“They could be hurt or in danger, and you’re worried about whether I see Andrew’s penis?”
He shrugs. He doesn’t move.
Men.
I shove past him, open the door, and halt.
Two lumps—clearly bodies—are under the covers of the enormous bed. A pair of men’s underwear hangs from the ceiling fan, which whirrs slowly, the motor whining because in addition to that pair of underwear, there is a giant soap-on-a-rope dangling from another blade.
In the shape of a marijuana leaf that is at least twelve inches wide.
The floor is covered in a mixture of clothing, shoes, Cheetos, Star Wars action figures, empty alcohol bottles, a pet carrier, and—
“Is that pile of clothes moving?” Declan asks with alarm.
A translucent plastic thing shakes its way out from under a silver disco top, a fabric I vaguely recall Amanda wearing yesterday evening.
“Meow.”
Chuckles’ face pokes out from a plastic Cone of Shame, his meow pointed at Declan.
Written in purple Sharpie, on the side of the cone, are the words:
WILL SLEEP WITH PUSSY FOR FOOD
“Chuckles!” I gasp, but Declan beats me to it, bending down to pick up my poor cat, who is wearing...lipstick? And someone has attached hundreds of fake whiskers to the outer edge of the cone, making it look like the mouth of a hookworm.
“What the hell happened in here?” Dec barks.
Andrew’s head pops up from the foot of the bed, his neck and shoulders bare. “WHAT THE FUCK?” he bellows, which causes Chuckles to hiss and claw at Declan, who drops my cat right on the other lump in the bed.
Chuckles’s back arches up and he hisses again.
“AIIIIIIEEEEE!” screams the lump from under the covers. I’d know that scream anywhere. It’s Amanda.
“Thank God you’re okay,” I shout over her piercing screams.
“Claws! Claws!” she gasps. “I’ve had enough cat claws. Get him off me.” Her bare arms reach out from under the sheet, still bandaged from her animal encounter a few days ago. I wince in sympathy.
Declan has the presence of mind to reach down and pluck Chuckles off the covers and hand him over to me, but we see why Amanda screamed: Chuckles’ claws are out, deeply embedded in the duvet. I assume they went through the thin sheet that is the only cover Amanda has. Andrew reaches over to hold her in his arms, and sunlight catches something on his left hand.
I’m not the only one who notices.
“Is that a ring?” Dec asks, dropping Chuckles like a hot potato and taking a step forward over the thick layers of clothing and crap on the floor. He grabs Andrew’s left hand and stares at it, transfixed, like those cartoon characters whose eyes turn into spirals.
Andrew’s hair is standing up on end, and Amanda’s hair looks like it went through a salad spinner coated with yogurt. I can’t see her hands, which are under the covers, but a creepy-crawly feeling begins in the pit of my stomach.
I lurch toward her and my foot—my beautiful, Charlotte Olympia-covered foot—lands on something soft that says, “Oof.”
Clothing doesn’t talk.
I look down to find two eyes peeking out around a thick terrycloth robe that is littered with chocolate boxes from the chocolatier in the resort’s mall. When I say littered, I mean littered. There must be no fewer than fifty such boxes. How many French macarons and bacon-lavender-infused plaid chocolates did these people eat?
“Shannon,” the clothing pile groans.
“JOSH?” I gasp.
He sits up, thankfully clothed, wearing the same outfit I remember from last night.
“AIIIIIIIEEEEEE!” Amanda screams again, holding her left hand away from her body like it’s a poisonous snake about to bite her.
Her hand is shiny.
And there it is.
A ring.
“WHAT DID YOU TWO DO?” Declan bellows, the sound a sonic boom.
Josh does a weird jazz-hands thing and squeals, “Oh, my God, it’s contagious!”
He’s wearing a ring on his left ring finger.
Amanda faints.
Chuckles sniffs around what appears to be Andrew’s shoe, stops himself, and looks over my shoulder. I follow his gaze. Behind me is a six-foot-tall stuffed teddy bear.
My cat’s face breaks out into a look I know.
It’s the look Mom gets when she watches Sons of Anarchy.
Pandemonium breaks out as Declan gets right in Andrew’s face, shouting all sorts of profanity I’ve only read on Urban Dictionary but didn’t know people actually used in real life. Andrew’s patting Amanda’s face and looking around the room like he’s woken up in the middle of a hurricane, and meanwhile the giant soap pot leaf and men’s undies on the ceiling fan go whee-whee-whee like a soundtrack of the damned.
And Chuckles is claiming his territory one pee-soaked piece of fake fur at a time, starting with the giant stuffed animal’s head. Once his bladder empties, he climbs down the monstrosity, shredding the teddy’s face, and rubs against my calves. I pick him up and he purrs.
In the middle of it all, a blitz of multicolored neon hair shoots up from the other side of the bed, where we can’t see the floor, and it crouches, warrior-style, holding a can of pepper spray in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. A dark brown baseball bat.
No. Wait.
That’s a three-foot-long chocolate penis that looks awfully familiar. I open my mouth to tell him that is pretty much the least effective weapon for self-defense ever, when I’m interrupted.
“Geordi?” Josh shouts.
“Geordi?” Dec and I say in unison. What the hell is our chauffeur doing here?