Chapter 2 Claire
Claire
Eleven Months Later
“I can’t wait to show you around Spain,” Matías said as he grabbed his empty suitcase to begin packing. He was about to set it on the bed when Claire yelped.
“Wait, don’t put it there!”
She ran to his closet and returned with the luggage rack she’d bought him. “It’s just…remember I read that article about all the germs on suitcase wheels?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry, but I—”
“You don’t have to apologize, churri, ” Matías said, using his favorite endearment. He leaned in and kissed her, right where her nose was scrunched. Then he took the luggage rack from her, unfolded it, and set his suitcase on top.
Claire sighed. He was good to her, he really was. But in the eleven months of their whirlwind romance, some… differences had emerged. Matías was chaos, whereas Claire was order. For instance, he tried his best to put things where they belonged, but he wasn’t always successful. That had been good enough in the early days of being together, when Claire had laughed whenever he set his keys on her kitchen island instead of the entry table by the door, or when he put the coffee mugs on the water glass shelf.
But it had been bothering her more lately. Maybe because the hurricane of their relationship was slowing down to a normal breeze, and it was a lot easier to spot flaws when you weren’t in the middle of a storm.
Right now, she had to avert her eyes as he tossed improperly folded T-shirts into his suitcase.
Don’t be so rigid, she told herself.
Still, to avoid watching, Claire walked over to the dresser in the far corner of his room to retrieve some socks and boxer briefs. If she got to them before Matías did, she could roll them up nicely to prevent them from wrinkling.
As she reached for his socks, though, her hand hit something hard in the back of the drawer. What the—?
Claire angled herself so her body would block Matías’s view, and she pulled the mystery thing out of the drawer.
It was a sock, but stuffed inside it was a velvet ring box.
Her stomach flipped, and she wasn’t sure it was entirely in a good way.
He’s planning to propose. On this trip to Spain. In front of all his family and friends…
Only, Claire already knew she couldn’t go. The merger she was working on was utter madness, but she hadn’t found the right time yet to break the news to Matías.
Also, she didn’t know if she wanted to say yes to marrying him.
She and Matías were complete opposites—which, judging by Claire’s friends’ relationships, usually did not work out. And her model relationship—her parents—had been one based on shared personalities and occupations. Mom and Dad had both been postal workers, and because of that, they’d understood how to live in the ebbs and flows of each other’s days. They had driven to work together each morning. She worked in the post office itself and he delivered mail, so they touched based during the day whenever he stopped in for a new batch of packages and mail. And at the end of the day, they’d sit next to each other on the sofa, their feet soaking in respective foot baths in front of the TV, where they inevitably murmured their commiseration every time a delivery person showed up onscreen and got chased by dogs.
Mom and Dad had died in a car accident right after Claire graduated from college, but she still thought of them every day. Missed them. Hoped that the life she was leading would’ve made them proud.
What would they have thought about her and Matías?
The velvet box seemed to grow heavier in Claire’s hand.
Part of her didn’t want to peek, because that would make it more real.
But the lawyer part of her that liked facts wanted to open the box to make sure she wasn’t making this up. Because maybe it wasn’t an engagement ring. Maybe it was a pair of earrings for later, like Christmas, even though it was only July now.
If you’re going to do this, you’d better be quick, she told herself. Matías could decide to come over at any second.
She bit her lip and opened the velvet box.
Inside was a small, glittering sun—a ring with a round diamond, surrounded by tapered topazes like flames. Because of course Matías would promise nothing less than to give her the sun.
It was too much.
Claire stuffed the box back into the sock and shoved it into the recesses of the drawer where she’d found it.
How could Matías spring something like this on her? Didn’t he know by now that she needed her life calendared? And who in this day and age surprised people with engagement rings anymore? All her lawyer friends had discussed getting married with their significant others long before the question was popped, and even then, it was a foregone conclusion because they’d already done the ring sizing and shopping together.
And besides, Matías ought to know that they wouldn’t work out in the long run. This proposal was too soon, too rushed. If he waited another year, he would inevitably realize that she was too bland for him. Claire was all white blouses and pressed trousers, while Matías was riotous color and wild imagination. Over the past eleven months, she’d tried to enjoy every moment with him that she could because, deep down, she’d known it could never last.
How could she ever say yes to a proposal, when she knew she would only weigh him down for the rest of his life?
Still in a daze, Claire turned back toward Matías’s suitcase with neither socks nor boxers.
In the few minutes that she was gone, he’d somehow managed to cover his bed with various sprawling, unruly cables, seemingly random scraps of paper, his passport, gum, and toiletries. That was the thing about Matías. If there was any available space, his exuberance spread out immediately to cover every surface.
Claire glanced over at the bookshelf next to his bed. Unlike the shelves at her apartment, which were lined with books neatly organized by genre, Matías’s was full of his various hobbies—a ukulele and accompanying sheet music. A box full of blocks of wood and whittling knives. A chess board, a deck of cards for practicing magic tricks, and a sketchbook and set of charcoalpencils. Not to mention the weekly letters from his ninety-two-year-old abuela —his grandmother—from the past eleven months. The stacks of envelopes with her beautiful handwriting had tipped over and knocked over all the others like cascading paper dominoes.
“I’ll be done soon, and then we’ll head to your place so you can pack,” he said, smiling as he looked up from his suitcase.
Her heart clenched. He’d been so excited about the trip that she’d put off telling him that she was bailing.
Except now, not going to Spain with him seemed even worse. Before, it had just been about work. But discovering the ring box changed this trip from a mere vacation to a Significant Life Event, and Claire’s cancellation felt like it might actually be an ending.
I don’t want to break up with him, though .
The last eleven months had been the most exhilarating of her life. Claire was like a stick well established in the mud, but Matías showed up and wrested her free. She still loved her routines and schedules, but often, when there was an opportune gap in her calendar, he would insert himself into it and whisk her away for an impromptu picnic in Central Park or a wine tasting at a pop-up cellar. On the nights she worked late, he would sometimes swing by when she was ready to go home, and instead of taking the car that the firm would have paid for, they would walk together through Midtown. If the streets happened to be empty, Matías would whirl her into the middle of them to dance for no reason.
And the sex…God, the sex. This was not the way tight-laced lawyers and accountants did it. Matías in bed was like his art—he paid extravagant detail to every inch of her body, and he moved with luxuriant, confident grace. Sometimes they made languorous love in the mornings, still groggy from sleep but waking, slowly, together. Other times, they would have to pause in the middle of dinner and fuck in the kitchen, overcome by the rich, sensuous flavors of the meal he’d prepared and unable to keep their hands and mouths off each other a second longer.
Claire loved Matías, and she wasn’t ready to let him go yet. She just needed to slow things down, to buy herself more time to think. But she did need to tell him she couldn’t go to Spain.
“Matías…”
Saying his name, though, made him grin. Claire was self-conscious about committing fully to a Spanish accent, but she also wanted to respect his heritage, so what always came out was a hybrid where the first part sounded Spanish and the second half, American. Which Matías had decided was adorable.
She softened at the reminder of how much he loved every single thing about her—even the imperfect bits.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, a reluctant smile curling the corner of her mouth. She picked up a pillow and threw it at him.
Matías laughed. “Say guacamole for me. With a proper Spanish accent.”
“No.” But now she was trying not to laugh, too, because this was his favorite way to tease her, and even though she’d practiced over and over, she still couldn’t get guacamole right.
“?Por favor?”
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. Just go easy on the g .”
Claire screwed up her face. Then she took a deep breath and did her best, which she knew was still embarrassingly wrong—“wa-ca-mo-lay.”
Matías swooped her up in a hug and kissed her. “I love when you speak Spanish. And when we get to Madrid, you’ll get to put your lessons to good use.”
She winced. Claire had declared months ago that she was going to learn Spanish, but after an enthusiastic start, things at work had really heated up, and she hadn’t made much progress on the language since.
Plus, she was about to bail on the trip completely.
Claire let herself be held for a moment longer. But then it was time to face the music.
“I have bad news,” she said.
“Oh?” Matías frowned, but leaned against the window ledge, giving her his full attention. He did that every time—set down his phone or magazine or ukulele to listen to her when she started to talk. It was amazing, and at the same time, maddening how incredible he was, because Claire could never be as wonderful back. He set an impossible standard.
“I can’t go with you to Spain.”
“What?” His face crumpled. “Why?”
“This merger I’m in charge of…It’s at a crucial juncture, and I need to be here to manage it. I’m so sorry. But if I nail this, they’ll make me partner. Honestly, I still have to pinch myself that I’m running it all. It’s a billion -dollar deal for Intelligentsia Tech, and I can’t just leave in the middle of it. I’m really sorry, hon.”
“But we planned this,” Matías said.
“I know,” Claire said. “And I thought the timing would work out, but the firm needs me. I’m the linchpin of the whole acquisition.”
“I was really looking forward to showing you where I grew up,” he said. “And for you to meet my family.”
“I’ve sort of met your family on video chats?” she said, trying to be conciliatory.
“It’s not the same.”
She knew how important his family was to him, and how much he’d wanted them to meet in person. Claire leaned against the window ledge, beside him.
“I feel terrible about this.”
“What if you came with me, but we set aside some time for you to work remotely?”
She shook her head. “It’s not the kind of job I can do well if I’m not in the same office as my team.”
Matías was thirty-six and an accomplished artist, but right then, he looked like a boy who’d just lost his favorite toy.
“Hey…Look, I do want to meet your family. Let’s promise to go to Spain together in the future, okay?” Claire said. “But this time, just go have fun. You haven’t been back home since you came to New York almost a year ago.”
He glanced in the direction of his dresser, and Claire was pretty sure he was thinking about the thwarted engagement.
“Maybe I’ll stay here, too,” he said.
Claire tensed for a second but plowed forward.
“No, don’t do that, Matías. It’s your summer break. You have no classes to teach till August, and you don’t have another gallery show until the fall. You should go to Spain and do all the things I wouldn’t want to do. Oh! What about that trip that Diego, Carlos, Facu, and Leo wanted to go on?”
Matías cocked his head as he thought about it. His childhood friends had proposed a week of jet skiing and skydiving and all manner of risky outdoorsy stuff that made Claire want to hide under a table just thinking about them. Matías had declined his friends’ plans when Claire was coming to Spain, but now that she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have to be held back by her anymore.
“That would be a lot of fun,” he said.
Claire rested her head on his chest. “I appreciate you understanding about my job. And when you get back and my merger is done, I promise I’ll make some time for just us. Some sort of romantic getaway—even if it’s only for one weekend.”
She could almost see the thoughts churning behind his eyes, setting aside one proposal location for another yet to be determined. So be it. Maybe by then she will have figured out just what to do.
But one thing she did know. “I am going to miss you a lot,” she said, looking up from where her head lay against his chest. She always felt safe here, nestled against Matías—a warm, temporary respite from whatever else may be going on around them.
He was quiet for a second. Then he said, “I think I have a solution for that.”
Matías carried her to the edge of the bed and set her down. But instead of making love to her, which was what she thought he intended, Matías took Claire’s left hand and spread it open. He brought it to his mouth and pressed a lingering kiss onto her palm. Then Matías curled her fingers closed around it.
“This kiss is for you to keep until I come home,” he said, “so you can carry me with you while I’m gone. If you find yourself missing me too much, just press your lips against your palm and imagine your kiss meeting mine, and I’ll be right here with you.”
“You are such an over-the-top romantic,” Claire said.
But even so, she looked down at her hand and kept her fist tightly closed, keeping the kiss he’d left her safe.