Chapter 7.1 - Matteo

He calls Vinnie on Thursday afternoon after he wakes up.

"Where are you?" Vinnie screams into the receiver to cover up the noise on his end.

"In bed. Where else?"

"I thought you'd be on campus."

"Do I even have classes today? Fuck, I forgot I have a schedule. What are you doing?"

"Eating."

"I want to go to New York."

"Today?"

"Yes, maybe leave in an hour?"

Vinnie hesitates, which means he's got other plans.

"I think I'm going to come tomorrow."

"With?" Matteo knows for a fact that Vinnie doesn't have a car in the States. "I'll figure it out."

"Alright."

He hangs up and then gets out of bed to go pack a bag before he embarks on the four-hour drive to New York. His schedule says he's supposed to be in Business Psychology right now,  so he sends a voice message to Isabella as he's on the way to the car.

"Do you happen to also have Business Psychology? Because I'm on my way to New York  and I'm pretty sure my dad is tracking my progress. Thaaanks."

Isabella replies five minutes later.

Isabella: no

Matteo: do you know anyone who does?

Isabella: Valentina

Matteo: Do you have her number

Isabella sends her Valentina's Russian number, and he adds her as he drives before  texting her.

Matteo: hey

The reply comes an hour later when he's way past Albany, headed south. 

Valentina: ??

Valentina: who's this

Matteo: Matteo 

Matteo: Giudice

Valentina: okay

Matteo looks at the road ahead waiting for her to say something else, but she doesn't. Okay,  so he has to get straight to the point because she obviously knows that he didn't just hit her  up so they'd hook up, like most girls usually do. It seems like Isabella and Aurora, his  sister, are the only girls close to his age that he can text without sex being implied.

Matteo: u got business psycologu?

He looks at the road ahead. Texting and driving is a lot of pressure when he drives 120 an  hour. He decides to call her directly and speak through the car phone.

She picks up on the third ring. His ego tells him that she waited a little to seem busy but he knows she didn't.

"Hello."

"Hi. Uh, are you taking Business Psychology this year?"

"Yes, I was just there. Why?"

"I'm also supposed to be taking it, but I'm on my way to New York." There's a short pause  where neither of them says anything because Matteo focuses on switching lanes, and then he  continues. "Anyway, could you send me your notes or something?"

"I can send them to you by email."

"Photos on W******p are fine."

"I am taking them on my laptop, so I'll send them to you by email. If I take photos of the  screen, they'll all be blurry."

She's right.

"Alright."

"Just text me your address and I'll send them to you."

"It's [e-mail]"

"Yeah, no way I can remember that language. Text me so I can just copy paste it." Matteo smiles. "Alright. I'm driving now though."

"It's fine, I'm not going to wait around for it." she says, and Matteo can hear the smirk on  her face.

"Okay."

"Well."

"Thank you."

"Okay. Byee."

"Byee." He says and the line goes dead.

He texts her his email address at the next stoplight half an hour later, and he gets the notification from valentinalevin@g***l.com just as he gets onto the George Washington Bridge to enter Manhattan.

The apartment looks just like he left it before 2019 ended so he gets comfortable on the couch  and rolls himself a joint. Then he texts Valentina to thank her.

Matteo: got it, thank u

Valentina: * thumbs up emoji *

Matteo looks at the emoji for a second, before he opens the email she sent. It's a p*f of her notes taken in class, from which he understands right about nothing.

Matteo: are they supposed to make sense?

Valentina: if you'd been in class, yes

Matteo: fuck

This would've been the part where she offers to explain them to him in order to spend time  with him, but she just leaves him on read. Well, not really read, because his read receipts are  off, but she stops replying.

He's gotten through college until now exactly because he  knew the right people to help him out or he knew exactly which girl would do most of the  work for him just as an excuse for them to say to their friends they hung out.

Sometimes he thinks it's just the money, but that can't be it – everyone he met at school and  now college comes from rich families. Some of them are old money, others new money families, but all of them have multi-million dollars to their name.

Matteo knows what people,  especially women, think of his family and how there's a certain allure to it because it is  'dangerous'. But these women fall in love with the movie mafia guy everyone romanticizes,  not realizing that in reality everything is far more dangerous and fucked up than could ever be  described in words. 

It would take a strong woman to put up with everything that comes with entering a crime  family. Matteo has never met one that could live up to the role, only those who thought they  could. He fell in love with Allison because she was the only person in the world who Matteo  even considered worth the effort, but that's all over now (even though they still meet up sometimes).  When feelings disappear, the only thing that keeps it going is the fear of change.

***

The Barone kids come over to his apartment the week before Valentine's Day weekend, together with Marco and Isabella. While Pia and Isabella are out getting dinner in the city on Saturday night,  the boys choose to stay in and have a Fifa tournament. 

It always reminds Matteo of the days when they were younger and living in Palermo. He would  go over to the Barone house just to stay for hours and play on their Playstation. They stopped  when they moved  to New York for school. Matteo noticed it because it's the first time in two years where they decided to stay in instead of going to the club.

They order pizza and smoke joints, and it's not until they hear Isabella and Pia's voice in the  hallway that they realize hours went by. 

"This makes me feel nostalgic." Isabella smiles and comes inside the living room with her  shoes in one hand, bottle of wine in the other. "The boys playing football."

The couch is in an L shape, big enough to fit all five of them, so Pia and Isabella take the  lower part of the L so the boys can sit by themselves focusing on the TV.

"Did you hear about this Coronavirus?" Isabella asks after the first sip of her wine. Matteo looks at her without pausing the game against Vinnie.

"The virus in China?"

"I heard someone saying it could become a pandemic." Eddie chips in. 

"My dad says it's going to get bad. As in, they're going to lock people in their homes."

Marco rolls his eyes. "That's not going to happen."

"Why isn't Aurora here?" Matteo asks half an hour later right before he's about to start  another game. "She already lives in the city."

"She said she had a date this weekend."

All of the boys turn their heads to look at Pia now. 

"With who?" Marco asks incredulously.

Pia shrugs. "She didn't say."

"Didn't you ask?!" 

"I did, but she wouldn't say."

"She's hiding something." Vinnie observes after he's turned his attention back on the game. Matteo agrees and looks at Isabella, who doesn't seem fazed by the information. "What do you know?"

Isabella looks at him surprised. "Me? Why would I know anything?"

"Because you always know."

She puts her phone down and looks Matteo in the eyes. "I don't know anything, promise."

"Fine." He knows when she's lying.

"What do you know?" she asks him.

"Nothing, obviously."

"No, like, have you noticed her being unusual?"

"I tried to take her phone at Christmas and she got very defensive." Marco says.

Matte nods. "Yes, and she's got this weird smile on her face and I know she's texting  someone."

"Ask her then." Pia says, like it's the most logical thing in the world.

"Like you would ever tell us." Vinnie interjects.

"I would! But you never ask." 

"Alright, who have you slept with?"

--

My update schedule is 5-6 parts per week, Tuesday through Sunday :)

To see more about the story/chapter photos/previews you can follow the story account on I*******m @gamesweplayseries

You can get in touch with me on:

- I*******m: ronniebennett94

- TikTok: ronniewrites

- G***l: ronniebenett22@g***l.com (with just 1 'n')

Feel free to share you thoughts on the story and let me know what you like/didn't like. I always love interacting with readers :) 

Have a good day!

xoxo,

Ronnie