(From Rose)
The music played on. The floor-shaking, ear-splitting bass that had kept him awake half the night was still going now, even as the noon sun sneaking its way through the clouds and the slats of his battered blinds revealed that even the most trendily late of parties should have been long since over.
Now that Tom had been jarred completely awake, he realized that the reason he had slept so late was that he had awoken several times during the night, presumably because of the music, and his ire began to rise at the disruption of his carefully guarded sleep schedule. Mentally calculating how many hours he could now allot himself for the rest of the nights that week, he searched through the mess of clothes strewn on the floor for a pair of boxers decent enough to wear in public.
Without stopping for even so much as a quick arm-pit check, he strode to the cargo elevator that separated his ramshackle loft from its mirror-image on the other half of the converted warehouse. Though he failed to notice the lack of the usual post-party plastic cups and mysterious sticky spots, Tom stopped short at the heavy glass door standing ajar.
"Grant?" Tom timidly poked his head into the apartment and called his neighbor's name. There was no response.
"Grant," he said a little louder. This time a Doberman Pinscher strolled out of the entrance to what could only have been the bathroom, given its occupation of a large corner of the otherwise completely open room. The dog had always been fairly friendly to Tom when he ran into it on his way out in the mornings, and he relaxed, as his sniffed hand seemed to meet with approval.
"What's your name?" he whispered. "Butch? Buster?" They'd been introduced once, a long time ago, in a time when his owner hadn't seemed so busy or so cold (to both him and the dog) as he was of late.
He followed Butch/Buster through the artistic maze of leather sofas and steel and glass tables to the swinging metal door. Steeling himself for the worst, he slowly pushed it open, letting the dog stick his head in around him, and peered around. As he took in the damp bath mat, fogged-up mirror, and abandoned bathrobe, in the otherwise in-order space, his worry began to ease.
Determined to be able to enjoy his own shower in peace, Tom followed the music to the open window further along the wall of the long, narrow room. Disgustedly, he clambered onto the edge of the tub and pulled himself through it to the miniscule balcony that had put this half of the building out of his price range. Just as decided to do his neighbor a favor by moving the expensive stereo equipment out of reach of the downpour and reached for the mouse-chewed cord, Tom caught a glimpse of his neighbor. Unmoving and unblinking, he sat out in the rain.