SERIES: Daily, Knightly

AUTHOR: Missy

EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com

PART: 1 of 1

RATING: PG-13 (Adult thematic material, language, sexual content)

PAIRING(s): L/L

SEQUEL TO: A Hero In the Night by OldTimeFan

DISTRIBUTION: To Myself so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

 Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Romance, Humor

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Post LBYL

SPOILERS FOR:  LBYL, a Hero in the Night

SPOILLER/SUMMARY:  Laverne and Lenny deal with the consequences of their spicy one-night-stand.

NOTES: Thanks to OTF for letting me sequel this!

***

The sun felt particularly warm that morning against Laverne’s back.  She smiled and moved beneath its rays, pushing them toward a small ache in her back.

She realized suddenly that sunlight didn’t give massages.

Carefully, she opened her eyes, resting her chin against his chest.  His smile was awkwardly worn but bright.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she returned shyly.

“Hello,” came a voice from the doorway.

She grabbed his blanket and tucked it firmly to her breast while Lenny flailed beneath her, finding the pillow he’d discarded the night before and pitching it in Squiggy’s direction.  “Get out!” he ordered.

“Touchy, touchy!” Squiggy complained, eyeing Laverne as she tried to dress under the covers.  “I owe you two bucks.  She is a real redhead.”

“GET OUT!” Lenny and Laverne barked together. 

“I’m out, I’m out!” Squiggy cowered as Lenny advanced upon him, naked but red-eyed with protective fury.  Squiggy knew when it was wise to push Lenny and, this not being one of those times, he ducked back outside.

Laverne had snatched her pajama top from the floor and was buttoning it, unevenly.

“I’m sorry, Laverne.”

“You don’t got nothing to be sorry for,” she said crisply, picking up her robe.  “We weren’t too careful last night.”

He frowned.  “We used a rubber.”

“But we didn’t lock the door,” she wrapped her robe loosely about her body.   Lenny strode, nude, back to the bed, sat down and modestly covered himself with his hands.   They sat silently beside each other - Laverne nervously chewing her lower lip while Lenny crossed and uncrossed his fingers.  She had no idea how to excuse herself – and she didn’t really want to leave. 

That was the scariest part.

Fate made its move, as Squiggy burst back into the apartment, eyes closed and arms groping.  “Don’t let me get between you two lovebirds,” Squiggy crooned.  “I just wanna get the waffles I left under the radiator…”

Laverne’s upper lip curled in disgust.  “I gotta go, Len…”

He loosely grasped her arm.  “It ain’t cause of…”

“I need to get downstairs before Shirl wakes up,” she tied the robe.  “I’ll see you, right?” she had no idea what she meant – and was afraid to embolden herself by making it clear.

He nodded his head.  They exchanged awkward smiles as she retreated from the room. 

Not before pushing Squiggy toward the radiator.

Sitting on the floor, he grabbed the platter and shoved the waffle into his mouth.  “Mmm.  The mold gives it an extra punch.”

*** 

Laverne cautiously pushed open her door, her stomach crashing to her knees as she saw Shirley frantically babbling into the phone.

“…Yes, she was wearing a green robe and pajamas…no, her bed was just EMPTY and the door was unlo….” She looked up – color suddenly flooded her cheeks.  “Never mind, Norman.  She’s here.  Uh huh.  Okay, good morning.”  Shirley replaced the receiver and cried out, “where the heck have you been?”

“I’m Sorry!”  Laverne said, keeping her eyes on the ground as she walked into the kitchen and poured herself a mug of coffee. 

“Laverne, this is the most irresponsible, unconscionable thing you’ve ever done!  Where did you go?”

“Out.”  Laverne told the wall.

“’Out’?  Alone in the early morning?  Laverne..”  She had marched across the floor and had a hand on her shoulder.  “What happened last night?”

The panic on Laverne’s face must have been nakedly present.  “I told ya – I went out on a walk.” 

Shirley’s eyes dampened.   “In your robe.  And pjs?”

“SHIRL.”

“You don’t need to lie to me about your dating life,” Shirley insisted.  “Nothing like that could ever come between us; I thought yesterday proved it to you.”

Laverne slammed Shirley’s First Annual Teamsters Picnic coffee mug down on the counter so hard that it cracked.   What did she have to lose by telling her best friend the truth?  “I went to Lenny and Squiggy’s place.”

Shirley’s brow wrinkled in momentary confusion.  “You willingly spent time with Lenny and Squiggy in what I can now presume was the middle of the night?”

“Yeah.”

“That doctor of Edna’s must be a quack.  You’re acting like you have a fever.  You HAVE to have a fever to want to spend time with those boys of your own free will…”

Laverne shuffled her feet guiltily.  “It wasn’t both the boys.  Squig wasn’t home, so it was just Len.”

Shirley shook her head.   “You spent time alone with Lenny Kosnowski?  Lenny, who’s had a crush on you for years and tries to maul you whenever you’re within a few feet of each other?  Laverne, you should be more careful around him – you’re going to break his heart.”

“I think we can throw careful out the window now,” Laverne muttered.

“Laverne…” Shirley took a long look at her best friend’s face.  “Did something happen between you and Lenny last night?”

The door, as if on cue, burst open.  Squiggy was dragging Lenny inside by the wrinkled waistband of his pajama pants.

“I don’t wanna do it, Squig!”

“Oh yeah?!  Well you’re GONNA do it!”

Lenny had grabbed the doorframe and was clinging to it.  “NO!”

“What the heck are you two doing?” Shirley asked.

“Shirley, Laverne and Lenny would like to be alone again,” he released his grip on Lenny and wrapped a brotherly arm around Shirley’s shoulders.  “Come, let’s go scamper in the meadow together!  Walk with me, talk with me!”

Shirley brushed his hand off of her arm.  “Wait just a minute.  Laverne, do you really want to be alone with Lenny?”

She hemmed and hawed.  One look in Lenny’s frantic blue eyes and she decided.  “Yeah.”

“Are you SURE?” Shirley asked, and Laverne knew at the least provocation her best friend would lower the boom and drag the boys out of the apartment.  This was her last chance to run for her sanity.  But Laverne nodded.

Shirley’s eyes narrowed as she turned toward Squiggy.  “All right.  We’ll go upstairs to visit Carmine.”

Squiggy paled.  “He ain’t found about those albums I borrowed, right?”

“And he won’t – if you keep your hands above the waist.”    She dragged Squig out of the room, one last parting look of warning to Laverne planted before her exit.

Laverne tucked her hands together against her belly, walking toward Lenny, who still huddled against the doorframe.  Their best friends now gone, she boldly asked, “wanna come in?”

He looked up.  “Sure?”

“Please.”  He let go of the frame and sat down on the stairs – beside her.  They awkwardly dawdled in the silence. 

“Thanks,” Lenny finally said.  Thanks, she thought to herself.  The most Lenny-appropriate of phrases.  “For picking me.  And that thing you did with your hand…”

“You’re welcome.  Thanks for..everything last night,” Laverne responded.  He smiled back at her shyly – finally meeting her eyes. 

“I told Squig,” Lenny blurted out.  “He kinda guessed, considering the fact we was naked.”

“I was gonna tell Shirl, ‘til you came in.”

“Are you scared?” he asked.

She shook her head.  “It’s better than her thinking of me as some bimbo who gets smashed and sleeps with strange guys,” she said, a tinge of bitterness in her voice.  She reached out and threaded her fingers through Lenny’s.  “Not that you ain’t strange…”

“Thanks.  So,” he coughed.  “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to the Policeman’s Ball next week.”  He asked his knees.

“That’s the hottest ticket on the block!  How’d you manage to get invited?”

“It turns out the Schwartzbaum’s dad is a cop.  He gave Squig four tickets this morning for free.”

“Wow, that’s generous – he must really like Squig.”

“Nah, he had to promise not to see Monica again.”

“Oh,” Laverne looked down at her lap.  Now would be the time to lie and say she was going to go with Norman, or that she had been courting some young swain who had promised to bring her.  But that would be lying – or shutting out her feelings for Lenny.   She didn’t want to do that.  She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do yet, but she definitely didn’t want to ignore him.

“I understand, if Norman asked you to go,” Lenny was babbling, “but Sqiug said I’d be stupid if I didn’t ask, so…here I am.”

“Len?”

“I’ll see myself out…”

“Yes.”

He blinked at her for a second.  “Yes, as in you won’t go with me?”

“No, yes as in I expect you to be here by seven.”

The ensuing lunge and kiss she expected, but not the warm flow of blood through her veins, which melted the post-coital awkwardness between them away in a second.  It was a quick, heated makeout session; and when she tried to push for more, just as her hands began to inch toward the top button on his pj bottoms, he pulled back.  He wheezed.  “We can’t – I don’t got a rubber.”

Laverne’s stomach contracted – she didn’t have anything either.  The fact that Lenny was more concerned for her reputation than she was touched her.  “Okay.  Later?”

He smiled tenderly.  “Later.  If it works out…”

She couldn’t fault him for his self-protectiveness.  “So, I’ll see you Sunday.”  She said, rising to her feet.

He rose and walked to the door.  “See you Sunday,” he said, eyes on her…and bumping right into the doorframe.

She immediately, automatically kissed his sore forehead – then kissed him once more between the eyes.  He looked into hers, and she had a horrifying, wonderfully terrifying, feeling that things would work out just fine. 

When he opened the door, a kneeling Squiggy and Shirley tumbled forward, into the apartment and onto the floor.