Mystery Loves Company

Chapter 58 - File #6.13 - The Partners in Crime

My body got into shock when an alarm sound pierced through my ears. Still with heavy eyes, I got up, feeling beaten up because of the hard ground I was sleeping on. My eyes darted to each corner of the room, looking for the source of the loud noise. It came from Noel's phone on one of the nightstands.

Nothing I've never heard before. Usually in our room, he would wake up at the first ring and started his day right away while I was still dancing in my dream land. But now, the owner of the phone was sleeping soundly on the bed, with his head rested peacefully on the soft pillow.

"Oh, for God's sake!" I shouted. I threw his ringing phone to his body. I fell asleep on the carpet, working on the documents, while he got a time to move to a comfortable bed? Unbelievable!

Noel moved. He opened his eyes and stretched his body. When he could make up his surrounding and noticed his never-ending alarm sound, he hastily sat on the bed.

"Oh, no, I miss my class!" He cried. The alarm was finally turned off, but at what cost? Now his whining filled the room.

"God, it's just one class!"

He shot a deadly stare at me. "Unlike a certain someone, I'm not living off a minimum GPA."

It took me a minute to realize that he was talking about me. I checked my phone as well to see if I actually missed some classes, but since there were no angry texts from Kyle, I guessed I was safe for now. On a different note, Laura hadn't replied anything. For a second, I felt so disappointed.

"Should we just continue this in our room?" I asked, but when I turned around and found Noel walking back and forth while being on the phone with someone. He looked anxious. Moments later, a relief was drawn on his face.

"The professor is sick, so there's no class. Lucky me," he smiled.

"We won't be lucky if we don't get these done," I scoffed. I casted a glance to the scattered papers—I thought we had sorted these up last night, why were they still dispersed everywhere? "Uh... Where were we last night?"

"Separating Pierce's and Zoe Sorensen's notes and sorting out Rickard's suspicious activities," reminded Noel. "I want to get a coffee downstairs. You want anything?"

"A smoothie," I replied while turning my head left and right. "Where are the other files?"

"You sit on them," said Noel. "Vending machine doesn't have smoothies."

I jumped to the side and found several papers from Rickard's folder were lacerated as I accidentally used them as a mattress. An unreasonable anger built up inside me, and I just yelled, "Then get me anything!"

"Okay, okay... Definitely not caffeine," Noel commented.

I sighed as I grabbed a handful of my hair. "It's like I'm living my own nightmare."

"Facing a dead end in a case?"

"Turning into you," I corrected.

Noel sneered at me, but then he softened. "You can relax a bit. I don't remember you being this cranky with your deadlines coming up."

"That's because we've never been in the same room when it happened," I huffed. Since when did I behave like Noel? He was always angry every time I took a breath, and now it was the opposite. "It's either you're not sleeping at the dorm, or me finishing it at Kyle's house."

Noel's mouth formed an 'O'. "I know the election is in two days, but it's no good if we're rushing this."

"Sure." I shut my mouth after to avoid another snarky comment that clearly didn't help in this situation, and Noel finally left for coffee.