Jasmine's deep slumber was interrupted by the loud noise of a phone call. With groggy eyes, she forced them open to look at the phone screen, and her mood immediately got sour looking at the contact information.
"You know Samuel, you are almost making me hate you," Jasmine spoke up with a grumpy, sleepy tone, pressing the phone close to her ear.
"It's okay, I got tons of haters. And if a hater is like you, honey, I am willing to abandon all my lovers to have you." Samuel replied with his usual cheerful voice, totally not minding the grouchy response he got instead of a greeting as any normal person would do. "I just happen to do work like that, can't help it."
"I swear, if I were my boss, I would have fired myself at least a hundred times by now."
"That's why I am your boss, honey." Samuel smiled at her words. "Now that my best-ever employee is up and awake, shall we get to some work?"
"Yeah," Jasmine got up, stretching her body to get rid of the remaining slumber before nodding her head. "Jasmine Riley, ready to report."
– – – – – –
"I didn't fck up the address, did I? Is this really the place?" Jasmine stared at the locked door, staring back at her with a strange gloomy aura with it. She was currently standing at the farthest corner of the narrow hallway, up on the first floor of a two-story building. The building was pretty run down itself, and none of the apartment doors looked quite decent enough. Compared to that, the one she was standing in front of looked a bit in better condition.
"Well, knocking won't hurt, I guess." She scratched the back of her head, and ended up knocking at the door. There was no response, quite surprisingly. "I'm sure the sound was loud enough." She knocked again, this time a bit louder than before. But yet, the result was the same.
"Don't tell me, I actually have to barge in there using this?" Jasmine looked at the key in her hands, sighing. She was reminded of the huge list full of instructions Samuel gave her this morning, before handing her this tiny metal key. "What is he, dead or something?"
Listless, she entered the key into the keyhole, and with a slight twist, the lock opened with a 'click', unlocking the door in front of her. She kept the key back in her purse, before entering the house.
"Pardon my intrusion." Just to make sure she didn't end up offending anyone inside, she peeked into the apartment, only to find the entire place submerged in darkness. "Woah, what is this, haunted house?" Jasmine tip-toed into the apartment, carefully stepping in before fumbling through the wall nearby for the switchboard. "Should be here... ah, found it." As soon as her hand felt a familiar touch of a switch socket, she flipped it, to light up the room, only to find another disaster lurking behind the darkness, awaiting to shock her.
"What the actual fuck?" Her eyes went big with shock, seeing the huge disaster in front of her. She immediately took her phone out, and opening the chatroom with Samuel, hurriedly typed out a text to him.
'Did you mistake the address?'
Samuel glanced at the text as soon as it arrived. With an arch on his brows, he sent a reply to her.
'What do you mean?'
'You were supposed to give me Mr. Klein's address. This is clearly a dumpster I'm standing in right now.'
Samuel laughed out loud, seeing the text. "Dumpster she says, that's new." He couldn't stop the grin from reaching up to his ears, so much even the others sitting in his office right now were stealing glances at him and exchanging confused and curious looks with each other.
Jasmine's phone buzzed after a bit longer than usual. And when she unlocked her phone to read the reply she got, she shouted out in shock. "This is his house? Are you fcking kidding me?"
"Nggh, who is there?" Unexpectedly, her loud wails were answered by someone from somewhere inside the apartment. Amidst this mess, it was hard to detect which direction the voice came from. But that much was obvious that it was none other than the person she was supposed to work with from now on.
"It's your damned editor, who was tricked into arriving at this dumpster." Jasmine flashed a forced smile, which was more look like a pissed one.
Suddenly, a head peeked out from the other end of a big structure which seemed like a table, in the middle of the place which at least looked like it was supposed to be a 'living room'. "Oh? You are here? Why? Who told you my address?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Klein, you are the one who said that your editor needs to work with you in person." Jasmine snapped back at him, hearing him saying completely different things from what she had heard about him from Samuel. However, that guy never told her that she is supposed to be working with a person who was messy as hell.
"I did? Oh? Is that so?" Carter looked at Jasmine with a dumbfounded expression, his eyes blinking rapidly as if to process the presence of another person, and her purpose to be here. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but instead, he let out a sigh, and rested his head on the huge table-like thing in the middle of the room.
Hold on, now that she remembers, Samuel did hand her a few cans of some sort of drink before letting her go, and all he told her was that she would be needing this. She didn't look at it or ask about it back then, but now she was heavily curious, as she took a peek into the bag in her hand.
"Jesus fcking Christ, don't tell me he is a drunkard." She read the label of the can, which clearly said it was some sort of energy drink for a hangover. "Are you telling me, I have to work with a drunkard now? Are you fucking punishing me, Samuel?"