My Pretend Fiancé

Lenina lay in her bed, sleeping and lightly, snoring as usual when the telephone began to ring. It rang and rang, but no one seemed to be picking it up and Lenina wondered why no one did so.

Sleepily, she stood up and walked over to the cordless phone that was on the desk by her laptop and answered the screeching phone with a sleepy, “Hello?”

“You were asleep, weren’t you?” Tori’s voice could be heard loud and clear over the receiver and Lenina wondered why she was calling so early in the morning.

“Um, yeah. Why?” She heard Tori sigh at the other end imagining her face looking down at Lenina with disappointment.

“Oh, I don’t know. We have school in an hour and you were suppose to meet me for coffee.” Lenina’s eyes shot open wide and she ran back to the bedroom to get dressed.

“Oh, no! Um, give me, like, fifteen minutes okay?” Tori chuckled and looked at her watch. The small digital clock read “7:45” and she knew Lenina would try her best to be there with her at 8.

“Okay, doll. Hurry.” Lenina smiled and hung up the phone and ran into her closet grabbing a white tank top and a black shirt, quickly placing them on. She walked over to her drawer and opened it to pull out a pair of blue jeans, when a card fell out from the drawer.

She looked down at it confused and picked it up. On it was the number from the nice cabby she had met yesterday. “Hmm.”

"Call anytime. I’ll pick you up." She remember his statement and quickly grabbed her stuff for the outside world and ran downstairs to get her sneakers on while placing her hair in a high ponytail.

She looked around and saw that Leonard had already gone off to work, his dress shoes missing from the front and his coat. She wondered why he had been so angry the day before, but figured that she could try to make him feel better by making this pastry she had seen on the food network the night before.

Once she was all dressed, she walked over to phone that was in the kitchen and began dialing Danny’s number.

“6-4-6…4-3-5…2-8-9-2…” She patiently waited for Danny to pick up, assuming this was his business phone. She told herself that if he didn’t answer he could have been on the other line with another customer.

“Hello?” She heard his voice on the other line and smiled.

“Hi, Danny! It’s Lenina.” Glad that she had gotten him, she placed the card down on the counter and leaned against the refrigerator.

“Oh, hi! Is everything all right?” He asked, remembering her ‘landlord’ the day before and how possessive he acted.

“Yeah, I was wondering if you could pick me up at my house? I’m sort of running late.” Danny was confused at her question, he had given her his cell phone number, but then he remembered how he told her that he would pick her up whenever she needed.

“Sure, five minutes.” Lenina smiled at hearing the news, knowing she was already late for having breakfast with Tori and class started at nine.

“Thanks so much!” Lenina ran out of the house placing the phone back in the dock real quickly and waited patiently outside for his black jeep to pull up.

Soon enough, it did, and she smiled brightly at him and got into the front seat, buckling herself in.

“Good morning, Danny!” She greeted him and he just stared at her a bit shocked, not thinking she was a morning person.

“Where to?” He asked staring at how bright her green eyes were this early in the morning.

“Um, you know that coffee shop on the corner of sixth?” She asked and he smiled nodding his head.

“Sure.” He stepped on the gas pedal and they were off.

Lenina stared out the window and wondered why he was able to come get her so early in the morning, weren’t there many other people calling him? “Didn’t you have another customer before me?” Lenina asked, her curiosity getting the best of her. He bit at his lip and looked over at her nervously.

“I-uh did. But, he was close by. He was actually a favor and since I was so close when you called I thought, ‘why not’. I don’t start until nine, really.” He half-lied. Lenina looked at him and smiled. It was nice to know that he was so kind and not like most of the other men, she would meet.

“Wow, thank you very much.” Lenina said and blushed a bit. She felt slightly embarrassed at calling him to do this for her when he was off work.

“It’s no problem, really.” Which in fact, it wasn’t; Danny only lived about ten minutes away from her, a fact he was coming to like.

“Well, since you don’t have anymore people to take anywhere, would you like to join me and my friend Tori for some breakfast?” Danny looked at her with shock. He had never expected her to ask him to dine with her so quickly, but she seemed like she would be depressed if his answer were a 'No'.

"Sure, as long as it's fine with you."

Lenina chuckled and shook her head. "Of course not! It's a 'thank you' breakfast, you should let me pay too!" Danny shook his head, pulling up to the small cafe and parking.

"No, I wouldn't feel right." Lenina smiled at him, tilting her head to the side and taking in his chocolate brown eyes.

"Then, here. Take what I owe you for the ride, please?" Danny looked at the money Lenina was offering and looked down at it. Knowing women, he knew she wouldn't give up so he took the money.

"Goody, let's go find Tori!" Lenina hopped out the car with Danny and they both headed into the café.

Tori sat there drinking her coffee while reading the paper when she could practically feel Lenina's aura just walk in and lighten up the room. She looked up, her dark hair pulled back in a bun and her reading glasses slightly falling off so that she could see Lenina clearly.

What shocked her though, was that Lenina was with a man and that man wasn't Leonard.

"Hi! I'm really sorry I'm late." Lenina hugged Tori as Tori looked up at yet another strange man.

"Um, Lenny, who's this?" Tori examined Danny, seeing that he was a bit more rugged looking than Leonard. He had stubble covering his slightly tanned face and dirty blonde hair that was unkempt but looked fairly well on him. She was a bit nervous about exactly who this man was, seeing as how he looked nothing like Leonard or an associate of Leonard's.

"This is Danny! I met him yesterday, he's a cab driver and helped me with the groceries," Lenina told her while she looked over the small little menu the café had. Danny smiled nervously at the very attractive woman in front of him and then looked down at Lenina who was sucking on her bottom lip thinking of what to order.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Danny, I'm Tori." Tori held out her hand and Danny shook it. Tori could see that Danny was clearly interested in Lenina and smirked to herself.

"I got you some coffee already, Lenny." Tori pointed to the cup sitting in front of Lenina and Danny's eyes went wide. "It's decaf, and has lots of milk and sugar. She hates it black." Tori chuckled knowing that look. A look many people had given Tori before for serving Lenina something that would affect her mood.The waitress soon came over and smiled at them, pulling out her notepad to take down their orders. "What can I get you guys?" Lenina and Danny ordered as Tori just sat there examining this Danny person. Then she looked over at Lenina who stood up and Danny quickly stood up.

"I'm going to the bathroom, just be a sec." Lenina announced and Danny watched her as Lenina left the table, this was Tori's chance to find out some more about Lenina's new 'beau'.

"So, Danny, tell me do you go to school?" Danny looked at Tori shocked but guessed it was normal of a friend to interrogate the guy that her friend was with. It had been done to him before so he knew the drill.

"Yes, night school, two days a week. I'm studying to be an EMT and I rent out my own apartment." Tori was extremely shocked by his reply not expecting the mini overview of his life.

"Wow, I'm impressed. I can see that you like Lenina, so I wanted to make sure you weren't a psycho." Danny smiled at Tori as he watched her take another sip of her coffee.

"I could still be a psycho, but just a very good liar." Danny told her. Tori liked this guy; she could also see that he didn't know about Leonard and Lenina.

"You know she's engaged, right?" Danny was in the middle of drinking his coffee when he began to cough it back up. He cleaned himself up and looked at Tori in bewilderment.

"You're kidding. Who? Not that guy that I met, right?" Tori bit her lip and Danny sunk into his chair. "Really? She introduced him as her landlord."

Tori chuckled and nodded her head. "She would." Danny was confused slightly when Lenina came back and he sat up straight. He smiled at her half-heartedly wondering what the response from Tori was about but decided to push it aside, and his feelings for Lenina.

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"Lenny! Lenny, you here?" Leonard called throughout the house when he got home. It was the afternoon and he had his lunch break and thought that he would take Lenina out for something to eat.

"Lenina?" He walked into the kitchen when he realized that this was one of the days that she had school. He sat at the table for a moment to think about what to eat when he saw a small card with a number written on it, on the table.

"Who the?" That's when Leonard saw the name 'Danny' scribbled on the back with a cell phone number. Leonard gritted his teeth and shook his head not believing that this guy gave her his cell number.

What also confused him was the fact that his card was downstairs and not with her or in her bedroom.

"She must've called him..." Leonard said aloud to himself. He couldn't believe that she would call him. Didn't she know that that was his cell phone? Then again, he was talking about Lenina and she probably didn't have a clue. She probably didn't even know that he liked her, but why should Leonard care? It was only pretend.

Or was it?

"Fuck, I need to get laid!"