Author's Note: The adventure thus foretold is based on actual events.

You have been warned!

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Chapter 4: The Princess Vs Home Depot

After harassing Treize for details and laying on him for ditching us for the purposes of fornication, I learned that the brunette in question was a Ms. Lady Une, a talented artist herself who was as Treize described 'witty and refreshingly realistic and didn't drool over him every six seconds.'

See, Treize appreciates the fairer sex a great deal, and has entertained girls who we like to call Barbie Dolls (fake with no brains whatsoever), but it's apparently after getting to know Treize that he truly appreciates a woman of equal intellect and wit.

And it seems this Lady Une has Treize, dare I say it? Smitten.

As we sat over Caramel Machiattos, my cell rang and I picked it up as a familiar voice said hello.

"Quatre-love! What's up?"

"I need a favor, Duo. My sister's in town."

"Which one?"

Quatre has twenty-nine sisters, so he really needs to narrow it down a bit. Yes. Twenty-nine. Test tube babies the lot of them, but very nice girls. Well most of them anyways.

"Lillian."

"Oh, she is?"

"Yes, and she needs to gets some boards for a project but I can't take her so can you take her to Home Depot?"

"Sure."

Clicking my phone shut I got up and threw some money at Treize like he was a two-bit harlot.

Well, the two-bit part is inaccurate.

Getting up, I told him I had to do a favor for our little gallery boy and headed onto the street and caught the subway to Quatre's manor.

I was actually looking forward to seeing good ol' Lily again.

Lillian Estrella Winner is the 29th sister and closest to Quatre in age, her being twenty-two. She's so adorable that we used to call her Usagi-chan. She's studying to be an art therapist, which REALLY pissed Poppa Winner off. He really hates when his kids deviate from his plans. Them Winner kids seem to really like art. Only ten of Quatre's sisters actually work for Winner International.

I got to the manor and rang the bell and the door opened and I blinked.

"Lily? Our little usagi-chan? Is that you?"

The blonde girl blinked and put on a big grin.

Yep, that's our Lily.

"DUO!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around my neck.

Lily used to have long dark blonde hair and wore jeans and sweatshirts all the time, now...I almost didn't recognize her!

She was wearing an Armani dress suit that was a charcoal grey colored with a lavender blouse, she had expensive looking glasses on, Prada shoes, a silver Tiffany chain necklace, pearl earrings, her hair was now highlighted and pulled up in a neat up-twist with face-framing strands held up with a gold clip with diamonds on it, she was wearing make-up, and she was holding...a Dooney and Bourke bag?

My God in Heaven...she's discovered fashion!!!!!

I could weep with joy!!

Ah, finally my influence is showing!

"Come on kiddo, time to get you some wood. And boards."

She rolled her eyes and laughed.

"Perv."

"You love it." I told her, throwing an arm over her shoulder and leading her to Home Depot.

Back in the days when I worked for a salvaging company (but shh, don't wanna ruin my fancy-lad image), I used to get sent to Home Depot all the time so this was nothing.

After catching a taxi and making out way to the orange and beige den of lumber, with a pit-stop to Starbucks, we walked in and Lily tensed.

To say she looked like a Deer in Headlights was an understatement.

We walk past the check outs and she starts gasping.

"Where's the lumber?!" she asked, and she seemed pretty...scared?

"It's straight ahead. What's wrong?"

"Oh my God, I'm going to get hit on the head with lumber! I just know it! Death by 2x4!"

For some reason I suddenly thought of Quatre. Scary.

We got to the lumber section and now Lily looks even more nervous...and incredibly out of place.

"Uh....I'm lost." she muttered and I sighed.

"Well let's ask one of those guys with orange aprons, you know..employees."

"Oh you do it!" she said, sipping her coffee.

Sighing, I dragged her to an employee and we asked for masonite board. He grabbed it and we went to the cutting area.

Poor Lily didn't know to cover her ears and actually jumped when she heard the saw.

After getting her boards we went to the register where this young blonde guy was working, he looked quite Abercrombie-esque. Lily noticed right away.

Yes, she is a shameless Abercrombie & Fitch fanatic.

Unfortunately, Mr. Aber-Boy rang her up for three boards when she only had one. So he had to walk to get a supervisor in which Lily goes:

"Oh that's okay!" and when out of earshot, "You're hot."

The cashier on the next register turned over and smiled at that as if he wanted to laugh.

So the Aber-boy came back and fixed the problem while Lily was checking him out.

Finally we left and I proceeded to crack up.

She is tooooo damn funny and the story of her and Home Depot is one the greatest times I've had in ages.

"Ugh, I need a martini." she sighed as she handed me the boards as we walked down the street.

Ah, her trademark comment. I was waiting for that.

After we got back to Maison Winner, I helped her apply gesso to the boards.

Apparently she had to use them to do an old masters painting, which was do a parody of a famous historical work of art.

She mentioned she was going to do a parody of the Renoir girl where they're dancing and have the man grope the Renoir girl's butt while she's all outraged.

I suggested a parody of the Sistine chapel with the angel that looks like Trowa.

I notice she hadn't mentioned men or asked me about my love-life. Ah, I guess Quatre filled her in on the Heero-Incident.

"So Lily, got a boyfriend?"

"Nah, I don't have time."

"Ah, that's a shame. You look so nice now. I'm so happy you discovered shallow behavior."

She scoffed.

"I'm NOT shallow."

I grinned at her.

"Sureeeeeeeeeeeee.... Miss 'This is my Fall Dooney & Bourke bag' and my Coach bag is for Spring and Summer."

"Oh whatever."

I laughed and patted her on the head.

"I'm just teasing you, kiddo."

She smiled and went back to work and so I decided to leave and go do something productive like maybe actually work.

At least I didn't think about Heero for that last four hours.

Maybe I should call him or something, I can't stop thinking about him. Maybe I need to like see him to just get him out of my system.

Or is that have one last fling with him?

Oh God...I don't think I could handle a one-night stand with Heero, and he's not that type of guy.

See, give a man your heart and he's got it in a death grip.

Maybe I should have asked Lily, she's friends with him.

Nah, I won't put her in the middle.

Treize hooked up that lady, Quatre's most likely going to hook up with Trowa, Wufei...don't care about him at the moment...

Everyone's getting lucky somehow.

Except me.

Insert Tragedy Drama Mask.

I think I need to get more Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.