Murder To Excellence

21.

Rose wanted to work hard since she felt like she had abandoned Hazel and Denise in the time she was absent. Both Hazel and Denise didn’t blame her for not being as present as she used to be, since they obviously not only knew about Rose’s grandparents’ death, but Rose decided to tell them every single other thing she hadn’t told them yet in detail.

“I’m tired!” Denise whined, banging her head against the island in the kitchen. “Let’s just stop.”

“No, Denise, we can’t. We’re almost done!” It was obvious Rose felt very guilty as she had been an absolute workaholic that day.

“Nope, I’m giving up too,” Hazel murmured and made her way to the fridge.

A sudden knock on Rose’s front door appeared and all three their heads snapped to one direction. Denise being sick and tired of working offered to open it and she ran to the door. She came back walking in with Donat and Tobiasz following her behind while the two gave her apartment a good look.

Rose felt a little freaked out, because she had met these guys just yesterday and had no idea how they knew where she lived.

“Kochana,” Tobiasz snapped her out of her thoughts and that’s when she realized he was holding a bouquet of flowers—red roses to be exact. “Here. For you.” He handed her the flowers, but of course didn’t leave it at that. He put the icing on the cake by kissing her cheek.

“Uh… thank you?” she kept wondering where this interest came from. The pet names, compliments and now this. It wasn’t like she minded; the two men were very good looking and even though Fabienne had sort of warned her, she fell for it.

“You can sit down in the living room, I’ll be right there. Let me just look for a vase.” It was harder than she thought it’d be to hold them. Tobiasz seemed to be holding the flowers with such ease, but it was quite a task for Rose to hold on to six dozens of roses.

“Let me help you!” Denise offered quickly, being completely captivated by the two men in front of her. When Donat and Tobiasz left, Denise continued, “Fuck, who’s Mr. Wentworth Miller?”

Rose knew immediately Denise was talking about Donat. “He’s one of Raphael’s friends, from Poland.”

“Jesus Christ…” Denise breathed and leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’m having breathing problems.”

“Oh, shut up!” Hazel rolled her eyes. “You’re so extra.”

“I don’t know about you guys,” Denise started and fixed her now black hair in the reflection of the oven and pouted a little, “I’m going to keep the guests, one in particular, company.” She applied a little lipstick before actually leaving.

After a lot of struggling to get the seventy-two roses into one vase, Hazel and Rose too went to go see what was up with Donat and Tobiasz. They had joined Taylor on the couch and it was visible she wasn’t having any of this at all.

“Rose, how about we take you out to dinner?” Donat spoke. Denise sat next to him on the couch, but he didn’t seem very impressed. “You, Tobiasz and I.” 

“No thank you, I’m not hungry.”

“Hookah then, let’s go to a shisha lounge,” Tobiasz added quickly. She, again, didn’t know what to say. She wanted to say no since she didn’t know these guys at all. But how bad could they really be? They were Raphael’s friends after all and she knew he didn’t do friends, that only making it more surprising these three were actual friends. They also seemed like complete opposites.

Looking closely and watching intently, you’d understand how these three were very much alike. They all had a dark side. Raphael’s side was way more visible—basically all the time—while Donat and Tobiasz’s wasn’t all the time. But once you’d get these three mad, they were plain dangerous.