The babysitters club|| Steve Harrington

4

"—The power went out" His father was saying as Matteo let himself into his house. "Entire town— even a few towns over. That's all everyone was talking about. I'm telling you, Lucia, one of these days this whole technology business—"

"—Is going to get out of hand," Matteo recited what he had heard a hundred times over as he grew up. He gave his father a half grin as he walked into view. How his parents never heard his key in the door or his loud stomping was a mystery to him, but it also allowed him to sneak out easily so he wasn't complaining.

His father spared him a small glance of acknowledgement and an upward nod before he went back to watching the television. It was mostly the same thing— talking about the power outage from earlier.

"Mio caro" His mother started fussing as soon as she laid her eyes on him, "What happened to your forehead?"

"Just bumped into the freezer when the power went out" He waved off her concern, "That's what you were talking about right?"

"I was," Christopher agreed quickly, "I told her— technology is risky. You see it in those movies you love so much, right? The robot uprisings and what-not? You kids have no idea how it was back in our day. Simpler times, and now you have this big mall taking business away from your mother"

"Mamma and a hundred other people" Matteo sighed, "I know"

He let his mother plant a kiss on his cheek. Lucia DeAngelo was a tiny woman, making it clear that Matteo had not inherited his height genes from her. She stood at barely 5'3", but her steely gaze could turn the most stoic and tough man into jelly on trying to mess with her. Her hair was a dark brown, curls cascading down her back which she had pulled back in a ponytail for now. And her gray eyes were the only similarity between her and her son- other than their cheekbones and similar mannerisms.

Christopher Davis on the other hand was a complete opposite— a softie. Matteo had heard the story a million times, how his grandfather had moved to Indiana when he was fleeing from the second world war. They ended up moving in next to Christopher Davis and it was a cute friends turned into highschool sweethearts sort of romance. Matteo would never have something like that, but he was happy his parents did.

"Please no more talk of that hideous mall, must you work there, Matteo?" Lucia retired to the kitchen.

"Mamma, I told you. I make good money. Better than I would at the diner. When business comes back— and it will, I'll come back too. Like dad said— robot uprising and technology taking over or something"

"I never said robot uprising" The man frowned.

Matteo never really believed his father's rants, talking about the good old days (Yeah right, the good old days when people like his son could be killed just because of suspicion, although that was still very possible). He talked about how easy kids these days had it with electricity (as if Christopher existed in a time before electricity was invented), and phones so they could easily talk to their friends' house from their own, and a billion other things he had a problem with.

His father never ran out of things to complain about.

But just in case... in the unfortunate and probably unlikely possibility of an alien invasion or a robot uprising, Matteo was going to stick with his dad. He'd always been very polite to machines and had given Matteo his signature light brown hair, though the cheekbones were from his mother's side.

"I brought home some leftover pizza" his mom called, bringing the plates. Matteo offered to help, but she just swatted his hand away, "Go wash up, you smell like ice cream"

"And that's a bad thing, how?"

"You smell like rotten milk" She amended.

So Matteo complied. They lived in an apartment complex, nothing fancy. Just a two bedroom apartment big enough for all three of them. Big enough because no one really stayed there longer than they had to.