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“Address? Check. Phone number? Check.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, hey California!” Florida smiles, a little amused by the way California freezes ever-so-slightly by the doorway. Having been in a party together then promptly passing out wherever they were, it’s interesting to see California try to freshen up in New York’s penthouse where most of the states have conveniently dumped into. “And, for the record, I’m actually not doing anything illegal.”
“Well, when you announce it like that then yeah, I’m still kind of concerned.” California mutters dryly, crossing his arms. He looks resigned, as if mustering enough strength to deal with whatever Florida’s doing. Which is very accurate, he’s doing a lot of things. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing much, really!” Florida sweetly blinks his eyes at California, but he’s not sure how effective it had been since California winced before narrowing his eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Not even for a minute.”
“Dang.” Florida sighs. “If you must know…”
California’s face twists. “I suddenly don’t want to.”
“I’m buying pizza for Loui!”
The western state pauses. Considers. “You’re buying pizza for Loui?”
“That’s what I just said, yeah.” Florida rolls his eyes, eyeing the landline and the closest possible phone number to a place he could dial without much charge. He mentally pads through the list and finds a suitable place. Yeah, it’ll have to do.
“All the way out here. In New York.”
“Yeah.”
“When he decided to go home before we all passed out for the night?”
“Yes!”
California pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as he does, like it would help alleviate the building headache between his eyes. Jokes on him though, Florida knows it will be useless.
“Pray tell, why are you ordering pizza for him? Can’t he just get it himself?”
“Sure, but then what’s the point? I want to surprise him, y’know.” Florida dismisses him with a wave of his hand, like he’s the one in the right here. Which he totally is. This should work just fine and there’s nothing to worry about.
“Ugh, whatever.” California grumbles before moving into a different room, aiming for reprieve. And to satiate whatever craving he has for the morning. Florida merely waves him goodbye before moving to the second part of his plan. Actually ordering a ridiculous amount of pizzas for a possibly starving state. Everyone needs a care package every once in a while, especially after a wild night out like this.
Was he burning through dollars just to connect a line to someone in Louisiana? Bet your ass he is, anything for his best buddy. Besides, it's not his money that he’s conveniently burning… New York doesn’t need to know. California forgot, it’s not his fault anymore.
Florida’s eyes light up as he hears the telephone line pick up from the other end. Perfect.
“Sha, what did you do?”
Florida grins, shooting up from his seat as he digs the landline into his shoulder. It’s been an odd hour or two after he placed the delivery, so this means that Louisiana has to have received his fun little gift. He has to appreciate the 9 boxes of pizza of differing flavours, right? Even if Florida also ‘conveniently’ forgot to mention that someone else would pay. “Hey Loui, did you like the gift?”
“I guess.” Louisiana’s voice sounds distracted, as if he were paying attention to something in the distance. Probably the giant stack of boxes, Florida is sure that Louisiana would love it. He even included a message inside! “Hey, I just wanna ask… were you the one that wrote these messages into the boxes?”
“Yeah…?” Florida tilts his head. He only asked them to scrawl messages across each box to make something funny. “Well, more like I bribed the delivery boy to write them for me.”
“Uh-huh. Sha, did you write: I know where you are, come find me on each box with the last one being an exclamation point?” Whoa, that voice means business—dropped low and deliberate, to the point that Florida could scarcely catch the accent that normally weaves its way through his words. Oooh boy. That means it’s serious.
“Uh…” Florida slowly drags the word out, confusion manifesting at every corner. What is it with people and questioning his intentions lately? And from his best buddy too? “What’s the problem with that? Aren’t you the one receiving it?”
He could feel Louisiana's eyes narrowing over the line, more on contemplation than anything to do with suspicion. Unlike a certain other somebody... “Is that what you think?”
“Yes.” Florida feels like a broken record with how many times he’s going to say ‘yes’, for California, for Louisiana—and he really doesn’t want to snap at his best friend even if it grates somewhere inside himself. “Is that not what’s happening?” Bam! Turn the tables, and finally he gets to question somebody else.
“Ahah.” This time, some sort of amusement leaks into Louisiana’s voice, which only makes Florida relax from his unintentionally stiff posture. Okay, maybe Florida isn’t going to get reamed because that would suck. “I’d like to say that you made the message rather ominous. And it would certainly be a good gift, if it weren’t for one simple fact.”
“And that is?”
“You sent them to the State Capitol. In Baton Rogue.”
Florida pauses, trying to mentally piece together Louisiana’s geography, even if he has to squint at nothing at all. “What the hell?”
“Sha, that’s what I ought to say.” Louisiana’s voice turns breathy, almost distant, as if still checking his surroundings. Which means he probably is, considering he’d be in a building in the midst of concerned representatives. Florida has to stifle his cackle, lest he be heard from wherever Louisiana is trying to call him from. Louisiana continues with, “The address I told you about is where I was meant to have meetings with local reps so you didn’t worry! That’s why I had to go home early, too, if you forgot.”
That… makes sense.
“Ohh. I thought it was an address to one of your houses. Um, whoops.” Florida laughs it off, “Your geography is confusing!”
“Mais sha…” Louisiana is practically shaking his head along with that tone of voice.
“Haha… um, I’m sorry?”
There’s a long pause after that. Florida gulps, wondering what he would have to do to make up for it. While, he is totally amused by the situation, one step away from laughing at the weird set of circumstances even, he recognises that maybe it isn’t so funny having to deal with humans in a meeting like this isn’t probably the best.
“Nah, I thought it was funny.” Louisiana chuckles—which, phew, that means he’s in the clear. “Though, I had to find the person who’s responsible because the house of representatives are getting real nervous.”
Florida blinks. “Oh, hell yeah!” He grins. That means he got to send a bunch of suits into a tailspin with a delivery of a pile of pepperonis and meat lovers in cardboard boxes. That’s awesome, he definitely needs to try this out again.
“That’s not something to be happy about,” Louisiana says, totally ignoring the fact he just laughed.
“Uh-huh, and I totally believe you just didn’t laugh. And the fact I can’t hear the smile in your voice.” Florida retorts, crossing his arms in a show of mock-outrage. Pretend the fact that Louisiana couldn’t even see what he’s doing. The thought counts.
“Okay, but also, you should probably hide the fact that you did it, because I can tell they’re getting ready to investigate phone calls and calling the police,” Louisiana calls out, and yikes, Florida’s real glad he’s still in New York’s li’l shindig, huh. Actually—he’s kind of surprised that New York hasn’t kicked them out yet, which is perhaps telling of the man’s hangover. Or, the fact that New Jersey’s done something to him, who knows?
“Fuck, Florida, get your ass in here!”
Florida had to take a second to register who exactly shouted out of the blue, and was in fact not across the landline. Now, what does California need his help for? It sounded urgent and desperate—which means there had to be chaos around the corner.
He focuses his attention back on the call. “You better not tell DC. about this,” Florida whispers, stressing. He does not need New York nor DC finding out about correlated shenanigans.
“Mais sha, who you think you talkin’ to? If anything, he’ll stumble into the answer by himself.”
“Hah, true. Okay, I gotta go, I think California did something stupid to be calling me out of everyone.”
Louisiana’s laughter echoes down the line. “Mais, come on back to my place when you done. We gonna eat some pizza for real this time. They’re not letting me get close to get my pizzas back.”
“Deal. See ya!” Florida slams the landline back into place before leaping off the couch. He was finally needed and there was the smell of chaos in the air. Nothing ever beats that.
“Well… what happened after you hung up?”
“Mais, they gone and made a whole new law about not being able to order surprise pizzas anymore. All of ‘em got spooked”
“Aw, really? Damn. No more pizza pranks for us then…”
“Sha, did DC ever find out?”
“Er… No idea. He didn’t approach me about it.”
Louisiana pats Florida on the back, chewing on his slice of pizza. “Maybe we got away wit’ it.”
Florida leans back, a smirk on his lips. “Now, please detail exactly how exactly the pizza got delivered to you.”
Louisiana snorts. “With pleasure.”