Their Little Princess

Chapter Fifty-Eight

A few minutes after my talk with Nonna, Mateo invites me down to hang out with him. I follow him into the basement, he has the game controller in his hand, the basement is nothing like the basement back in Seattle. It's covered wall to wall with white carpet, a large flat screen TV on the wall, surrounded with bean bag chairs with a couple couches and a mini-fridge beside the TV stand. It's beautiful. But I hesitate on the stairs. My heart starts to beat slightly faster at the thought of going down here. Mateo looks back at me, suddenly realizing I'm no longer following him. I can't bring myself to take another step toward the basement.

"Are you okay?" He asks, I can hear the concern in his voice.

"I um..." I don't know how to back out of this without embarrassing myself. My hand tightens around the white bannister.

"We can hang out in my room instead," He offers.

Relief washes over me, "Yeah."

"Okay, one second. Let me turn the TV off," He takes the stairs a few at a time.

I go back upstairs to wait for him there. I exhale, I don't know what that was. Am I scared of basements?! I feel so fucking stupid.

He comes upstairs with a friendly grin, "Done."

.    .    .

Mateo lies on his back on his beanbag, playing the game on his TV. Its mounted to the wall. His room kind of reminds me of Carlo's from back home, but it follows more of a pastel-darks color scheme and I feel like his mom designed it.

I sit cross-legged at the bottom of the bed. I was killed off about 5 minutes ago, so I just watch him play, my remote sitting on the bed beside me.

He's really into the game, I just scroll mindlessly on my phone until he loses, dropping his remote on the floor beside. He huffs, tossing himself into a laying position on the beanbag, tilting his head back more to look at me where I'm now laying on my stomach on his bed, my elbows propping me up.

"You suck at this game," He teases.

"Says the guy who just lost."

"I lasted longer than you did," He says.

I roll my eyes and he grins, walking over to his dresser and grabbing the soda he brought up with him. 

"Didn't you have another brother?" I ask.

"Vittorio?" He asks, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, leaning back on the beanbag. I sit up on the mattress, crossing my legs again and looking at him, "Yeah, he's not here?"

"Nope, he's in college. He's not coming until tomorrow and then he has to leave right after."

"Oh, really? Does he go to Harvard? My friend's brother goes there."

"He goes to University of Washington. I think," He says.

I perk up, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, why?" He says curiously.

"That's like 10 minutes away from my friends house!" 

He looks like he's thinking, "Wait, we should ask Vittorio if we can visit. He lets me visit sometimes, and he can drive us to see your friends."

"Will he mind? I should probably ask my brothers before asking my cousin though right?" I say thoughtfully, looking at the wall as I consider it.

"No, because Vittorio's gonna want you to come over, and he hasn't seen me in a while, so he doesn't hate me right now, and then if your brothers make a problem of it, Vittorio's already gonna be on our side. We just have to make sure your brothers don't hear until Vittorio agrees," He says, with a proud smile having thought it through in so little time.