D.A. Smith: So many thank yous (is that how you write it in plural form?) to all of you who kept on reading even after my long disappearance. I know I have to win you all back. I know I was gone way too much. And I am truly sorry. I hope I won't let you down this time you like the next chapter.

A big welcome to miischal, belle shaye, and applejacks0808.

CHAPTER 9

His pillow smelled of shampoo. Coconut. If I had imagined a shampoo Sherlock would use it certainly wouldn't be coconut. I expected something brainier. I don't know. Cucumber. Aloe-vera. I don't know, something greener and less fruity.

But it was coconut. And it smelled delicious, and I found myself taking it in the morning after. I suddenly asked myself what was I doing there. I never imagined I would be smelling his pillow. Not in the whole week of meeting him. Not as fast. Here we were. One week of knowing each other and I was in his bed.

He was not there, obviously. I mean, in his bed. He was just below. Fun fact? He snores. Tiny, little snores. It's even cute. It's like in that movie, Hercules, when Pegasus is snoring as a baby.

I knew I had to get out of there. My interview would take place in a couple of hours. So I put my foot down and tiptoed to the door, making sure I wouldn't wake him or trip over him. But he was Sherlock Holmes and I was just a mortal. Of course he knew I was going out.

"Remember your strengths and weaknesses." He'd muttered as I opened the door.

I looked back at him. He was laying on the floor, wearing blue pajamas with a thin sheet over him. I suddenly felt guilty of depriving him of his bed. What was I thinking?! But he was so nice to offer it for me. He didn't even have to. I was completely disposed to sleep on the floor if that meant no bedbugs. "What do you mean?"

"They'll probably ask your strengths and weaknesses." His voice sounded tired. "Strength: Intelligence. Honorability. Weakness: Workaholic, Hardworking. Intelligence."

I chuckled, "You think I'm intelligent?"

"Get over yourself." He said half-smirking, "That's what you are supposed to say in an interview. That you are the best at everything."

"Yeah, but intelligence as a weakness?"

He sighed and turned over, getting into a fetal position to continue sleeping. "It is a curse, sometimes," He muttered and said no more on the matter.

I looked at him for a moment. He looked so…calm. And with him not talking, just sleeping, or actually laying, like that, made me feel a warmth in my heart that made me smile. Like his tiny snores.

Carefully, I stepped out, still smiling, went back to my room, took a shower and went down for breakfast in my brand new dress. I wasn't sure anymore about my dress but maybe it was just the nerves talking.

Lila was already downstairs and, for all the obvious reasons, wanted to know where I had been and I told her about my fear of bedbugs and how I crashed at Sherlock's. She didn't believe me. She insisted I wanted a so-called booty call but I obviously denied it.

Please. Me and Sherlock Holmes?! He's so….I don't know. I guess he's kind of…mysterious. Insufferable. But smart. He has nice eyes….. He and I could never happen. He is so….and I'm so….

I guess if I had to picture the perfect woman for him, she would be tall. Brunette. Blue eyes and perfect skin. She had to be as intelligent as he is. He had to put him in his place once in a while and I am so not that person. I'm not…I'm not a cute snorer. Whoever gets him has to snore as cute as he does. Not, you know, wake up in a pool of saliva.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm thinking about this, I told Lila I had to sleep and he slept on the floor because he wanted to. He offered his bed. His bedbug-less bed. And that he had found my scholarship ring, to which she asked a horrible question. "How can you be sure he wasn't the one that stole it to begin with?"

"Why would he? Why would he steal it and return it?" That seemed highly illogical.

She shrugged. "Maybe he was bored. Maybe he wanted to make friends whatever the cost. I don't know! Who knows what goes on in that head of his."

"He just doesn't seem that way." Someone who snores that cute couldn't be a thief. Someone who offers their bed couldn't be a thief.

"Molly, think. Why wouldn't he tell you where he got the ring from."

"I didn't…ask." Why hadn't I asked? Did I just trust him like that? I didn't really know him. I had just met him. But still, there was something in me telling me he was telling the truth.

"How did he know we were robbed?!" Lila insisted, throwing her arms around. "He just came to us all excited and he knew. He knew we were robbed. Because he did it." It scared me how, every second that passed, Lila seemed more and more confident in her theory. But I didn't want to believe it.

I stood up and said, "I have to go. I'm going to be late to my interview." I just wanted to get away from her. "Talk to you later."

"You can't be that trusting, Molly. You can't be so blind."

I rolled my eyes and walked away.

As I waited for my interview, Lila's words resonated in my head. What if he had done it? He was crazy. But was he mad enough to pull something like that? Maybe I had to ask. But how do you ask without sounding as if I was accusing him? Probably just by asking to tell me how he found it.

Yes. Today, after class, I'll ask him to explain.

"Molly Hooper?" A woman asked, poking her head out from an office. I stood up, trying to unwrinkled and clean my dress with my hands and smiled as if I was not worried. As if I was not nervous. As if who I was beginning to consider my friend might, or might not, be a thief.

My heart raced. I think I was more worried about Sherlock than about this interview. Damn it, Lila. Why?!