Under His Sheets — R.L. Merrill

Indie rock star Randall Sutter is hard at work creating a new life for himself in Spain after his band was robbed and decided to break up. The inspiration for his reinvention? The passionate night he spent with a Spaniard who encouraged him to consider spending more time in his country. So Randall 2.0 decides to dust off his credentials and take a job teaching music at an international school in a suburb of Barcelona. But questions soon arise when the stranger Randall can't stop thinking about appears at the school-as Alonso the Custodian. And pretends not to recognize him. And claims to not speak English. Randall then discovers his new community-like the rest of Catalonia-is experiencing political turmoil, and Randall isn't sure who he can trust. When Alonso reveals the truth about the night they met and just what he was doing there, Randall will have to have faith that Alonso's feelings for him are real and not just part of his mission, or they may both end up victims of a centuries-long dispute playing out in modern Spain.