It's almost always the sun, of course, that wakes him up first. Sometimes it is the pounding of little feet down the hallway, drumming away at his head in a familiar, hungover kind of way. The body next to his was comforting and familiar though, a different warmth than the increasingly hot summer sun that heated the room even through the closed drapery. Lenny briefly considered the packed living room and the long list of 'to-dos' sitting on the dining table. It was going to be a busy day.
Midge moved and shifted next to him, bringing one of her legs up between his, and tightening the grip her arm had around his waist. He was thankful for the upteenth time that she had taken a chance on him, and that Carole's words had not been heeded while Midge was on tour. Although, Lenny wasn't exactly just some schmuck from off the street.
He resisted the urge to turn his head and wake up his wife, until he couldn't stand it anymore. He felt light, and happy consistently for the first time in living memory, and he didn't want to ruin this perfect, quiet moment. It was that overwhelming urge that finally made him shift his body and bring an arm up to move some hair out of her face.
Sometimes Lenny would open his eyes in the morning and look over at Midge's messy hair, or her rollers and face cream and shake his head in disbelief.
Midge Maisel was his wife.
After they finally told everyone, the papers had picked up the story and spread it like wildfire. There was hardly an interviewer in town that hadn't asked either Lenny or Midge about their marriage.
It was perhaps better than many of the jokes and lines he'd written over the years. After months of him defending her honour in the face of those that assumed they'd slept together to save her career, they ended up exactly where everyone thought they had been. They both knew the rumours weren't true, but now here they were.
He really wanted to wake her up, but he always wanted to stay in this quiet moment forever. If he was being honest with himself (which he hardly ever was), Lenny wanted to stay in this bed with her forever. He'd waited so long to have moments like this, especially with her, that each morning felt like a cruel trick. She took a piece of him with her that night they first met, and he'd been trying to capture that feeling artificially for most of his life.
Rolling over to his side, Lenny rested his head on his hand, pressing it harshly into his temple as he watched Midge waking up. Her heel was pressed into his calf as usual, cold compared to the warm room. She always looked so peaceful while she was sleeping. For once the weight of their world wasn't resting on her shoulders; no matter how much Lenny tried to take some of the weight, she always did the heavy lifting. But for now, all the stress was gone, and the 'act' of being what society thought was the perfect woman was erased. For now, she was just Midge.
The woman that he had been in love with to some degree since the moment she clamored into the back of that police car.
He'd really only been watching her for a minute or two when Midge's eyes blinked open rapidly. She glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was still too early for their alarm clock to break the apartment's silence, and groaned. Her hair was a disaster, but she looked like a dream.
"I feel like we've been here before," Midge whispered quietly with a smile.
They were staring at each other, and had been in near silence for what felt like an eternity. Time passed swiftly outside their bedroom, but neither was concerned as long as the alarm didn't ring on their night stand. Lenny reached out and swiped away some of Midge's night cream from her face with his thumb. The featherlight touch made her smile sleepily with contentment.
They stared.
And stared.
Until finally, he spoke, "I can't think of anything funny to say."
She smiled in remembrance of that first morning they had found themselves together. Something about this morning left Lenny with a sense of deja vu, and he wondered if she was feeling it too. He didn't voice this remembrance though, instead, he rolled both of them over so Midge was on her back, and Lenny was hovering over her, their lips pressed together.
"We've got a lot to get done today, Maisel," Lenny teased between planting kisses all over her face and neck.
"Bruce."