Mateo didn’t seem the slightest bit impressed—maybe this kind of architecture was common here. He was, however, frowning at a little man in the line in front of us who kept turning around and giving him the eye. My gaydar wasn’t going off so it was more of a “do I know you from somewhere?” kind of look to which Mateo responded with a “you talkin’ to me?” stare. This was all done non-verbally, of course.
Finally we got up to one of the receptionists. I gave her my name and was handed a thick pamphlet and was asked if I had a credit card I wanted to put down for bar charges. It sounded like a dangerous proposition—so I did it.
While she took my Visa, Mateo read the writing on the envelope, “Vera Miles.”
“That’s me,” I said. Jerry had been yelling at us to take out our name tags and wear the lanyards around our neck for the entire program. I took it out and put it on. There was another smaller package inside the main one and Jerry had warned us not to look inside those yet. My room keys were also inside.
“There’s an actress called Vera Miles,” Mateo remarked. “She was in Psycho. Good film.”
I nodded, trying to make sure my name tag didn’t get stuck between my boobs. It was hard to do with Mateo watching me so closely. “Yup. But I’m named after my grandmother.”
“I’m named after my grandfather,” Mateo said with an easy smile. The receptionist handed me back my Visa card and looked to Mateo, her lips teasing into a smile when she got a good look at him. So, I wasn’t the only one who thought he was handsome as all hell. I could tell she also noticed his ring when he placed his hands on the counter, because her eyes flashed with disappointment.
She looked at me and I stuck my lower lip out, as if to say, “such a shame.”
She snapped out of it and looked at him. “Your name please?”
“Mateo Casalles,” he replied.
Damn. I was hoping it was something less sexy than something that not only rolled off his tongue but made it sound like he could use that tongue in many interesting ways.
Perhaps I needed to cancel my bar tab.
“Mateo Casalles?” she repeated, a weird sort of recognition in her eyes.
He gave her a quick smile but that was it. She reached underneath the counter for the envelope and gave it to him. He opened it up with deft fingers and stuck the nametag and lanyard so it was hanging out of his pant pocket.
I wanted to ask him if he was trying to draw attention to his crotch, but I had a vision of that going horribly wrong in translation so I just said, “You’re supposed to wear that around your neck, I think.”
He gave me a steady gaze as we moved out of the line. “This is good.” Then he brought out his room key and peered at it. “Room numero tres.” He waved his hand like he was erasing the Spanish from the air. “Sorry, sorry. Three. Building five.”
I looked at mine and hid my disappointment. “Room two, building one.”
“At least we are close to each other, no?”
I grinned up at him. Everything he said was so disarming, how casually he treated this, like there was an us, like we’d been friends for a long time. He made me feel like I was the only person in the room.
Until Claudia joined our side.
“Hey, Claudia, how are you?” he greeted joyfully as if he hadn’t seen in her in a long time. My smile diminished slightly. He treated her the same way, like she was an old friend, too. Mateo was just a really personable, gregarious man. There was no us. There was just Mateo.
I took in a deep, steady breath and suddenly I was okay with that. I was just really grateful to have friends, to have people to be comfortable with and to talk to.
Especially when I noticed someone standing in the corner of the room, someone I’d only briefly gazed over early. He was an Anglo, it seemed, it was hard to hear his voice from where I was, and judging on looks alone he was, well, right up my alley. Whereas Mateo was fit, muscular and athletic, sporting a body he carried around with ease, this guy was thin and wiry. Lean but sexy in that rocker heroin chic kind of way. He had black hair that spiked up around his forehead, a hoop nose ring and a lip ring. Pale as an albino ghost, wearing tight black jeans, mean boots, and a black thermal shirt from an ISIS concert, the print so faded I could barely read it.
The guy looked over, scanning the room, perhaps to escape from conversation from the overly-tanned, blonde woman he was with and I smiled at him, hoping to catch his attention. I knew to a man like him, I was totally attractive.
His eyes lit up and he gave me the cool nod of acknowledgement that guys like him were so good at. Perfect. Someone to already distract me from Mateo. I hoped he wasn’t married, either, or I was going to have to give up on men this trip. Perhaps this could be my twelve-step, no sex program. At least I had remembered to pack one of my vibrators.
“I knew it!” a thickly accented voice said at my ear.
I turned in surprise, expecting to see someone talking to me. Instead it was the short man who was in line earlier, the one who kept giving Mateo the eye. Up close his eyes were bulging, like a cartoon frog and he had the goofiest smile on his face. He pointed at Mateo’s face, then down at his crotch. Well, at his name tag.
“I knew it, you are Mateo Casalles,” the man said. “I thought you looked familiar.”
Mateo nodded and gave the man a polite smile, the kind that politicians gave.
So…who the hell was Mateo Casalles?
Claudia picked up on my confusion for she lay a hand on Mateo’s chest—something I had wanted to do—and tapped him there. “Of course, you don’t watch football do you?” she addressed me.
I grimaced. “Canadian football or American?”
“No, football,” she said. “Soccer.”
Oh right. Football was called soccer here, which makes more sense when you think of it.
I shook my head. “I don’t really know a lot about sports. I played soccer as a kid but I got in trouble for kicking shins instead.” True story. My coach was so upset with me that banned me from taking part in any games. Eventually my mom put me into gymnastics, which wasn’t much better since I have the coordination of a severely untalented monkey.
“Casalles was part of our team,” the frog-eyed man said. I peered closer at him. His name tag said Jose Carlos. Froggy Carlos was more apt.
I tried to think about what I knew about Spain and soccer. Suddenly it hit me. “Oh my god,” I cried out. “You were on the same team as David Beckham!”
Mateo gave me a chuckle, his eyes softening. “No,” he explained. “There are two teams for Madrid. I was part of Atletico de Madrid. It’s…not the team you would have heard of.”
Aw. No Beckham. Though to be honest, the dude did have a higher voice than I did. Still, if Mateo had been on a soccer team—one important enough for someone to recognize him—that meant he might have a body like David Beckham, something I had suspected anyway.
Oh boy. His wife was one lucky bitch.
“He was the best centre-back we ever had,” Froggy Carlos said excitedly, pride practically pouring out of him. “He could stop everyone.”
Mateo’s smile faltered slightly. “More or less.”
Froggy Carlos’s expression faded to somberness. “Yes. More or less.”
Okay, so there was some story here that I wanted to know. What had happened to Mateo? Why was he in the restaurant business now and not being the best centre-back they ever had? Just how old was he? And did he wear David Beckham underwear, because those boxer briefs were sexy as fuck.