Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
Part 56: In Which Gill Comes Up with Plan C
Gill's plan was going to work; she was one hundred percent positive of this. By the end of this week, Leon and Franny were going to fall madly in love with each other. And she was going to help it happen.
She had to keep believing this. While Leon had ruined her initial plan by leaving the party early, she had other options. Mr. Johnson would be a valuable ally, because even Mr. Chief said he knew Leon better than anybody. He said that Leon talked to Mr. Johnson about Franny all the time, so he'd have tons of information she didn't have and they'd be able to come up with an awesome plan together!
It was perfect!
She just wished he'd hurry up and get here, because she also wanted to enjoy the party and she couldn't do that if she was stuck beside the door, waiting for him to arrive.
She also didn't want Francis to start wondering where she was and come looking for her, because that would mess the plan up even more. She thought she was safe for now, since she slipped away from the party while Francis was talking to people about the food and drink supply. Those were boring things that he wouldn't expect her to be interested in; he would probably just assume that she was off in the bouncy house or singing karaoke or dancing or playing in the swimming pool. This place was super big, so he might not notice she was missing for a while.
Man, she really wished she was in the bouncy house or pool or singing karaoke, though. Hurry up, Mr. Johnson!
She peered out of the tiny window beside the door, searching for any hint of movement outside. Mr. Johnson was super tall and muscley, so she should be able to see him before he reached the door. She just needed to make sure she caught him before he rang the doorbell, because if he did that, then Franny would come and see who it was and ruin everything.
This was a very delicate operation. She had to keep on her toes.
Unfortunately, she was suddenly distracted by a buzz coming from her pocket. She frowned to herself, but then decided that it wouldn't hurt to at least look at who texted her.
One new message from Birdie.
Mattie!
She immediately turned her full attention to the screen, using her thumb to unlock the phone. Mattie's text read: What time do you think you'll be getting here? We've almost finished the underwear game. Lovi guessed yours in a millisecond, btw.
Aw, that was lame. Gill wanted to be there to see the other girl's face when she read the proclamation that her butt was Antonio's property.
dunno yet. what she say about it? xD
She was slightly opposed to the idea.
Well, of course! Everybody knew who actually wore the pants in that relationship. Gill cackled to herself and typed out her response, turning so she could use the door behind her as support.
so whatd she think about ur pair? ;D
This response took a little longer. I can't believe I let you talk me into that. She's interrogating everyone right now so I went to hide in the kitchen. She's going to actually murder me if she finds out.
There was a moment's pause and then. I don't want to die yet :(
This earned a full-blown laugh attack, then she typed out: ur so cute and inoccent tho shell never suspect u! its a perfect evilly awesome plan! :D
Ah, what an awesome plan that had been. Although, this was why it was probably good that she wasn't at the bachelorette party right now, because there was no way she'd have been able to keep from laughing hysterically and giving everything away. She could imagine Lovi's face when she picked out that pair of panties. She probably screamed.
It had taken so long to convince Mattie to go along with it, because her girlfriend wanted to be nice and get her something cute with, like, teddy bears on it. But, eventually she managed to convince her that it'd be hilarious. Besides, getting Lovi something super embarrassing was the entire point of the game. Otherwise it was just boring!
Why don't I tell her that they were your idea then?
but then i would die Dx lovi lidkes u better!
Lovi would absolutely murder her if she found out, but nobody would be able to hurt Mattie. She was too adorable. Gill thought for a moment, then typed out: sides shell calm down once she realizs how useful theyll be!
It wasn't really something she super wanted to consider, because thinking too hard about her best friend's future sex life was gross, but Gill was a good enough friend to want to have Tonio's back. Those panties would definitely help improve the honeymoon experience.
Mattie responded with: I'm pretty sure she's going to burn them.
but those were expensive! D:
Which wasn't really fair, when you considered how little fabric was actually there. Gill began typing out another response—telling Mattie to hide the underwear if she had to—but, then she was interrupted by a very, very loud gong sound.
Aw, crap...
She'd totally forgotten why she was standing here, because of the unawesomely distracting panty game. That had to be Mr. Johnson. Franny totally would have heard that unnecessarily loud gong, though. She quickly pressed send, tucked her phone back in her pocket, and opened the door.
"Hi, Mr. Johnson!"
Yep, it was him. She knew, because when Mr. Johnson stood in a doorway, he blocked most of the outside with his big, muscley-ness. She had to lift her head to look up at his face.
Mr. Johnson stared down at her with a frown, although she was pretty sure it wasn't an angry frown, just a 'his face normally looks like that' frown. He didn't respond to her for a moment, but finally said, "Hello," in a very low, quiet voice.
"Okay, we gotta go hide now!" she exclaimed. "Follow me!"
If they were fast enough, then she could totally hide Mr. Johnson so Franny didn't see him! She grabbed onto his arm and tugged; it took a minute for him to actually move, though. That was the problem with big, muscley people. They were so slow sometimes.
At least he didn't argue with her like Luddy would have. He allowed her to lead him into the house and, after a moment's thought, up the stairs.
The problem with this party was that people could be anywhere, since Franny left the place almost-totally open to exploration. There was only one section that she could think of that would definitely be free of people... Even if she knew she shouldn't go there.
"This way, Mr. Johnson!"
This was to help Franny, she reminded herself. She knew if he found out about this, then he'd be really upset, but if he saw Johnson, then their plans would be ruined. He wouldn't fall in love with Leon and get over Antonio and he'd be miserable forever... So, she had to...
There were two main wings of Franny's house. When you reached the top of the stairs, you could turn either right or left. On the right side was the East hallway, which held Franny's rooms, as well as a bunch of guest rooms that they used mostly for hide and seek when they were little. If you turned left, then you faced a door.
It was a normal door; it looked like all the others in the house. But, it also wasn't a normal door.
When she was little, she once asked Francis what was behind that. She remembered how he hesitated for a little bit, staring toward the door with an unreadable expression, but then he returned to their game and told her that it just led to his parents' rooms. It seemed like a reasonable enough response, although she did wonder why his parents had rooms when they didn't live in the house with Francis.
Now she was older, but she still didn't really understand why... She just knew that the door was always unlocked, but those rooms were never actually inhabited.
"Okay, we'll just go in here for a sec." She released Mr. Johnson's arm and walked toward the door, her stomach twisting with anxiety as she wrapped her fingers around the gleaming doorknob.
It turned easily under her fingers; the door didn't even creak as she pushed it open.
Mr. Johnson followed her without another word, which was a relief. The two of them entered a hallway, very like Francis's except that it smelled a lot dustier.
"Okay," she took a deep breath. "This is awesome. We can talk here." She wondered if they should try going into one of the rooms. She knew there was a library in this wing; she'd seen it once. But, she didn't really like that idea. She just wanted to hurry up and talk to Mr. Johnson and then get out of here.
So, instead, she sat down on the carpet and patted the floor beside her. "Sit!"
He just stared at her.
That worked too. Awesome wasn't gonna be picky.
She leaned back on her arms, so she could actually see him. "Mr. Johnson, we have a super unawesome crisis! You've gotta help so Tonio and Lovi's wedding isn't ruined, because Leon's an unawesome-face!"
He stared at her for another moment, then glanced back toward the door. He was probably looking for Leon, not realizing just how much of an unawesome-face he was!
"I've gotta make Leon and Franny fall in love!" she continued. "Because Franny needs someone to fall in love with and Leon's the best person for him! He already does things all the time just to make him happy and they'd be really awesome together and they could eventually get married and adopt really cute babies!" It'd be perfect. She knew Francis would be happy, then. "Plus, it'll help Leon and Big Mike have a better relationship, too!"
Mr. Johnson still stared at her, although his expression had become slightly less frowny. Because he knew her plan was awesome!
"So, all we have to do is figure how to make that happen!" She sat more upright and pulled her phone out of her pocket again. Mattie had responded, but she didn't have time to look at it right now. She instead brought up her awesome diary. "Since me and Franny are best friends, I made a list of things that I know will make him fall in love with Leon. Since you and Leon are best friends, you can help me make a list of things that'll make Leon fall in love with Francis!"
She flipped back to her notes from yesterday. "Like, Franny really likes when Leon wears really tight jeans, which is a super easy thing for him to do!" Most of the things on the list were honestly pretty easy; Franny wasn't very hard to make happy. He liked cuddling and making food for people and having them enjoy it and teasing and playing pranks...
Really, he should already be in love with Leon, then. He was probably just too hung up on Antonio to realize that he had someone else perfect for him living right in his apartment!
"So," she moved back to the blank page for today. "What about Leon? We have to figure out what things Leon would like in a potential boyfriend and then get Franny to do them so Leon falls in love with him!"
Mr. Johnson continued to stare at her, so she stared back.
It seemed like forever before he finally did something. He glanced back toward the doorway and then said, "...Don't know."
"You gotta know, though!" Best friends should always know these things. "Like, when you're on patrol, does Leon look at any guys for longer than usual? Franny always admires when guys have nice butts!"
Another long pause. Gillian impatiently tapped her finger against the cell phone's screen. Maybe she should just respond to Mattie while she was waiting for Mr. Johnson to answer her...
"No."
Except that Mr. Johnson wasn't being helpful at all.
He seemed to recognize the expression of frustration that crossed her face, because he looked back toward the door again, like he wanted to leave. He'd better not, though, because that'd be a super unawesome thing to do to Leon. He wasn't in love with Antonio, so he wasn't gonna be sad about the wedding. But there was no way he'd ever find anyone to marry who was better than Franny!
"He..." Mr. Johnson paused. "Hair. He mentioned Francis's."
"He likes Franny's hair?" That wasn't surprising. Her best friend had very pretty hair. It was shiny and curly and it always smelled nice cuz he used fancy stuff on it. She made a note of this in her awesome diary. Luddy always said she was never organized, but she could totally be organized if it was about important things. "What else?"
"...Cooking?" he offered after another really long amount of time.
"Franny already does that, though." Francis spent more time cooking than he did anything else, she was pretty sure. If he cooked anymore than he did, they'd run out of people to eat the food.
Gill didn't want to admit that there might be a flaw in her plan, but this wasn't seeming to help much. All she was figuring out was that Francis and Leon were already each other's perfect guy, which meant they should have fallen in love already. There had to be something missing...
Either that, or maybe they might just need a different kind of push.
And it was like a lightbulb suddenly flashed in her mind. She jumped up, arms flailing, as she shouted, "I know!"
God, it was so simple! Why hadn't she thought of it before?
"We've gotta get them lost in the woods together!"
It was perfect! They already knew it worked, since it helped get Artie and Mattie's unawesome sister together. They just needed to figure out some way to lose Leon and Francis in a forest at the same time. They'd be forced to rely on each other and fall in love and it'd be perfect!
Except she wasn't sure how she'd trick Francis into getting lost in the woods... Leon would be easy, but Franny would probably get suspicious, since he was the one who came up with the plan for getting Ally and Artie together.
Hmmm... So maybe something else that was similar, but not as labor-intensive. Maybe she could get them both stuck in a closet! That seemed easier, except she didn't think any of the closets here or in their apartment had locks on the outside.
She had to think. What would Francis do if he were trying to get two people who obviously should be in love together? If she just thought like Franny...
"Oh!"
That was it!
It was perfect, because she wouldn't even need Leon here! And it was foolproof!
"We need to make them jealous!" She bounced on her feet and clapped her hands together. "We've just gotta make Leon think that somebody else likes Franny and make Franny think that someone else likes Leon and then they'll get jealous and confess their love and it'll be awesome!"
She just needed someone to help her who was single, otherwise it wouldn't work. But that was fine!
Because someone who was single was standing right in front of her!
"Mr. Johnson, you've gotta help me!"
A/N: ...Oh, Gilly.
Poor Johnson. And Leon. And Francis. And...pretty much everyone. Including Mattie and Lovi and everybody getting interrogated at the bachelorette party, because that was Gill's fault too. xD Because she is a bad influence on her girlfriend. Altho Mattie's not totally innocent, because she did eventually agree that it'd be funny... She's just regretting it now, because it might lead to her early demise.
...I feel like this is now just karma for everything Francis did in JaLP. He is now getting a taste of his own medicine.
Also, Johnson's inner monologue right now is definitely just a constant repetition of 'FML'.
Please review if you liked this! I got lots of reviews last chapter, so it encouraged me to write faster! So there is your motivation. xD A happy authoress is a speedy authoress.
