just in time for the show.”
“Who is that, and what’s going on?”
