When I finally remembered to breathe, I poured myself another glass of wine and gulped it down. Luckily, Claudia had spoken up, telling us about a time she got a tattoo on her ass of her ex-boyfriend’s name and how she was trying to figure out how to into something funny, like Johnny Depp did with turning Winona Forever into Wino Forever.

While my brain got happily stuck on a tangent about Winona and Johnny and how weird it was that they dated and if it ever got awkward when they ran into each other, I finished my meal and another glass of wine. By the time we were all done, all the bottles at our table were empty and I was more than ready for a nap.

Seeing me yawn, Mateo pounced into action. “Come on, I’ll show you how to have a siesta. Sorry, little sleep. A nap.”

I looked at Claudia for her response but she just smiled coyly and shrugged before she got up with Wayne and said goodbye to us, leaving Mateo and I alone.

“Oh, don’t look so worried,” he said. He got out of his chair and held his hand out for me.

I eyed it with trepidation and gingerly placed my hand in his.

His fingers closed over mine, sealing us together with heat and heartbeat. He brought me up to my feet, flashed me a self-assuring smile, then gently let go of my hand. He pointed out the door. “Follow me.”

We walked out and as I passed by the reception I noted that one of the computers was free, though with the other four occupied by Anglos, it didn’t seem like it would stay free for long. This was the rare moment of the day where we could have free time and I really wanted to talk to Josh and let him know I was alright. And let’s be honest, I wanted to update my Facebook to say “Having a blast in Spain, bitchez! #notsohumblebrag”. But ex-soccer star turned restauranteur turned someone I wanted to keep being around was walking out the door and into the bright Spanish sun and my body was begging me to follow him and his fancy suit.

I’d made the right choice. The minute I stepped out onto the patio and was hit with the strength of the sun, my whole body tingled and relaxed. I fished a pair of sunglasses out of my purse and put them on while Mateo reached over two wicker chairs and plucked the cushions from them. Curiously, I followed him as he walked out onto the shorn lawn with the cushions in tow and threw them down near the shade of a small oak tree.

“I’m napping here?” I asked him, folding my arms.

He gestured to the cushions with an exaggerated motion. “We are napping here.”

“On the ground?”

The corner of his mouth ticked up while he started to shed off his blazer. “Oh, Vera. You’ve taught me so many interesting words, the least I can do is teach you how to have a proper nap. All of Spain is counting on me.”

I was barely listening. My mind was caught up in the sight of him taking off the jacket, the sky blue dress shirt underneath stretched across the fluidity of his muscles. How the hell was this guy thirty-eight? Granted, I knew that men aged slower than women did and that half the celebrity men I thought were sexy were in their late thirties and early forties. Hell, Johnny Depp was in his fifties! But Mateo’s age caught me by surprise.

The funny was, I thought it would make me relate to him differently. I thought it would make things awkward—at least in my mind—or make me feel like I was hanging out with my beloved Uncle George or someone like that. But it didn’t, not at all.

He took off the blazer and turned it around so that the back of the jacket was to the grass. Then he placed it on the ground, just below one of the cushions. He looked to me expectantly, brows raised. “There. For you.”

I scoffed in surprise. “You can’t do that, you’ll get grass stains on it.”

He merely shrugged. “So?”

“So? That can’t be a cheap suit.”

Another shrug, his head cocked to the side. “I don’t care.” He must have noticed the dubious expression on my face, that I was thinking he would just buy another one. “Clothes don’t have a life until they get dirty,” he explained. “A little dirt is good.”

A valid statement—one my mother would have hated—though it was kind of an odd one coming from a man who, so far, had looked one hundred per cent put together. From his wing tipped shoes, to his Rolex, to his leather suitcase and tailored suit, everything about Mateo screamed “rich, discerning business man” and yet here he was telling me clothes were meant to live dirty lives.

“Okay,” I said, still perplexed. I dropped to my knees, all too aware of what this could look like to a passerby, in fact I tried really hard not to stare at his crotch. I hastily flipped around so I was lying with my head on the cushion and my upper body on the jacket.

Mateo stood over me, his body blocking out the sun. “Very good. You comfortable?”

I stared up at him, seeing only shadows on his face. I felt totally vulnerable, just lying in front of him like this. “This seems like a lot of work for a nap.”

I couldn’t tell if he smiled or not. He got down to the ground and lay down beside me, his head on his cushion and just inches away. I wanted to say something about how he was now getting the back of his nice silk shirt all dirty but I knew what he’d say, that he didn’t care.

“So,” I said as I lay there, so totally conscious of how close he was to me. Was this silly? Inappropriately intimate? What was this?

“Do you often talk in your sleep?” he asked casually.

“Huh? I’m not sleeping.”

“But you should be. It’s a called a little sleep.”

So we really were just going to nap? No English lessons? No questions?

“Rest your brain, Vera,” he said in a low voice that raised the hair on my arms.

Easier said than done, I thought to myself. I adjusted my sunglasses so they weren’t digging in behind my ears and rolled my head slightly toward the left and away from him. I really did feel silly doing this, trying to take a communal nap in the broad sunshine, with chattering Anglos and Spaniards around me, with a man I’d only known for about twenty-four hours.

But the sun really did feel good on my limbs and there was a sweet-smelling breeze in the air, a mixture of running water and fresh grass and some kind of flower. Before I knew it I was sinking in further and further into the soft ground and the comfortable satin of his jacket lining, the warm sunshine my blanket. I heard Mateo snoring softly and I grinned to myself like a total cheeseball.

Then, I too was sleeping.

“Vera,” I heard Mateo say, his voice cutting through the dark. Everything slowly turned blinding white beneath my fluttering lids. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting up and leaning forward, knees drawn, arms resting on them. He had rolled up his sleeves again, showing those tanned, thick-veined forearms that I now knew belonged to a total athlete. Even if Mateo no longer played soccer, his body still acted like it did.

I grunted and licked my lips. “What? What time is it?”

“Time for us to get down to business,” he said.

I slowly straightened up, feeling tired and well-rested at once. I could have sworn only a few minutes had passed but I took out my phone and peered at it. Yup, it was five minutes to two. I’d been asleep for at least forty-five minutes.

I looked at him shyly, suddenly glad for my shades. I’d never just slept with a guy without any of that other stuff involved. Even though we had napped apart and never once touched—and we had been lying down in public for all the world to see—the air between us felt fragile. New. It was like the morning after, but without all the guilt and shame.

I cleared my throat, aware that I had just been staring at him. “Well that was fun.”

He ran a hand through his hair and smiled up at the sun with his eyes closed. “Good. Now you’ll be able to stick around for the rest of the day. And next time you want to nap, you come find me.”