As we walked along, we stopped by a few shops that had their doors open to the summer breeze. It was actually my first chance to buy some Spanish souvenirs. The choices were overwhelming—there was daintily painted pottery, large rustic barrels lined with burlap and overflowing with a million varieties of nuts and powdered spices, bottles of olive oil and jars of figs. Eduardo came running toward us with a t-shirt that said “Spanish Triathlon: Eating, Drinking, Fucking” with the corresponding stick figure pictures.

“You must buy this!” he said to me, his round cheeks red with amusement.

I managed to laugh. “I do like all those things. Glad I was the first person you thought of.”

Next, blue-haired Nerea came over to us with a bulging shopping bag and handed me a small bag filled with what looked like white chocolate bark.

“It is turrón,” she said with her heavy accent and graceful smile. “I buy for all the Anglos. It is special to a place like this.”

I thanked her profusely for her kind gesture and while she went to go distribute the rest, Claudia told me it was a Spanish delicacy made from egg whites, honey and almond. As much as I wanted to tear into it and started eating, I knew I had to save it as a memory of this place.

When we were done with the shopping, we continued following Luiz down the narrow street until it opened up at an ancient looking church. In front of it was a huge bronze statue of a pig with abnormally large balls. While Luiz led everyone inside the church, telling everyone it was built in 1300s (which was mind-blowing to me since we considered an “old” building in Vancouver to be 100 years old), Claudia, Ricardo, Eduardo, Polly and Sammy went over to the pig statue and started fondling it. Naturally I had to get out of my camera and snap away. I guess we overstayed our welcome when Eduardo slipped the Spanish Triathlon t-shirt on—I can’t believe he actually bought it—and started riding the pig like a cowboy. A disgruntled local came over and told all of us off. There were a lot of gestures involved.

Eduardo quickly apologized, then under his breath muttered “puta coña”, and we sheepishly scurried into the church.

Inside it was as still as a tomb, even with Luiz’s hushed voice telling everyone about the 16th century granite pulpit and a gothic copper processional cross. With his six foot height, Mateo was easy to spot above the crowd. He was beside Luiz at the altar, listening intently and occasionally nodding. Since Spain was such a Catholic country, I wondered what Mateo’s religious beliefs were. Not that it mattered to me, but I always loved the idea of faith and found people who had to it to be fascinating. It then got me thinking about Mateo growing up—what his sister was like, where he lived, if his parents were still around. I’d been talking about myself every day but the truth was I didn’t really know a lot about him.

Was that why I found him so fascinating? Because he was mysterious? Or was there something else that pulled me to him like gravity gone wild?

I didn’t realize I was staring so blatantly until Mateo’s eyes were locked on mine. I froze like a deer in headlights, expecting to get a glare in return or the cold shoulder. But his eyes actually softened at the corners and he gave me a subtle smile.

I tried to return the same. Then I gulped and turned to my side, pretending to be enthralled with the colorful, sculpted carvings that adorned the support beams. It wasn’t a stretch—they were fascinating. But I stayed that way until long after Luiz thanked everyone for being part of the tour and everyone gave him respectful applause. I pretended to be occupied until I thought the church was empty.

I turned around. And I was wrong.

Mateo was just a few feet away, standing in the middle of the faded red-carpeted aisle, his hands casually jammed into his pockets and looking at me with a most intense look in those smoky brown eyes.

“Vera,” he said and my nerves squirmed at the throaty quality of his voice, “can I speak with you? Please?”

“Yeah,” I said non-committal, even though I had a whole speech prepared in case he actually did end up lecturing me. It went something like “Why is it your business who I sleep with, you’re married, you’re not supposed to care?” Whether I ended up voicing that to him was unknown.

“I just wanted you to know,” he said, taking a step forward and then stopping, “that I’m staying here an extra week.”

Okaaaaay.

He read my expression. “My partner suggested it and I told him I could use the extra help with English.”

Well, that last part was bullshit. Aside from needing help with a few phrases and words here and there, Mateo was nearly fluent. His confidence level during the business portions needed some work, but considering the only language I knew was a shoddy level of French, I would have been happy with that.

Mateo must have been a perfectionist. Or, maybe, he just didn’t want to go home.

Or, maybe, it was something else.

Stop it, I told myself. Stop thinking that. The fact that he wants to be friends with you after all that means that he just sees you as a friend. After all, he’s—

And that’s when I cut my train of thought off. I wasn’t going to remind myself that he was married anymore. I’d known that from the moment I first laid eyes on him. It was too late to pretend I didn’t know what I was doing. I was in love, in lust, in something with him and all logic, all facts, all reality, none of that seemed to matter, not to my body and not to my heart.

“You look confused,” he said, peering at me. He tilted his hand from side to side. “More or less.”

I managed a smile. I was more or less confused. “I’m fine. I’m happy you’re staying.”

“Are you?” he questioned, not convinced.

“Are you happy you’re staying?”

He took another step my way. A waft of his delicious cologne teased me. “I’m sorry about the other night,” he said, his head dipped slightly. “I was a bit drunk and a bit rude.”

I stared at him. “You weren’t rude.”

He raised his brows, his forehead crinkling. “I have no business telling you how to…conduct yourself.”

What came out of my mouth next surprised me. “Maybe I need to be told.”

He seemed to suck in his breath. Chestnut eyes examined mine, framed by drawn, black brows. He was searching for some sort of truth in my eyes and I hoped he found it. I hadn’t meant to say that, especially so bluntly, but that didn’t make it untrue.

Our gazes locked onto each other as the seconds ticked by in that cold and empty church. What did he want from me? What did he think of me? What did he expect?

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “But it won’t be my place to do so. Only a fool would tell you what to do.”

I couldn’t hide the smile on my face. There was a sense of relief between us, like some of the bad tension had lifted. The good tension though, well, that was still there. It became static in the air every time my eyes raked over him.

Thankfully, before that kind of tension could build into an electric cloud, the main doors opened behind us and two hunched over ladies with grey, flower-adorned hair came padding into the church. They shot Mateo and I a suspicious glance then continued down the aisle.

“Guess we better not interrupt their worship, huh?” I said as we turned to leave, grateful for a way out of this.

We had free time now, about an hour before the football game. Peter had already driven our stuff over to the field and Jerry had yelled some easy directions on how to get there. Everyone else had scattered around the town, except for Claudia and Ricardo, who were waiting for us outside of the church by the statue of the pig with the humungous balls.

“We were wondering if you wanted to get a drink with us before the game,” Claudia said, a satisfied look on her face as she eyed us.

Mateo put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You really trust Vera? We’re all Spaniards. She could put drugs in our drinks and rig the game.”

“Or take advantage of us,” Ricardo put in, winking at me.

“Hey,” I said, acting like it wasn’t a huge detail that Mateo’s hand was on me. “Even if I did drug you, there’s no way the Anglos would win. You’d still have the rest of your team, and one Spanish football player is worth a million Anglo ones.”

They seemed to be happy with that answer. Over the past few weeks I’d learned the quickest way to a Spaniard’s heart is by feeding their football ego.

The four of us walked down the winding streets back to the main square. Along the way we ran into a few people from our program, but everyone seemed spread out, by themselves, or in groups like we were. We found a tapas bar with some outside seating and settled down, Claudia and Ricardo on one side of the metal table, Mateo and I on the other. Well, until Mateo got up to go buy us all drinks.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” I said, taking out my purse and rummaging for my wallet. It was weird needing it after being catered to for so long.

“Vera, shut your face,” Claudia said, leaning across the table and putting her hand on my arm to still me. She smiled. “He has money, let him.”

I looked up at Mateo but he had already started walking to the bar. The only thing that looked “rich” about him at the moment was the cut and fit of his brown blazer, which probably cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Otherwise, his vintage rock t-shirt and worn jeans and boots gave him the sexy casual, everyman look. Of course, everyone at the table knew that Mateo wasn’t like the rest of them.