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He rolls his eyes, scoffing. “Well, I hope that guy wasn’t too much of a fucking dork if I sound like him. It’s fifty-fifty with tennis coaches in my experience.”
The idea of Matteo needing a coach for tennis feels so incongruent with the image he’s built for himself. If you asked him to define himself to you, I’m certain he would say that he doesn’t need help with anything and was speaking perfect English out of the womb. Was there a woman in his life who he was trying to catch the attention of? Is that why he would need his form to be perfect?
Jesus, I’m really overthinking this right now. I need to focus on not making a damn fool of myself like I always do in front of him.
“You know, you look really good when you hit it hard like that,” he says after a moment of silence between us.
I’m caught off guard again, and I stop in my tracks as I lunge to hit the ball once more. It bounces off to the side, rolling into the corner of the court to joint the rest of the balls we’ve wasted.
I realize that we’re both getting sort of sweaty now, and my face is flushed, just like it was last night when he walked in on me. Is he thinking about that right now as I stare into his face? How could he not be?
“You know, I can see it now that you’ve hit it a few times. Your experience, I mean. I like a woman who has a skill, even if it’s just in sports or art or something. Having a passion for literally anything is a great quality in a person,” he continues.
“I mean, it depends on what they do with the passion. Some of the worst filmmakers on earth have gotten wildly successful because they were passionate. Have you ever seen The Room? It’s insane,” I reply, returning to my place after collecting the ball.
I serve it to him, and he smacks it out of the air, right back into the little box I’ve chosen to occupy for this moment in time. I hit it back, feeling my confidence beginning to return after an agonizing hiatus of feeling small and unworthy. It feels so good to hit something hard like that, even doubly so since I know my coworkers are being forced to work inside of a humid office.
“That’s a good point. Hey, did I tell you that I have a pool as well? It’s sort of hidden from over here, but it’s right over that wall,” he replies, pointing to a brick wall that divides one half of the estate from the other.
“Damn, you really do have everything, don’t you? It must be so hard to leave all your stuff behind to join us in the real world sometimes,” I say as respectfully as I can while also being a tease.
Now that I’m on the same level as him without my nerves being in a bundle, I’m having a lot more fun acting demure and coquettish for him. Based on the way he’s responding to me, I’m under the impression that he hasn’t had this much fun with a woman in a long time.
“Do you bring dates out here a lot?” I ask without thinking.
He pauses, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. “This isn’t a date.”
I freeze again, straightening my back as I attempt to collect myself again. “No, no, I didn’t mean that we were. I just thought that this would be a good place to bring someone to try to impress them. It’s nice, that’s all I meant by it.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Most of the women I’ve brought back to my place weren’t really interested in using any of my stuff. All that mattered to them was that I had it to begin with. I’d say that a majority of the time, they didn’t even listen to a word I said about myself. They were all too invested in who I was as a dangerous businessman.”
Well, now I’m curious.
“What do you mean? Like they only cared about the fact that you were rich, but nothing about who you are as a person?” I ask.
“Yeah, something like that. It was great at first, because I didn’t really give a fuck about them either, but after a while it started to wear on me. I was nothing but a prop to fill out an expensive suit. I was a great asset to them when I was paying for their meals, clothes, and vacations, but they vanished the second anything went south in my life. In the mafia, that tends to happen a lot.”
I’m about to serve the ball again when his last statement hits me in the chest. He doesn’t truly expect anyone to want to be with him because his life is too chaotic for them. My heart breaks a little, and I’m frantically searching for the proper response. I’d hate to say the wrong thing and make him angry.
Almost as if he can detect my pity, he clears his throat and speaks again. “I mean, it isn’t so bad. At least I don’t have to worry about being totally invisible to women, but it would be nice if some of them liked me as a person.”
I’d attempt to say something comforting, but I’m not sure that I’m equipped to make him feel better. I can’t imagine what kind of weight that would have on me if I were only liked for the stuff I had and not who I am. I mean, it’s not like I’ve had men falling at my feet for my whole life like someone who might be more attractive than me, but at least I’ve never had to worry about being used for that reason.
On the other hand, complaining aboutanythingas a powerful, attractive millionaire seems a little tone-deaf. I’ll have to reframe that aspect of his personality in a different light when I’m writing about him. Even if he isn’t in charge of a sex trafficking ring, none of my readers are going to give a shit if they perceive his vulnerability as whining. I know that if I weren’t impossibly attracted to him, I would be put off by his comments as well.
I mean, I’ve heard women talk about the dark side of being beautiful, and it always annoyed the hell out of me when I’d have to endure their complaints. So, why don’t I feel the same contempt for Matteo as strongly?
The bias I have toward him is going to start showing through as soon as I begin writing this piece. I’ve spent the last week or so gathering information about him from all angles, but some of the more difficult topics will be a struggle to write about. I want to save his reputation, and he’s entrusted me with doing so, but I’m worried I won’t be able to present him in an objective light.
“Can you tell me something about you that might surprise other people? Something you’re willing to reveal to them if it might help clear your name?” I ask, hitting the ball back onto his side of the court as he serves it to me.
“Like what? Something related to my family?” he replies, somewhat confused.
“I mean, your siblings and parents, maybe. Not your ‘family’,” I say, doing the best I can not to sound disrespectful with the emphasis I put on the wordfamily.He has to know that talking too much about his mafia involvement isn’t going to shed an empathetic light on him, no matter how much good he and his men have done for the community.
To my relief, he laughs at my comment. His laugh is lighthearted and not weighted by sarcasm or contempt, so I feel like I’m really getting somewhere with him.
“Uh, yeah. The problem is that those two families are very much the same. However, I’ll stop giving you a hard time and answer your question. When I was a teen, my brothers and I would escape into the woods behind our house to pretend we were orphans on the run from kidnappers. My parents were very absent, with my mother abusing her benzo prescription and my father working all day in his shop. It felt easier to act like we didn’t have parents than to try to make sense of the ones we had.”
