Page 70 of One Year Ago in Spain
“Holy fuck!”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Matías said.
“You…I…Never mind. I’m, um, fine,” she said while glancing at her hand.
Her fingers were curled up, the nails pressing hard into her palm.
So it had worked now, but not before. Why?
But Claire also didn’t care. She exhaled and let the tense muscles around her shoulders relax a little because Matías was here. His soul hadn’t disintegrated after she kissed him and left him on the sofa in his studio.
And his presence also meant she coulddosomething other than get chastised by his family. Shecouldhelp bring Matías back, for all of them.
“What were you doing at the hospital?” he asked, walking beside her as she headed toward the subway station.
“Um…I was visiting…a colleague. He fell ill.”
“Will he be okay?” Matías asked.
“I hope so.”
“Were those the phone calls you got in my studio and why you ran off?”
Claire bit her lip and nodded. Sure, why not? That was a reasonable explanation, even if it was based on the lie she’d just told.
“Good,” Matías said. “I mean, not good that your colleague isn’t well! I am very sorry to hear that. What I meant was I thought maybe you left yesterday because I kissed you and made it awkward…” He smiled shyly at her, and warm shivers tremored through Claire’s body because it was the same hopeful smile he’d given her on their first date in New York, when he’d showed up at the firm with dinner. Part of what made Matías sodamned irresistible was the combination of his broad-shouldered ruggedness with his ever-buoyant, boyish charm. Even having been with him for almost a year, Claire still melted now, and it helped her shift from the hospital mode of being beaten down to the hope that there might be a future for Matías.
“It was agreatkiss,” Claire said, blushing. “But…”
“Uh-oh.”
“I like you, Matías. A lot. And I want to get to know you more while we’re both still in Madrid, if that’s okay. I don’t want to wait until you move to New York. But I want to do it the old-fashioned way—a slow burn if you will.”
“So I can’t kiss you right now?” he asked. “Because the way the lamplight is hitting the angles on your face, it makes me want to paint you.”
Claire laughed. “That is a terrible line! Do you use that on all the women?”
Matías grinned. “I blame my English for the bad joke.”
“Your English is perfect.”
“Not when the jokes are bad. Then it’s a translation problem, for sure.”
Claire laughed again. God, it felt so good to do that, and with her favorite person, too.
“To answer your question,” she said, “Iwantto kiss you, but I prefer if we don’t. I think there’s something romantic about old movies, where the guy and the girl go on dates and fall for each other’s minds and personalities, rather than just their bodies. Where the women wear gloves and collars up to their chins, and no one touches until the very end of the film.”
She knew this was the opposite of how they had started, making love impulsively on the law library carpet. And theopposite of the very carnal relationship he’d had with Vega, if the painting in his studio was any indication.
But it was the only way she could think of to keep his interest while not breaking that tenuous connection from his in-between state to her reality.
“Hmm,” Matías said, running his hand through his hair, leaving the waves a mess. Just the way Claire loved it.
“I seem to recall,” Matías said, “that in those olden days, even seeing the back of a neck or the skin on ankles was scandalous. Maybe we don’t have to goquitethat far? Because I do like you in that ponytail today.”
Claire’s hand instinctively went up to her hair and the nape of her neck.
He winked.
