Chapter 7.2 - Matteo

"Eddie!" Pia exclaims, crossing her arms and looking at Matteo for a second. It's hard for  Matteo to think of her as Vinnie's twin. Even though she's about to turn 21 in April, he  thinks of her like he thinks of Aurora: a younger sibling who needs to be protected. The fact  that she usually keeps to herself and sometimes acts childish just enhances his image of her.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Vinnie asks.

Pia shakes her head, relaxing, and looks at Matteo again. 

"Do you have a crush?" Isabella asks, turning to look at her.

"What? No!" she says, looking down at her phone.

"You do."

Eddie screams at the TV when Matteo scores a goal, which takes the attention away from the  conversation. 

"What do you want to do for our birthday?" Pia asks Vinnie after they've cleared two bottles  of wine and are now watching some random show on Comedy Central.

Vinnie takes a hit from the bong Eddie brought and thinks about it for a second. "Uhh,  whatever you want to do I guess."

Matteo smiles. Obviously, Vinnie is too lazy to even think about that because his favorite part  is having fun, just like Matteo. Vinnie likes leaving the organizing to his sister, and Matteo to  Isabella. It has been working like this since they had their first party without parents present.

"I want to go to Ibiza." Pia says without even thinking about it.

"Oooh yes, I vote yes!" Isabella says and turns to look at the boys with an excited look on her  face. "Let's go to Ibiza."

And as usual, the boys agree to everything the girls think of, because they always make it  fun. All they have to do is show up.

Isabella and Pia start making the invite list even though it's more than two months away, just  because there's nothing to do anyway.

"Do I put Allison and Sophia on here?" Pia asks in an accusing tone and looks between  Vinnie and Matteo.

"Why do you always put them together?" Vinnie asks.

"Because they're besties, aren't they?" Pia replies in a sweet voice that's meant to be  annoying Vinnie even more.

"Maybe they can call the police this time too." Isabella jokes and Pia laughs.

"I don't care what you do about Allison, it's your party and she's not my girlfriend  anymore." Matteo tells her. He'll find someone to go home with anyway, if he wants to.

"If you invite Sophia, I'm sure she won't call the police anymore. She said she's sorry."  Vinnie says.

"Are you kidding me?" Isabella exclaims. "If she comes, then Allison comes. And how many  more times do they have to fuck you over until you move on?" she asks, looking at Vinnie.

"I agree." Pia says and points at Isabella.

"My birthday is before yours, why are we even discussing it now?" Marco groans, sick of  Isabella's high pitched angry voice.

"It's both of our birthdays, not just yours." Vinnie reminds her. "If I want to invite Sophia,  I'll invite her." 

Isabella gets even angrier now and stands up, grabbing her glass. "I'm going to sleep,  goodnight."

"Aw, come on Izzy!" Vinnie yells after her but she flips him off as she stumbles back into the  hallway, in search of the room she shares with Pia.

Matteo watches the door closing behind her and thinks it's weird that she'd get so upset over  Sophia and Allison attending. Usually, she just makes snarky comments but never actually  gets mad. 

"We stopped playing or what?" Eddie nudges him and he snaps back to the TV.  "You wish."

***

He spends Valentine's Day in the club with his friends because they're having a special  'single's only' event suggested by Isabella a few days ago, and since Aurora  didn't want to have her birthday there, they hosted "Valentine's Dead". It was a huge  success.

Everybody got dressed up and the club was packed, Aleksi was there with his usual deliveries,  and everyone was happy. Things were back to normal.

Now that it's way past midnight and Matteo is on the way home in a taxi, he remembers that  it's the 15th. Which means Aurora just turned 18 and celebrated somewhere else in New  York, since she was going to the school in the city.

"Hello? Happy birthday!" he says, still pumped from the cocaine.

"Thank youuu" Aurora says on the other line, slurring her words.

"Where are you?" 

"With a friend."

"Who?"

She sighs into the phone. "You don't know him."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

Raisa looks at him from the other side of the taxi. Matteo watches her for a moment before  turning his head back to look out the window. The streets are still covered in snow and it's  cold outside. He left the club without a jacket because he couldn't feel vii the cold from the  alcohol and drugs.

"Don't start, Matteo. Marco has already asked like ten times and now I think dad suspects something. Let me enjoy becoming an adult."

"As if you're an adult." Matteo snorts. "Anyway, take care of yourself, okay?"

"I always do." She says. "Have a good night." She says in a tone that lets Matteo know she  knows he's with a girl headed back from the club.

"I will. You too. But I want you at the club next month."

"Promise."

He hangs up and looks at Raisa. She's on her phone, hands shaking as she texts someone.

"Hey." He says and she looks up at him, smiling as he leans in to kiss her. Raisa kisses  too aggressively for Matteo's taste, but she's crazy in bed because there's nothing she  wouldn't do. He also knows that she's beginning to fall for the idea of him, and it  won't end well for her if she makes it into something more.

Raisa straddles him without any regard for the driver and starts kissing down the left side of  his neck. He slips his hand under her black dress to find that she's not even wearing  underwear. He knows she's got daddy issues, especially since her father died and is maybe trying to live out her fantasies through him. Matteo just lets her, by fucking her real good  until she can't breathe, then actually listening to her problems when she talks.

He never asks her out on purpose, which is one of the things he's started doing so the girls he  hooks up won't make it into something more, but somehow it still happens. He could go the  continuous one-night-stand mode (which worked for a few months until he realized he wasn't  even satisfied), and he could try to get it up for random prostitutes or girls he picked up without even  knowing their names. 

She moans into his ear in the elevator and he unzips her dress before they even  enter his apartment. One minute later she's naked, straddling him on the couch in the living  room, looking over his shoulder at the view of the city. He sucks on her pierced nipple,  focusing on getting it up with all the cocaine and alcohol in his system. Without him even  asking her, she gets on her knees in front of him and smiles.

The reason he prefers having a few "fuck-buddies" as he likes to call them, is because they  already know each other's body so it's more pleasurable than having a new person every single time.  And if he wakes up next to them, he at least wants to know who they are. Trust is also an  important part, ever since one of his one-night stands stole two of his watches and  posted about it on Twitter in 2018.

He had to come to terms with the fact that anyone who would g****e his name would see how much money his family has. The statistics on the internet didn't even showcase a quarter of the wealth he knew his father had acquired over the years.

He goes to sleep an hour later, after having had sex for forty minutes and taking a shower afterwards. A part of him wishes she'd be gone by the time he wakes up.

----

I knooooow this is a slow burn, but it will be worth it very soon ;)

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')

xoxo,

Ronnie