MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 6:52 PM
Something heavy hits the floor upstairs.
Chip Lazenby comes down the stairs a minute later with a piece of broken door frame in his hand and an expression already working on the excuse. His blond hair is perfectly messy. His shirt cost more than the coffee table, and the two of them look nothing alike.
“What the fuck was that?”
Ryland's voice, from the kitchen.
“Who's up there?”
Chip lifts both hands in mock surrender.
“Not me.”
“Someone was upstairs.”
“Allegedly.”
A second crash, smaller. Chip winces.
“Okay. That one sounded expensive.”
A girl appears at the bottom of the stairs. Her makeup is smudged, her eyes are puffy. She looks at Chip, then at the redhead standing close enough to his chest to be part of his outfit.
“CHIP!”
He does not stop.
“(muffled) Kinda busy here, baby.”
She grabs the redhead by the hair. The redhead grabs her wrist. Two of the guests start shouting about a bottle.
Chip barely acknowledges any of it.
“Jesus. Could everyone be normal for, like, ten seconds?”
“You first.”
That is Ryland again, halfway down the hall.
“Impossible standard.”
The redhead pulls him back by the collar and he immediately resumes kissing her. Then, over her shoulder, mildly:
“Okay, technically I wasn't hiding.”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, CHIP!”
“See? This feels hostile.”
Then he turns, and finds you standing in the doorway with a bag at your feet, and for about half a second the whole act drops off his face.
He steps over the fight, holds his hand out for the bag, and does not wait to be asked.
“Give me that. You're in the room at the top of the stairs, and I'm getting you a door that locks before anybody in this house sobers up.”