Page 67 of One Year Ago in Spain
The coffee came a few minutes later, and Claire sipped it while looking out onto the sidewalks and the street, although she didn’t actually see any of it; her thoughts were on Matías.
What should she tell him about touching?
Maybe she could say that there was something in her past that made her shy? It was true, in a sense. After her parents died, Claire couldn’t stand to be hugged or for anyone to express affection for her. Love and strong arms were the purview of family, and since Jim and Sarah had been taken away from Claire, she didn’t want anyone else to taint the memory of their tenderness. It had taken all three years of law school for her to get over it, but finally, when she graduated, she’d felt sufficiently re-armored to go back out into the normal world. Her law school roommate had given her a hug that day, and Claire hadn’t felt like throwing up.
But while this was information she could share withherMatías—actually, he already knew it—it was a lot to drop on theotherMatías, who was still quite new to her. Besides, no one wanted to be with someone who showed up to their second date (or fourth run-in) with all their baggage already opened and dumped across the floor, right? And the point of this was for Claire to get him to fall in love with her, so he would feel compelled to rejoin this reality to be with her, and then Matías would wake up.
Orwasthe goal to make him fall in love with her? That had been one of Professor Hong’s assumptions. But the professor had not anticipated that Claire’s spending time with Matías’s soul would make him more and more solid, to the point where Matías could throw her across his studio, pin her to a wall, and kiss her.
What if Claire didn’t have to make Matías fall all the way in love with her? What if she just had to spend enough time with him that their link grew stronger? After all, that seemed to have had beneficial results so far, other than the kiss, which was admittedly getting Claire hot just thinking about it. No wonder it had sent Matías’s heart into overdrive.
The waitress returned to the table with a steaming plate. “Migas,” she said, pointing at the dish.
Claire smiled. She knew migas—fried cubes of bread, chorizo, bacon, and garlic—because Matías had made it for her before.
“Delicioso, gracias,” Claire said as the plate was set in front of her.
“¿Más café?” the waitress asked, gesturing at the empty coffee mug.
“Sí, uno más, por favor.”
Claire took a moment to savor the smell of her breakfast. There was nothing like a rich, hearty meal after a long night. For a lot of people, this would be hangover food. For Claire, it was post-working-till-5a.m.food.
She moaned at the first bite and closed her eyes. The flavors melded on her tongue—rich meatiness and spice and garlic and olive oil—tossed together with the crunch of the croutons. Even though Claire had never been to Spain before, this food tasted like home. It was one of many things Matías cooked for her, and she missed it, missed him. She wanted to eat in slow motion, linger over every mouthful.
Her eyes flickered open.That’s it!
“I want to take it slow.”
That’s what she would tell Matías. She knew that if she said something like that, he would respect it. He was the kind of man who cared and listened.
The progression would be the opposite of how their relationship in New York had started, with impulsive, fiery love made on the law library floor. Claire hoped she would be enough of an enticement without that kind of physical passion. She hadn’t wanted to think about Vega, but the fact was, this version of Matías was coming off a breakup with his fiancée of fifteen years.
Hell, the Matías who had fallen in love with Claire in New York had been, too.
But I can’t touch him without risking his life,she thought.So I have no choice.
This would have to do.
As she finished eating her breakfast, she thought over theplan of telling Matías she liked him but needed to go slow physically. It wasn’t what shewanted—Claire would replay that kiss in the studio over and over in her mind for the rest of her life—but what she wanted even more was for her real, corporeal Matías to wake up and heal and be with her again.
“Okay,” she said as she polished off the last of the migas and drained her second coffee. “I’m ready.Lista.Let’s do this thing.”
She steeled herself with a calming breath, then pressed her fingers to her left palm.
Business continued as usual on the street. There was nobody she knew.
Claire frowned. She flexed and unflexed the fingers on both hands, then tried again, holding the pressure on her palm in place.
She sat like that for five entire minutes, scanning the sidewalk and the entrance to the café the entire time, to no avail.
Matías?she thought, trying the visualization technique that some of Yolanda and Jason’s art world friends swore by. (Lawyers usually didn’t believe that woo-woo stuff, but that was before Claire began dating her boyfriend’s soul.)
Still, no Matías.
Claire’s gaze darted around the tables nearby. There was an elderly gentleman reading a print newspaper. A couple of mothers chatting while rocking their babies’ strollers back and forth. A businesswoman in a suit, typing into her phone.
No one to judge Claire as she brought her open palm to her lips and kissed it…
