favorite crime [h.s]

two

Setting everything up in my office takes a lot more time than I thought. By the time it's midday, the sun has reached my window and is now fully shining into the room, lightening up the space. Since I'm done and hungry anyway, I will go down to the cafeteria now.

I grab the handle of the door leading to the cafeteria, when it suddenly opens from the other side. I quickly jump to the side to dodge the guy that doesn't care if he knocks me over.

I freeze right there with one hand holding the door, my eyes following the silhouette of a man walking further away from me as he heads to the elevators.

Woah, baby.

As scary as he looks, he is hot as hell. Hints of dark tattoos peek from beneath his shirt and reach up to his neck, and a glistening earring hangs from one ear. I only caught a little glimpse of his face, but long enough to remember the features. A silver lipring clung to his bottom lip, and not a line of ink touched his skin.

I decide to forget about him as I head into the cafeteria and grab something to eat.

I sit down at an empty table to have my peace. I just hope that this won't happen every day and I won't have to talk to him again. I'm only here for my work and not to find out what his tattoos are all about.

I see a silhouette in front of me, and tilt my head up to look at an unfamiliar girl in front of me. She's smiling kindly with her perfect teeth. I immediately notice her short brown hair and the fact that she looks just as young as I am. I offer her a smile in return.

"May I sit here?" She asks in a soft voice, and I nod immediately. I could need some company.

"Of course," I reply, and she climbs over the bench across from me and sits down.

"I'm June."

"Alison."

"Are you new here? I've never seen you around." she starts.

The food is surprisingly good, nothing like the cafeteria food in high school.

"Yeah, I am," I grin proudly. "First day."

"First days are always fun," she replies. "I remember how nervous I was, but you seem pretty relaxed, huh?"

"Mhm." I nod. "Zayn was showing me around the building. That was cool, but I wasn't nervous."

"Oh yeah, Zayn is a cool lad, everyone loves him," she agrees, and I can see why everyone loves him. He seems so unbothered and knows everyone, even if they don't like him. "What do you do?"

"I'm a journalist," I tell her, "it want to become one. This is only me collecting experience."

"I'm an accountant. Boring, I know, but that's off point," she trails off. "I saw you earlier when a guy almost knocked you over, when he left the cafeteria," she recalls the events and I nod. "His name is Harry and we're ... acquaintances. I hope you're okay, though."

I shake my head and chuckle. "It was nothing. I bump into rude people all the time."

She nods and offers me a small smile as I drink from my glass of water. I decided to hurry up a bit since Zayn is coming to my office later.

"Okay, Alison, I need to go now, so I'll just see you tomorrow?" She stands up with her plate. I assume she means that we'll eat lunch tomorrow again.

"Yeah, sure, bye." I wave at her.

Soon after, I left the table too and went back to the elevator to get to my office's floor. I push the button with the number 15 on it and then stand back to watch the doors close. A body sneaks through the small crack before they can fully close.

My eyes widen as I watch the small brown haired guy lean against the opposite wall of the elevator. He's panting heavily, possibly out of breath from running. The elevator moves up as he pushes the button to the twenty-fifth floor.

I remember him as the guy who I've already met earlier.

"Sorry, love, I'm in a bit of a rush." He lets out a breathy chuckle, glancing at me.

"It's okay⎯"

"Hey, we met earlier, right?" he grins amusedly. "Crazy how small the world is."

"Yeah. Crazy," I murmur.

"I gotta apologize for my friend, Niall can be an asshole at times," he reasons.

I shake my head. "Don't worry, I know about those."

He stares at the floor numbers as the elevator moves. "This ride is too short for you to tell your story," he teases.

I squint my eyes at him. He seems like a totally decent guy, nothing like the prick I met earlier. He's seriously fine and has some kind of humor too.

When he looks at me, he frowns and tilts his head in confusion. "I'm Louis. You're the journalist, aren't you?"

"I am," I confirm. "How do you know that?"

"Well, there's only one, and that's you." He shrugs and then reaches for his phone in his pocket, done with the conversation.

Even though it doesn't answer my question, I don't have time to ask again. The elevator halts on my floor and the doors open. Without another word, I exit the small space and walk down the hallway to get to my office.

I opened the door and nearly jumped when I saw Zayn already standing there, facing the large window with his back turned to me. He senses my arrival and turns around, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Always lock the door when you leave the room, Alison," he tells me subtly.

"Okay, I forgot," I excuse.

"Don't do it again. It's professional to lock one's office, but you're learning, and now you know it. " He rubs his nose and walks over to the few papers on the desk.

I decided to follow him and walk behind him around the table. I sit down on the chair while he's standing beside me, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"As a journalist, you need to have certain incidents you can write about, right?" It's not much of a question since the answer is obvious.

"Mhm," I nod.

"Well, Philadelphia has a pretty high rate of crimes, and wouldn't it be exciting if you wrote about these bank robberies and stuff? Someone brings you the undetailed information about the crimes, and you can write the story around it. " He reads off the paper, but I only raise my eyebrows since that caught me by surprise.

"I'm sorry, what? I need to write about robberies that happen every day?" I ask for clarification. I'm not familiar with writing about crimes that have happened, but thinking about it it does sound exciting.

"Exactly," He nods. "And here are your first information on the bank robbery which happened a few days ago." He places a single piece of paper on the desk in front of me.

Crime: Bank robbery/Murder
Place: Central bank, Philadelphia
Date: June 13th, 2019
Stolen: $30,000,000
Killed: 12
Injured: 3
Escape: Helicopter
Criminals have yet to be caught

"O-okay," I mumble after I've read the words.

"Okay, great, once you're done writing, you can send it to Christian. Sometimes, there are documents such as mugshots or evidence and pictures of the crime scene included, and you can bring them up in your story."

"Alright," I nod.

"Good, I'll leave now and if you have more questions you can always come to my office, it's a floor above yours," Zayn heads to the door and turns around to wait for an answer.

"I will find you," I chuckle. "Thanks, Zayn."

" 'Course." He smiles before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

A loud sigh escapes my mouth, and I slouch back in the chair, frustrated about this whole situation. I immediately started working on the article so that I'm finished as soon as possible.