Lucas
The Bellini last name is powerful. It comes with certain benefits and privileges that most normal people never get the opportunity to experience. Giovanni Bellini hails from a long lineage of powerful, wealthy men on the Italian peninsula. He's from old money that can be traced as far back as the 1400s, meaning that he's never experienced a "normal life." His entire life consisted of large estates, lavish goods, and the feeling of being untouchable because money talks.
Elizabeth Holzknecht-Manzano was a German-Italian hailing from the Bronx, New York. Fast-talking and hustling were ingrained in her DNA as a way to keep her head above water and the lights on in her family's small apartment. There was no power or privilege associated with her last names that gave her an advantage in the world.
Somehow through chance and sheer luck Giovanni and Elizabeth crossed paths and the feisty waitress with the thick New York accent became Lizzie Bellini, a woman who no longer needed to work to keep the lights on because the world had been given to her.
It's a lot harder than it seems to go from one missed paycheck away from being evicted to being able to buy the entire block she grew up on. Lizzie made it her mission to give her children the most normal childhood she possibly could, knowing the privilege that they were born into.
Of course, being a Bellini isn't all privileges. There are drawbacks as well, that Lizzie couldn't prevent such as being whisked away without any notice to conferences half away across the country because Giovanni needed his entire family there to schmooze and rub elbows with other people whose last names give them extraordinary benefits.
~*~
"What does your dad do again?" Scarlett asks me through the screen. I snuck off from all the festivities of the night and have been drinking water and eating martini olives for the past hour. I'm over this night. I'm over this conference, and I'm over hot ass Houston. I just want to go back home and be with my girlfriend.
"A little bit of this and a little of that," I tell her, popping another olive in my mouth.
Scarlett scrunches up her nose and furrows her brows. She's wearing her glasses, with her hair tied up like a pineapple on top of her head. She looks like the world's cutest dork. "What does that even mean? Is he in the mafia?" She brings herself closer to the camera and raises her eyebrow.
"Where are you at? That doesn't look like my room." The bartender gives me a dirty look as I signal for more olives.
"Cause it's not. I'm in my dorm. Duh."
"Why aren't you at the house with the guys? I told you, you could stay there while I was gone."
"I didn't want to intrude on the guys. It feels weird to be there without you."
"You don't even like the dorms. You said that they're musty and you don't like Juliette so why are you still there?"
"I can hear you!" Juliette yells out. Scarlett rolls her eyes and mouths, "Bitch."
"Even more reason why you should go over to the house." I would feel a lot more comfortable being apart from Scarlett if she was at the house with the guys. Only because it seems like Scarlett gets herself in messy situations when left unattended.
"As much as I would love to spend the rest of the night chatting it up with you, I have a Chemistry exam that I need to study for." She says, ignoring my suggestion.
"So you're hanging up on me? Really? When you know that I don't want to be here?" I give her my best acting skills and pout, pretending to be upset with her.
