Chapter 7.1 - Matteo
1587 Words
I arrive home around eight that evening, tired and completely unable to do anything with my life.
As I sit on the couch still in my suit, I feel like I’m bored but I also don’t want to do anything but sit on this couch right now.
I think about Richard for a second before I immediately force myself to think about something else. I need to not be alone with my thoughts right now.
Aurora and Marco are still in Italy until next month, as well as all my friends from back home.
Valentina
I pull out my phone and click on our chat.
Matteo: wyd?
I delete the text. It sounds too…icky.
Matteo: what are u up to
I delete it again, shaking my head.
Finally, I text her that I’m bored.
Her response comes almost instantly. I smile.
Valentina: me too
Matteo: want to come over?
It sounds a little bit too booty-call-ish but maybe I’m just projecting.
I’m overthinking this
We’re friends
Like Isabella and I are friends
I type out another text to make it sound less s****l. And to also avoid rejection.
Why am I even thinking about it being s****l?
My mind goes back to the time I pinned her against the wall in her kitchen, and the unreal way she looked.
Matteo: I have wine
Matteo: And weed
She reads the text but doesn’t respond.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
Maybe she has other things to do.
Valentina: okay
Valentina: send me ur location
Matteo: *location*
Valentina: wtf how are you so close
Valentina: I thought you lived on the upper west side
Matteo: I moved
Matteo: long story
Valentina: okay well you’re 2 subway stations away
Valentina: I’ll be there in 20
I look around the room. The apartment isn’t messy per se, but it could be cleaner. I decide to take a shower and change into some comfortable clothes, because it would feel weird to be chilling in a suit.
I place my gun in the safe located in my bedroom, before I go shower.
By the time I’m out of the room, there’s a new text message from Valentina.
Valentina: what nr do I ring?
Matteo: 223
Valentina: be there in 10
Valentina: im on the subway
Matteo: ok
I change, then I go to the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine and two glasses. The weed is already on the coffee table in the living room.
The intercom rings five minutes later, and I buzz her in. I don’t really know what to do with myself until she gets to the door, so I just stand there until I hear the doorbell.
She’s standing there with a smile on her face and a bottle of wine in her hand. The look on her face lets me know she’s a little nervous.
I step aside. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
She comes inside and I close the door behind her, locking it. “I told you I have wine.”
She looks down at the bottle she’s holding. “Yes, but I just couldn’t take the risk.”
“Don’t tell me you also brought weed.”
A grin spreads across her face. “No, I trust you with that.”
I roll my eyes and she smiles even wider. All the nervousness she previously had has evaporated.
She toes off her shoes and slips into a pair of Nike slides before she takes a few more steps into the foyer, looking around.
“There it is.”
I follow her into the kitchen, liking the fact that she feels confident enough to walk around like she belongs here.
She sets the bottle on the island counter before she takes off her coat. She places it on the back of a chair. She’s wearing a black hoodie over a white dress, and she must’ve seen me looking at her because she tells me that it’s cold outside.
“You’re wearing a dress when there are ten degrees outside.”
“It’s Thanksgiving.”
“You’re not American.”
She waves me off as she looks around. “Do you have any glasses?”
“In the cupboard.”
“I didn’t want to start looking through your shit.”
“You can though.”
She nods, still smiling. “And a corkscrew.”
“In the drawers.”
I don’t tell her which cupboard or which drawer, but she finds them on the first try anyway.
She takes out two glasses and places them on the counter, before she takes a seat at the island counter and tries to open the bottle.
I go to sit next to her and take the bottle from her hands when I see her struggling.
“Show off.”
I pour the wine in our glasses before we toast.
“Soo…” she trails off. “This is your new place.”
I c**k my head as I take the wine to my lips to hide my smile.
Why do I want to smile so much?
“Valentina, are you trying to make small talk with me?”
She rolls her eyes as she takes a sip. “I’m easing into the conversation.”
“Alright, ease in then.”
“Why did you move?”
“Aurora is moving to New York next month. She got into NYU.”
“My brother goes there too. But they have online classes.”
“My dad said they’re going to go back to normal in December.”
Something changes in her face when I mention my dad. I don’t find it relevant enough to ask about it.
“How does he know?”
I shrug. “He knows a lot of shit.”
That makes her smile come back. “What did he say about the whole coke bag thing?”
“He told me to be more careful. What did yours say?”
“That I shouldn’t go around talking in alleys during a pandemic.”
“Was he mad?”
“He doesn’t really get mad. He gets disappointed.”
I nod. “That’s the worst.”
She laughs. “It f*****g is. But he loves me too much to hold it against me.”
She says it so casually that it surprises me. I’d never thought that about my dad. I have never even heard him say ‘I love you’ to me, but I have also never said it to him. I know I love him, but it’s different. Our relationship is different from the one he has with Aurora, for example. I guess father-daughter relationships are different than father-son.
“What?” she asks when she sees me in my own thoughts.
“I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“About how fathers and daughters are different from fathers and sons.”
She thinks about it. “Yeah, that’s true. There’s too much pride when it comes to a relationship between two men in the family. Like they’re afraid to show vulnerability. I see it with how he treats Adrik.”
“I think fathers expect their sons to live up to their expectations more than they do with their daughters.”
She tilts her head. “Maybe. It’s the same with mothers and daughters and mothers and sons though. I think our parents see parts of themselves in them. When I was younger, I thought my parents didn’t love me because of the things they did, but now that I’m older and I actually see them as people, I understand that everything they’ve ever done is because they love me.”
Ten minutes later we finish our glasses, so I pour another round.
She stands up once her glass is full. “I want to see the apartment.”
We exit the kitchen and I point to the room next to the front door. “That’s my office.”
“Office.” She repeats. “You have an office. How…grown up.”
I walk to the left into the living room. “This is the living room.”
“Oh wow. You still have a good view I see.”
I watch her walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooks the East River and the Statue of Liberty.
“It’s facing South.” She notices. “I like it.”
She turns around to scan the room. “This looks like my brother’s living room. Of course you have an Xbox.”
She walks over and sits on the couch, placing her glass on the coffee table so she can pull the weed tray over her lap. “Very nice.”
I smile and go to sit next to her on the couch.
She rolls a joint in two minutes then lights it up. After a few puffs, she nods her head in approval. “I trusted you on this.”
“You haven’t even tasted the wine though. After we finish your bottle, I’m opening mine.”
“I’ll need a drinking game if you want me to drink that much in an apartment.”
I smirk at her words. “Alright.” I think about it for a second. “We used to play a game I think you’ll like when we were younger.”
“Which is it?”
“Two Truths and a Lie.”
- Writer
