He cleared his throat and went on, his voice louder. “Well if you do not mind, Vera, I think I will need to make a phone call or too, a real one. I will see you tonight at the party, yes?”

“Yes,” I said softly. The receiver on his end clicked off and I stared at the phone for a few moments before hanging it up. Through the littlest lapses in character, I was beginning to think there was more to Mateo than what met the eye. Though he’d be playing twenty questions with me, I was going to make sure I unravelled him first, silken thread by silken thread.

“I’ll give you ten euros if you do it.”

I put down my drink and gave Eduardo a steady look. “Are you serious?”

“Of course,” he exclaimed and patted Angel on the back, hard. “Isn’t that right, Angel?”

Angel, who probably spoke the least English out of everyone at Las Palabras, nodded. Like his namesake, he had a round face and a mop of curly brown hair. His thick-framed glasses and geek chic outfit made it hard for me to determine if he was a young hipster or a nerd in his mid-thirties. He worked for a software company in Madrid, which didn’t help.

I plucked the cherry out of my screwdriver and held it in front of my mouth. I looked to Eduardo who was eyeing me with a big fat grin on his face.

He and Angel were among the first people to show up at the party. I had gotten there early, not wanting to pull the same thing I did at dinner and get there late. I had gotten so wrapped up with catching up on Facebook and writing long emails to Josh and Jocelyn that I barely noticed everyone piling past me into the dining room. By the time I logged off, all the tables were taken and I had to sit with Edna, a retired teacher from Manchester who really didn’t seem to like me. She was here with her husband Nick and I recognized them as the people who had given me dirty looks on the bus.

Luckily, the Spaniards I sat with were nice. There was quiet Cristina who barely talked and Yolanda, a hippie-ish woman with a toothy grin and really dark skin that looked like beef jerky. Yolanda loved to talk and show off the English she picked up from some yoga guru in Nepal. I don’t know what she was talking about, actually, but it prevented me from having to contribute to the conversation. I just concentrated on the wine and the food the whole meal, occasionally looking over at Mateo who was sitting with Wayne, Beatriz and a pretty blonde I think was named Polly. He had seemed to be chipper over dinner, laughing loudly at whatever Wayne was saying.

“Well, do it,” Eduardo coaxed to me, bringing my attention to the task at hand. He was a cute guy, late twenties, kind of short and on the preppy side but he had flawless golden skin and really nice smile. He was also a bit of a pervert. Then again, so was I.

“All right,” I said. I placed the cherry in my mouth and bit it off seductively. This part was for the show. Eduardo eyed my lips eagerly as I sucked on it for a moment and Angel seemed to blush right up to his roots. Then I smiled and swallowed it down. Time for the party trick.

I placed the stem into my mouth and with deft concentration I slowly worked the two ends together with my tongue, trying to tie it into a knot. As sexy as it was supposed to be, it’s actually impossible to look good while doing this and I knew my face was contorted.

It took a few seconds longer than I would have liked but eventually I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue, the knotted stem displayed proudly.

Eduardo pulled an impressed face.

“Showing off your ring?” I heard Mateo say. A deliciously fresh ocean smell filled my nose and Mateo came into view, walking behind Eduardo and peering at me in curiosity. I promptly stuck my tongue back in my mouth and watched as his mouth curved up in a wicked smile.

Angel nudged Eduardo. “Give her money.”

I tore my eyes off of Mateo as Eduardo groaned and fished out his wallet. He slapped ten euros down into my hand and winked at me. “It was worth it.” He and Angel turned and walked off to the bar, which now had a line of people at it, the two women from reception now back there and popping off bottle caps.

Mateo folded his muscled arms across his chest. Though he was still wearing his sleek blue dress pants from earlier, now he had a white linen shirt that was unbuttoned just enough to give a hint of groomed chest hair. Something about that made a lusty thrill run through me. Every guy I’d been with had been smooth and hair free as a baby. Mateo was one hundred percent the opposite of that, one hundred percent man.

One hundred percent taken, I quickly reminded myself before the screwdriver went to my head.

“You got a job?” he asked in a smooth voice.

“What?”

He nodded at the ten euro note in my hand.

“Oh,” I said, shoving it in my small purse. I smiled. “No, I’m just taking bets. Tying a cherry stem with just your tongue, it’s a classic.”

He grinned at me with his white, polished teeth. I noticed there was one on the bottom that was kind of crooked. I liked that. It gave him character—not that he needed any more. “I wouldn’t know,” he said, in a way that let me know he did. His eyes left my mouth and then traveled down my body. “You look very nice.”

There was nothing smarmy or inappropriately sexual about the remark but my body didn’t know that. A shiver went down my spine and my nipples hardened. I cursed myself for not wearing a bra, even though the flowery maxi dress I was wearing did a good job of keeping the girls up.

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to beam too much. I was about to say the same thing to him when Claudia appeared at our side, reeking like a cloud of cigarette smoke. Man, she had the worst timing.

With her she had Becca, who looked a bit older than me, pixie red hair, pale as snow skin with freckles, and Sammy, a tiny, plump Australian chick in a too-tight shift dress, topped with frizzing blonde hair and gap-toothed grin. Sammy had sat next to me at the computer terminal when I was waxing on to Jocelyn about the program so far (I had been too paranoid to mention Mateo) and she’d come across like a chatterbox, talking to everyone who came through. Now she seemed drunk, swaying on her high heeled pumps, but she was smiling and anyone who smiled was good in my books.

“Vera,” Claudia reprimanded, “I missed you at dinner. I sat with these two, do you know Becca and Sammy?”

I caught Mateo’s eye briefly as he gave me a sly nod and then moved over to the bar to go talk to Antonio. Damn it. I suppose being around four women was probably too much for him.

I turned my attention back to Claudia, said hi to Sammy again and nodded at Becca.

“I saw you earlier,” Sammy slurred in her Aussie accent. Since the bar hadn’t been open for long, I wondered what she had been drinking. “I was going to tell you I liked your boots, the ones you had earlier, but you seemed to be writing up a storm.”

“I was getting my friends caught up,” I said, even though I really only had one friend.

She pointed a finger at me. “You know what you should do. Becca here, she has a blog. She blogs about her travel adventures and such. You should have a blog. Did you know this is her third time doing the program?”

Now I was intrigued. I looked at her with raised brows. “Really?”

Becca nodded shyly. “Yeah, three years in a row,” she said in quiet Scottish accent.

“Then you must like it,” I said. Captain Obvious, reporting for duty here.

She blushed but didn’t say anything, which made me think there was more to her story. Unfortunately, this was the time that Jerry appeared, climbing on top of the coffee table again, with a microphone he just whipped out of nowhere. I made a mental note to talk to Becca later and affixed my attention on Jerry before he yelled at me.