Page 90 of One Year Ago in Spain
“Yeah, this will work just fine,” Diego said, rubbing his handstogether. He hopped onto the boat first and went immediately to the throttle controls, stroking the leather steering wheel and shifter like he’d never seen anything as beautiful in his life.
“Careful there,” Facu said, “or your wife is going to get jealous.”
“She doesn’t need to know what goes on during our guys’ trips,” Diego said, and they all laughed because one,everyoneknew how much Diego loved speed (he could recite from memory the maximum speed of every plane, train, and automobile that ever passed within sight), and two, Matías and his friends were all so unflinchingly loyal to their partners that there would never be anything theyhadto hide about a guys’ trip. It just wouldn’t occur to any of them to stray.
He, Carlos, Leo, and Facu climbed onto the boat. Matías tucked his backpack safely in a storage hold so it wouldn’t get wet, but Carlos’s cooler wouldn’t fit into one of the compartments, so he just wedged it in the corner next to his legs. It wouldn’t matter anyway if the cooler got a little bit of salt spray.
“¿Listos, tíos?” Diego said as he eased the shifter forward. The motor purred to life, and they sailed out of the marina, slowly at first, and then accelerating as they entered open water.
The wind whipped through Matías’s hair, and he took a deep breath and let the warm, briny air expand his lungs. Next to him, Leo’s hat flew off into the water, and Facu—out of loyal instinct—started to lunge after it. Leo caught him by the waist and Facu froze, stunned for a moment that he’d been about to leap into the water, until Leo tugged him back down onto the bench and said, “Gracias, bombón, but it’s just a hat.”
“I’ll buy you another as soon as we get back to shore,” Facu said.
“I know you will,” Leo said, and kissed him.
Matías sighed wistfully.Thatwas what he wanted with Claire. He just had to convince her to say yes to forever with him.
At the wheel, Diego whooped as he ran the engine at nearly full throttle. Carlos shouted something, but it was lost to the wind. Matías sat back and just beamed at his friends. They’d all grown up together and been so close, and he missed them. He loved his life in New York, but these guys would always be in his heart, and he was just so glad to be with them again.
They flew along the coast, heading south from Valencia toward Alicante. The plan was to enjoy hurtling across the water for a while, going wherever Diego’s speed-loving heart wanted, then eventually dropping anchor near one of the many secluded coves to swim, snorkel, and have a little to eat and drink.
Half an hour into the trip, though, Diego spotted a red-and-white buoy bobbing about three kilometers away.
“How fast do you think I can get us there?”
“Tío, no,” Matías shouted over the wind.
But Diego just grinned and jammed the shifter forward. The boat—which had already been flying—shot like a bullet over the water, going so fast that everything around Matías blurred. He clutched the edge of his seat, and salt spray flew at his face like a thousand tiny needles.
The bottom of the boat bounced violently every time it hit the top of a wave. Matías tried to read the speedometer, but the roaring wind and stinging water in his eyes made it impossible to see more than that Diego was close to maxing out their speed.
It might have been fine, if the path before them had been clear.
But then Carlos stood up. “Watch out!” He jabbed in the direction of a pod of dolphins just ahead of them in the water.
“¡Coño!” Diego shrieked, and jerked the wheel.
At the speed they were going, the sudden change in direction jarred Carlos’s cooler free. It sailed in the air toward Diego’s head.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then. Matías screamed, the sound filling his own ears like a timpani, as the cooler smashed into Diego, knocking him unconscious to the boat’s floor. Carlos, who was closest to the controls, lurched toward the wheel and grabbed it, but too late. The momentum of Diego’s fall had jerked the wheel even more off course, and the boat went airborne.
They careened toward the buoy, twisting as they flew.
The red-and-white metal—which had seemed so small and harmless when they were far away—now towered before them. It was also unforgivingly sturdy, made to withstand turbulent storms and salt rust and years and years of being moored deep in the harsh ocean.
As the boat flipped nearly upside down and hurled toward the buoy, the cliché Matías had always heard became true. The most important parts of his life flashed in front of him—a final montage of greatest hits before God came to take his soul to heaven.
The warm smiles and embraces of Mamá, Papá, and Abuelita Gloria.
Aracely on her first day of school, when Matías had held her hand as they walked together.
Cradling Luis as a baby, just hours after he was born.
And Claire—from the moment Matías first set eyes on herat the Rose Gallery to the way she felt in his arms as he lay her down on the carpet of the law firm library floor. How in the mornings she wandered into the kitchen squinting because she hadn’t put in her contacts yet, and how at night she snored like a small mouse but was too embarrassed to ever admit it.
The way she scrunched up her nose or bit her lip when she was working on a knotty legal problem. How, at the end of the day, she curled up on Matías’s lap and nuzzled her head into the crook of his neck.
How he had never felt safer, more grounded, moresolidthan when he was with Claire.
