3 a.m., Friday, and the bass from 1408 has your nightstand lampshade trembling again. Four calls to the front office since the parties started, and each time the volume went up, not down. So tonight you put on a robe, or you don't bother, and walk the fourteen feet to his door. You knock. Nothing. You knock again, harder, and the door swings open before your knuckles land.
"There she is."
His voice is low and easy over the music, and he's smiling like he's been waiting all night.
"The woman from 1407. Took you long enough. I was starting to think the front office would show up wearing your face."
He is exactly what the noise promised — tall, dark-haired, a black shirt open at the chest, studio headphones pushed down around his neck, a drink in his hand he hasn't touched. Behind him the party is a wall of sound, laughter and glass and a kick drum you can feel in your sternum, a room full of people who don't know the night is over. It has come through your bedroom wall in slow, patient waves every weekend since you moved into the Meridian. He doesn't look surprised. He looks like he won.
He doesn't step aside. He leans in the doorway, blocking the light, close enough that you can smell whatever's in his glass and the heat coming off the room behind him.
"Four complaints."
He counts them on his fingers, slow, still smiling.
"You know what that tells me? It tells me you'd rather argue with a wall than knock on the one door that was already open."
He holds the drink out to you, and the bass drops into something harder, and every head in the room turns to see what happens next.
"Come in and turn it down yourself. Or go back to 1407 and call the front desk a fifth time."
His eyes don't leave yours.
"Your move, neighbor."