Jane was back, and they both knew that if the bathroom was always occupied, Hal’s love for baths was to blame. Jane had showers exactly ten minutes long.

He went out of the bath, put quickly some jeans on, and opened the door to face Jane.

Jane had a sallow complexion due to her Mediterranean origins, a little pointed face, a strict black bob cut, and big glasses. If you stopped at her head, you would think she is a stereotype of strict librarian, and her eternal haughty expression would comfort you in this idea.

But if you looked a bit down, you would discover her strapped in an emerald kimono, with black leathered trousers and long boots with high heels and waders. You would conclude that Jane is not ordinary, and you would be right, she was not.

- I hope you haven’t emptied the hot water tank. Again.

- It happened only once. And good evening, by the way, he replied with a smile.

She had one last strict glance and rushed into the bathroom.

Jane and Hal had met one year ago through their landowner, when they were both interested in the flat. Hal had immediately been seduced by the idea of flat-share, but Jane had been much less easy to convince.

He had understood who she was before even seeing her. At the very moment he had heard the sound of her heels on the floor – no on walked with heels like Jane – and the scream: “Is this one clean at least? The last moron with whom I lived used to let his hair in the shower!”

Hal smiled remembering this memory and spread some peanut butter on bread as a dinner. He was out of the bathroom for precisely ten minutes, and Jane came into the kitchen, sniffing with a disapprobative look.

- You should prepare yourself some actual food.

Herself used to eat only vegetables, but Hal was convinced she hid some sweets in a secret place that, even in a thousand years, no one would have found. Human brain was way too weak for Jane.

- How was your day? she asked, softened, while she was heating up some green stuff.

- The shooting was OK, and... Look what I’ve bought!

He took cautiously the book out of his bag, and Jane smiled. As a literature student, she knew too well how difficult it was for her flatmate to resist the temptation of new books. Her own thesis was about versification in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

- And you, what’s up?

- Long night at the Shed’s yesterday. I thought my service would never end, but we laughed a lot when we closed.

The weirdness of their hobbies was their first common point. Hal paid a part of his studies with modelling; Jane worked at The Bike Shed Restaurant, spent whole weekends on her motorbike and dreamt to win the Tourist Trophy of Isle of Man.

- Do you have something planned for Halloween? Jane asked.

- Yes.

- Meaning?

- Sweeties, season 2 of Stranger Things and Frankenstein. Why?

The question was as rhetorical as it could be. He knew perfectly what Jane was about to say.

- There is a party at Myriam’s. Come with me!

- I’m perfectly fine, thanks, he replied, knowing very well that the battle was already lost. Don’t YOU want to join me?

- There will be more sweeties at Myriam’s than here, I’m not waiting until the 31st to binge-watch Stranger Things and Frankenstein is the worst dumbass of the whole history of literature.

He smiled.

- OK, I’ll come.

Jane didn’t even smiled. She never doubted about it.

- And you’d better find a costume good enough to not make me ashamed!