The next morning, all her linen shirts and trousers were perfectly ironed and folded. Everything waited on the sofa in the living room, near her dark blue suitcases. As soon as her eyes fell on it, she was surprised. She just needed ten minutes to put all her stuff and she would be ready to leave. When she entered the kitchen, she saw two of her friends sitting at the table. They were in the middle of a conversation.  The place smelled of freshly brewed coffee and burnt toasts. “Morning, guys!” “Good morning! We didn’t expect you to get up so early.” Mike welcomed her with a smile plastered to his face. He got up and pushed back a chair at the table for her. “Good morning, baby.” Matthew muttered. His face wasn’t shaved, he had wet hair combed back to his head. He looked grumpy. “Take a seat, I made a Russian earl grey for you and a few pancakes.” Mike started to put some food on the table. “Thank you.” “Yo

“What are you pretending to be, Matthew?” Jo asked unexpectedly.“We pretend that we know women.” Mike answered her question.“That’s interesting, my friends. So why are you still single?” She asked them both.Only silence answered her. They both stood and looked at her as if they didn't understand her interrogations. Was it a rhetorical question? She supposedly knew that very well so why did she scratch their wounds?Finally, Chris came to the conclusion that it would be appropriate to say something.“A good question, guys!”“Don't get smart here, we'll see how you survive this trip with my sister!” Mike immediately chided him.“Man, as you said yourself, every monster is an amateur in front of an experienced monster, so we'll wait for that day.” Chris summed it up briefly. Everyone reacted with laughter.Under the passport control sector, they had t

“How was your flight, ladies?” Jo asked Rose and Eva, who was happily waving to her. She didn’t give a shit about it. She had to get rid of them as quickly as possible; she had to take her luggage home and go to work. She was sure that if she would engage herself in discussions with them, they wouldn't finish until the end of the day. ‘What a headache! Who else do I have to avoid, today?’ She wondered.“The trip was fine!” Eva said enthusiastically. “Jo, would like to join us for lunch?”“Thank you, ladies. I wish I could, but I still have to go to work today.”“What about having coffee with us?” Rose insisted. “My brother is waiting in the arrival hall, he will be happy to meet you.”‘Damn! What a day! She was quite close to her good-looking brother. Who else?’ Thoughts swirled in Jo’s head. ‘Is this not the end of all these coin

Jo was pissed. She could take a lot, but not the fact of publishing her photos, printed in shitty tabloids. She didn’t deserve such humiliation. It was below all her values, and moral and ethical standards.She knew Julian was a ruthless, unscrupulous bastard who could walk over the dead just to achieve his goal. As long as she had known and remembered him, that's how he has been. He could do absolutely anything to tease Mike. Besides, it was not only him that gave him a hard time, but also the whole group of them.She was glad that Julian wasn’t around, or else she would have surely given him a hard beating, blood would have spilled, because she had no mercy for such assholes. This time, Jo had to be sure that Julian would get a generous punishment; he deserved it.After careful re-examining all the published photos in the tabloid, she was sure that someone had chosen the frames very carefully, and knew exactly what he or she was doing. The point of

Matthew realized that not everything was as he thought it seemed to be. He had to rethink everything, taking into account the circumstances he had omitted. In actuality, he was even disappointed that he had missed significant facts.He looked around her kitchen, which looked strangely similar to his. ‘We have more in common than I knew!’ Matthew thought as he studied the space carefully.Jo’s kitchen had a rectangular shape and was quite long. On the wall, in front of the front door, was a huge window, consisting of three parts. There were no curtains, only cream-colored blinds and a few pots of herbs on the windowsill. He immediately recognized parsley, coriander, chives, dill and basil.By the window stood a small wooden table, the same color as the kitchen countertops, the short edge adjacent to the wall under the window; with four stools, two each, on the longer edges on which grey cushions were placed.On two walls along the kitchen