'Ello me freaky darlin's once again…

Welcome to the nex' installmen' of Love at First Bite…

'Ey if ye don' like me story title, send me ideas…

I' was all I could come up with a 12:00 a' nigh'…

Disclaimer: Don' sue me… Al I own is Leila, Eddie, and North Reef… Oh and $10…

"Can't touch this. Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh. Can't touch this." Lenny sung, sponge in hand.

The nearby Wrasse fish winced as the shark sang off key. Oscar and Johnson had covered their ears with their fins.

Oscar looked up at his wife in the booth that over looked the whale wash. "Hey Angie!" He shouted as he swam up to the booth. "How can you not hear that?" He shouted gesturing at the shark with headphones.

"Huh what you say Oscar." Angie said pulling out a pair of earplugs. "I couldn't hear you."

"It's Hammer Time!" Lenny belted out. Causing everyone to screech in agony.

Sykes swam out of his and Oscar's office, with a pair of earmuffs on his head. "Can someone stop him. He's gonna drive away the paying customers."

"Yeah, that Simon Conch fellow would have a field day with him. Luckily he can dance better than he can sing." A shark growled from behind the trio of fish. ""He couldn't carry a tune in a bucket."

The fish and sea life jumped and scattered into hiding. "Hey it's just me." The great white defended, crossing his fins floating in the now empty wash.

The fish peered from their hiding places. Oscar lifted his head from Angie's desk. "Oh Eddie. It's just you dawg. We thought you might have been one of those prowling tigers."

Eddie rolled his dark violet eyes. "Honestly." Eddie said his eyes searching. "Look before you swim. That's what causes wars,' one of my pop's favorite sayings."

"Can't touch this." Lenny once, again started singing, not noticing that most everyone had disappeared.

Eddie glared at Oscar. "You know, it's your fault that he has that radio. That's going to be the last time I listen to one of your schemes." Oscar sheepishly grinned. "Lino is thinking to putting a hit on that infernal device."

The fish groaned as Lenny broke into a new verse. "Don't worry I'll handle this." Eddie looked around and spotted a spare sponge on the ground.

With a grin on his face Eddie drifted towards where Lenny was working. Then with a heave, threw the sponge at the back of Lenny's head.

The sponge made contact with Lenny's head, knocking off his headphones. Lenny turned and glared at Eddie. "Eddie." Lenny shouted, rubbing the back of his head. "It's not okay to hit."

"Well it's not okay for you to cause pain with your singing." Eddie said playfully shoving Lenny and pulling him into a headlock.

"Okay, okay." Lenny choked out. "I get it. I get it. I give."

"Good." Eddie growled releasing Lenny. "Now come on Veggie-Boy, your Pop sent me to makes sure you get your fin home without any problems." Eddie said, leaning on a post. "You can't be to careful, with the Tigers starting to test Lino."

"Also." Eddie added as Lenny removed his belt and checked out. "He said something about an old family friend and his daughter are coming for dinner." He hinted in a singsong voice.

Lenny groaned. "What?" Eddie asked. "Is your father trying to play match-maker once again?"

Eddie chuckled as Lenny's face contorted into an expression of grim. "Come of it Lenny it can't be that bad."

He dodged a sponge Lenny threw at him. "You still can't hit the broadside of a blue whale." He said catching the sponge. "That bad huh."

"You have know idea." Lenny muttered, hanging up his belt, and started swimming.

"Well, what can be wrong with spending time with beautiful ladies, may I ask?" Eddie asked, catching up his childhood friend.

"Look at me." Lenny shouted to him. "Look at you." He said gesturing to Eddie's well muscled form. "You've been chased around since you were a pup. I was well… Overlooked."

"Come on Len." He said, stopping his friend. "Not all of them can be that shallow. Can they?"

"Remember Maria." Lenny said.

"Oh. Her. The lean, blue-eyed airhead thinking she was a gift to all sharkdom." Eddie shivered. "Saw her roaming around the other day. Her persistence of you is really starting to scare me." Eddie scared. "And I really don't scare easy."

"I mean… I still get tongue-tied when it comes to girls. Now, with Pop wanting to retire, the women are just interested in just being a Don's wife… And I..."

"Want someone who's genuine and actually likes you for you. Vegan ways and all." Eddie finished. "You say that all the time."

"Yeah." Lenny sighed. "But no one is going to love a shark like me." He looked up to see the cruise ship, that was Lino's hideout, which was forming in the distance and started swimming again.

"Hey Len. Come on don't go melancholy on me." Eddie said cutting in front of him. "Don't worry, if Oscar can find love, you can't be that far behind." He grabbed Lenny and turned him to the surface. "Out there somewhere is the perfect girl, bold and beautiful. Needing to be rescued from the fins of those Tigers."

Lenny rolled his eyes and broke from Eddie's grip and reached the 'Love Boat'. Eddie crossed his fins, and furrowed his forehead in thought. A grin spread across his face as he caught up with Lenny. "Oh Lenny. I'm thinking of a song."

"Not that Eddie." Lenny moaned. "Anything but that."

"Oh, yes, I'm gonna sing it, that song Oscar's been teaching me. That you hate so much. She's a super freak." He started to sing.

"No." Lenny shouted, clamping his fin across Eddie's mouth. "No singing!"

Eddie shouted but it was mumbled by Lenny's fin. "What?" Lenny asked pulling away his fin.

"You're late for dinner." Eddie grinned wolfishly. "Lino's not gonna be happy."

Lenny glared at Eddie and hit him in the back of the head. "That was for the sponge. Now come on." Lenny said, disappearing into the ship, and holding the door open for Eddie.

"Hey Lenny." Eddie shouted, following Lenny. "How do you feel about 'Big Butts'?"

"Ouch!" Eddie shouted as the door and it closed in his tail. "Ha ha. Very funny."

"Thump."

Leila's fins thumped against the punching bag in her room that was once the great galleon's cargo hold. "Idiot." She muttered under her breath.

"Man, I sure hope you don't get ticked off at me." A shark muttered behind her. Leila spun on her tail and raised her fins ready to fight the shark floating in her doorway.

"Easy babe. " The tiger shark sighed, pushing down Leila's fins. "Leave for a couple of months and they change everything and forget."

Leila tilted her head. "Joey, is that you?"

Joey laughed, his pale sapphire eyes lighting up. "So, Miss. Big and Tough does remember. Come here you." Joey pulled her the reluctant shark into a hug. "Its good to see you and your sarcastic ways are still here."

Leila squirmed away from the tiger's grip. "Stop it." She growled. "Go choke on a hook." And went back to her punching bag.

"Ouch." Joey gasped, clutching his chest. "That really hurt. I come back from my trip, and that's all you can say. I'm hurt." He whimpered.

Leila rolled her eyes and threw a boxing glove at Joey's head. "It's hard to believe you're related to Carvati, let alone be his son."

"I'll take that as a complement." He said dodging the glove. "Did I come at a bad time? Or do you always try to kill your punching bag, but what it did it ever do to you."

Leila took a deep breath and grabbed her pillow of her cot in the corner and screamed into it.

Joey silently counted on his fin until Leila collapsed onto her cot. "Three minutes. Not bad. Something must have gotten you real mad."

"Joey, I'm not in the mood for your jokes." She growled.

"What's got you all tangled up in a net." He asked. "I haven't seen you like this for a long time. Not since…" Leila shot up off the cot and clamped her fin over Joey's mouth before he could finish, and pulled him aside as a pair of gruff looking tigers swam by her open door and peered in.

"Where is that shark?" The larger shark with a scar on his nose growled. "When I get my fins on her. She's gonna wish that she never been born." He slammed his fin on the doorway, and started to float into her room.

"Come on Vinny. You shouldn't do that." The other tiger said still trembling from his earlier encounter with his boss. "You shouldn't get her mad." He pulled on his older brother. "Let's get out of here before she comes back, I all ready had a brush with death once today, I rather not test my luck again."

Vinny growled, and followed his younger brother down the hall. When she heard him disappear down the hall, Leila sighed and leaned against the wall. Joey shouted and struggled in Leila's fins. "Hello, I can't breathe." He shouted through Leila's fin.

"Sorry." She apologized as she released Joey from her grasp. She peered down the hallway searching for anyone else. Seeing no one she turned back to Joey. "I need to get out. I won't last much longer." She grabbed her bag and dropped on her cot. "I need to get out as far away as possible."

"Whoa. Whoa." Joey said. "Let's not be hasty. Let's just think about this." He grabbed her fins. "You run, he'll come after you. Just do this last job, and you'll be free."

Leila pulled her fins away and turned away from her adoptive brother. Her eyes fell on a tattered picture of a pair of sharks and two pups. She grabbed the picture and pulled it close to her before putting it in her bag.

"I know. I know. It's just that every time I almost get out, he pulls me back in. He still hasn't given me anything he promised. I'm just so tired of it." She picked up a lovely chipped fin held mirror that Joey had given her once. "I spent my whole life working for Carvati, look where it's gotten me." She rubbed an old scar on the back of her head. "A past forgotten, I live in a cargo hold, and now Vinny ridding my tail. His brother should have been watching his own tail. 'Accidents' happen." She tossed the mirror into her pack.

"About that." Joey said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just finished speaking with my father. He wants me and two others to help you out." He laughed. "Its funny really, Vinny and Tito weren't too keen on helping you."

She fell onto her cot. "Great. That's all I need." She sat up on her cot. "How's DeSoto, that old seadog, doing? I haven't been able to get out and see him lately." She leaned forward. "Has he found anything yet?"

"No not really, just what we know already." Joey's face lit up. "But, he did find something that might interest you." He pulled out a box from behind his back and for Leila.

Leila took the box. "Where did he get this?" She looked at him with widen eyes.

He shrugged. "I don't know? He didn't say." Joey looked at the box. "What is it?"

She ran her fin over the worn wood of the box. "It 'feels' so familiar." She looked up to Joey. "You and DeSoto shouldn't be helping me, what if you get caught?"

"Then we'll deal with it. Besides." He said slyly. "What Papa, don't know can't hurt ya."

Leila shook her head and slipped the box into her pack with her other belongings. "DeSoto's right. You are hopeless."

"There's the Lei I know. Now let's…" Joey paused he felt a shadow fall on his back. He turned to Leila. "We have company." He whispered to her.

Leila dropped her pack and turned around to see Carvati leaning in her doorway. "There you are I was worried that you tried to ran out on me again. Were you?" He asked, glancing at the criss-crossing scars across her back.

"No Boss. I was just packing. Can't be on the 'run' without one." She held up her pack.

Carvati glared at her with the single cold blue eye. "Good. We're off then."

Well here's Lenny…

Now press the little blue button…

Thank you…

Ta…

-IPD