Chapter 10

Penny finally drew back slowly from Sheldon's arms. "It's almost seven," she murmured. "I think the guys will be waiting for us."

She could see the conflict warring on his face as he debated between keeping to his schedule and staying here with her in this perfect moment. Penny finally let him off the hook.

"Come on, sweetie, we need to talk to them. We owe them some kind of explanation, especially given the way you look right now," she said with a chuckle.

His hair was slightly mussed, his lips a darker hue than normal, and his double-layered shirts were wrinkled where she had clutched at his shoulders. Penny loved the slightly rumpled look. She would have liked to leave him looking that way, but instead she finger-combed his hair and smoothed out his shirts. Breaking the news to their friends was going to be difficult enough without the two of them looking like they'd been making out like teenagers-which was exactly what they'd been doing, Penny realized with a blush. She made a quick check of her reflection in the mirror before they were out the door, crossing the short distance between apartments.

It was 7:02 pm when they entered apartment 4A. For anyone but Sheldon, the slight tardiness would have been unremarkable. As it was, three pairs of accusatory eyes met theirs as they walked through the door.

"You're late," Leonard said with a frown.

Penny took a deep breath. She tried to remind herself that Leonard's churlishness seemed to stem from a genuine concern for his roommate rather than jealousy toward her, but she was sure that the green-eyed monster had been rearing its ugly head, at least in Leonard's thoughts. She wondered what he had been saying to Raj and Howard. Well, best to confront the monster head on, she thought.

"Sheldon and I have something to tell you," Penny began. She glanced at Sheldon but she could tell from his wide-eyed expression that he wasn't going to be much help. "Umm... it all started a few weeks ago when Amy broke things off with Sheldon. She was doing some brainwave scan thingy and found that Sheldon was actually attracted to me instead of her." She rushed on over the exclamations of shock from her friends. "So she... umm... convinced Sheldon to test her theory, and... uh... now we're dating," Penny said with false brightness.

"Oh my cow," Raj exclaimed, shocked into speaking aloud in Penny's presence. Then he clapped his hands over his mouth in chagrin.

Howard started to say something that was doubtless inappropriate, but Leonard cut him off. "Penny, you can't do this," he ground out, coming to stand face-to-face with her. "Sheldon isn't some toy you can mess around with. Have a little bit of decency."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. She had expected him to say something very different. Was it weird that she was pleased he was standing up for his friend at last?

Before she could answer, Sheldon spoke up. "Leonard, as much as I appreciate your loyalty-always an admirable trait in a friend-your outrage is misguided. I assure you that Penny and I have come to a mutual understanding based on empirical data," and as he spoke, Sheldon very deliberately put his arm around Penny's waist.

Raj gasped and whispered in Howard's ear. Howard prompted pinched his friend hard on the arm, and Raj yelped loudly.

"No, I don't think either of us are dreaming," Howard muttered sotto voce to Raj.

Leonard had turned back to Penny. "Come on, Penny. You can't possibly be thinking of dating Sheldon; he's an emotionless robot. And just because he can stand touching your waist through your clothes doesn't mean that he'll ever be able satisfy you sexually-or even want to."

Penny felt a flash of white-hot anger course through her as she stared at her ex-boyfriend's smug, squinty-eyed expression. "Here I thought you were actually concerned for your friend," she hissed. "Sheldon does have feelings, even though you all treat him like he doesn't. And as for the sex-" Penny paused, drawing a steadying breath. I can be better than this, she reminded herself.

She continued in a calmer tone of voice. "In the past, I've been a big ol' five because I was always afraid to let guys know the real me. So I kept things light, fun, and on a very superficial level. I've now realized that with Sheldon, I can have a more open and honest relationship. He already knows who I really am, and he likes me anyway. I don't need to sleep with him to get him to like me, or to feel better about myself. And when we do get around to it, I'm sure the sex is going to be amazing." With that, Penny raised up on her tiptoes and kissed Sheldon's cheek. A deep blush swept up from his jawline, but all Sheldon did was to pull her a little closer to him and say, "Thank you, Penny. Now, if there are no further inane questions, may I suggest we begin playing Halo? We are already seventeen minutes behind schedule."

Penny grinned up at her new boyfriend. "Whackadoodle," she said softly, and it was the glowing smile on her face that finally convinced her friends that this relationship was real. As Sheldon and Penny sat down on the couch in their usual places, Penny leaned over and, in an impish voice pitched only for Sheldon's ears, murmured, "Or should I call you Slim?"