"Oh, hey guys, I wasn't expecting you, come in." Penny smiled, stepping back slightly to let Amy and Bernadette in.
"No worries, P-dawg, we just came by to give you this." Amy held out a gift bag.
Penny looked at the two girls curiously as she accepted the bag. "Umm... thanks?"
"We saw it and thought we'd buy it for you as a gift." Bernadette grinned.
"Okay..." Brow raised, Penny took off the little sticker closing the bag together and looked inside. She gasped, jaw dropping, and shut the bag again, looking up at the two girls. "Seriously?"
"By the way, when we say 'we saw it', we meant in an article in Cosmopolitan, and when we say 'buy it' we mean we ordered it online." Bernadette giggled.
"Seriously?" Penny repeated.
"To make things easier and less awkward for you, we have decided to call it a 'chew toy' since Sheldon saw the article in the magazine and asked Leonard why a women's magazine would write an entire article dedicated to dogs toys." Amy explained with an amused nod.
"Seriously?" Penny reiterated, pulling the apparently named chew toy out of the bag. "You think this is an appropriate, casual gift you buy someone? I mean, you seriously went online and ordered me a-"
Penny went from outraged to complete embarrassment in less than a second as she saw Leonard walk out of his apartment. Mouth open half way through speech, gift in hand, she froze completely, wishing the ground would swallow her whole and cursing her bad timing. Her skin suddenly felt so hot she was pretty certain she was going to burst into flame, and if she was honest with herself, she would prefer that to the silence in the hallway as time appeared to stop moving completely.
Bernadette and Amy looked at each other, biting down grins. "Hey Leonard."
"Oh, hey," Leonard gave them a quick smile, locking his door. As he turned back around, he raised a brow in confusion as he saw Penny holding her present. "What is th- oh." His eyes widened.
Say something, anything, Penny urged her mind, still frozen. Leonard's expression wasn't helping, and she mentally kicked herself, trying to get the words 'the girls just bought this for me as a joke' out of her mouth to make the situation slightly better, but they just wouldn't. Now would be a good time to combust. Oh my God, I just used the word combust while holding a... a chew toy, in front of my ex-boyfriend.
"O-kay, well, I'm just gonna go," Leonard backed away towards the stairs with an awkward smile, then turned and hurried down them quickly.
Once his footsteps had faded, Penny felt her body slouch over as she groaned, shooting the two girls a glare. "Well, if you will excuse me, I have to go book flights to a continent where nobody knows me."
With that, Penny shut her door on the girls, hearing them giggle briefly before the sound of their footsteps heading down the stairs too. She chucked the bag down by the door, which she locked, and looked down at her new gift.
"Yup, that was literally the worst moment of my life." She squinted at the directions on the back. "And the worst gift I have ever received in my entire life. And Leonard just had to appear the moment I got it out the bag." Biting her lip, she looked up at her bedroom door. "Oh, who am I kidding..." Tearing the packaging open, she rushed to her bedroom, seriously wondering why she hadn't considered this before.
Despite the awkward tension that had been evident moments ago as he saw Penny, Leonard couldn't help but grin to himself as he drove to Cal Tech, purposely taking the longest route he knew. Everything fit together now, well, not everything - but the whole giggly, lip-biting, dirty dream situation had finally fit together in his mind. Turning up the radio and bopping his head along to the beat, Leonard allowed himself to think over the links leading to the conclusion yet again. He was a scientist, after all, he had to double-check everything.
Penny had a sex dream about me. Me, of all the guys in the world! Take that Ryan Gosling, and all the actors out there. And all the guys Penny ever dated. Suckers. Leonard chuckled to himself. The girls found out about it and that's why they were so giggly and Bernadette had that really creepy smile, and Amy was reading Cosmopolitan, one of Penny's favorite magazines, and Sheldon found it open on the... oh, hell, chew toy. Of all the things to call it, that's what he thought it was, and it stuck. Shaking his head, Leonard turned his music up further. Then the girls bought Penny a freakin' chew toy, because they knew she had a dirty dream about me... yeah, that's right, me... because in Cosmopolitan they're always writing about 'reaching the big o' and this must have been one of the ways. He grinned proudly into his rear view mirror before fixing his eyes back on the road. And then Penny saw me while she was holding it and, well, that's just awkward, knowing people know about that kind of stuff...
As he pulled into a parking space, he grinned once more to himself in the mirror. "Excellent work, Hofstadter."
With a spring in his step, he got out of his car and headed into the building, beaming at everybody he passed on his way over to his office. He didn't even mind right now that he had had to go in to pick up some papers to look over during the weekend. He sat down in his office, placing his phone on the desk, and picked up the stack on papers in his 'IN' tray. Slightly overwhelmed by how much he had been given to look over, he began to read over the note that had been left on top, before turning to have a look over the first page to get an idea of what he would be checking over this weekend.
Having become somewhat engrossed in the papers, which actually had some interesting ideas in them, it was almost an hour later than Leonard's phone buzzed with a message. He blinked as he saw the time at the top of his phone, quickly straightening up the papers as he slid the phone in front of him. He smirked as he saw the sender was Penny, and unlocked his phone to read the message.
So sorry about earlier. Bernie and Amy thought it would be funny to buy me that for some reason. Probably Amy's idea since she has started reading Cosmo and keeps suggesting I get my own 'Gerard'... you looked kinda freaked out, so thought I thought I'd clear that up so I can actually show my face in the future! X
Leonard smirked. Yeah... 'for some reason', sure. Despite how smug he felt at that moment, he knew from Penny's earlier expression that this wasn't something he should tease her about, and it was an issue he wasn't supposed to be involved in.
That's ok. It just wasn't the sight I was expecting when I left my apartment. Sheldon said Amy was reading Cosmo and he blames you but he is going to refer to 'oscillation' as 'the big o' because he doesn't know what it means... so thank you for future amusement! (If it's not in your physics book, oscillation is part of simple harmonic motion.) It's ok, I won't judge you or your 'chew toy' as Sheldon calls it, you can show your face! :) x
Pleased with his response, he hit send. He sighed inwardly as he realized he'd managed to get some nerdy comment about physics into a text not at all related to the subject. I haven't changed one bit. He shook his head, and stood, picking up his bag to place the papers in it.
"Leonard?"
"Priya!" Leonard looked up from his bag, which he was just closing, shocked at the sudden appearance of his girlfriend. Shit. How did I forget... yup, I'm an ass. "How did you know I was here?"
"Raj picked me up but we had to come back because he left his phone. We saw your car outside so I thought I'd come down here and see you!" Priya grinned, leaning on the edge of his desk.
"Oh... oh, well, that's great!" Leonard smiled, hoping he didn't look as flustered as he felt. Seriously, Leonard, what the hell is wrong with you. More obsessed over Penny and her chew toy than your own girlfriend. "I just came by to pick up some papers they want me to look over this weekend."
"That sounds fun." Priya raised a brow as she watched Leonard shut his bag.
"I had a look over them, they don't look too bad. Some of the topics in there are quite interesting!"
Priya opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a message alert coming from Leonard's phone. She glanced down at the screen, and then back up at Leonard with an unimpressed look plastered all over her face.
"Penny texted you." Priya stated. "How come she texted you?"
"Umm..." Leonard looked down at his phone, lips pursed. The one time he needed his mind to overthink something to find an answer that wasn't "my ex girlfriend has a chew toy for personal use given to her by her best friends who know she had a dream about me", was the one time it went completely blank.
In his panicked state, he hadn't realized Priya picking up his phone in attempt to read the message. As he saw her out of the corner of his eye, he felt himself freeze, and for a moment he felt exactly the way Penny had looked when he had left his apartment. And then, somebody answered his prayers. "Did you change your passcode?"
"What?" Leonard blinked.
Priya turned his phone to face him. "I tried it a bunch of times but it's just disabled your phone. Did you change it?"
"Oh!" Leonard silently thanked Sheldon for working out his passcode, which had prompted him to change it this morning. "Yeah, yeah, I had to."
"Did you change it so that I wouldn't be able to read the messages Penny is sending you?" Priya pushed the phone into his hands, her voice uncomfortably even.
"No! No, no! Sheldon worked it out so I changed it this morning." Leonard grinned, pleased that he could at least answer one of his girlfriends questions with the truth.
"What does it matter if anybody knows your passcode? Are you hiding something on your phone?"
"I'm not hiding anything on there, it's just... you know what Sheldon's like... he'll probably tell Howard and then he'll do something stupid with it and... I don't want that," Leonard said, mentally kicking himself. His good mood from earlier had transformed into severe dislike of himself for lying to Priya... and also for Priya's presence stopping him from reading Penny's message, which added to his dislike for himself. "Look, I don't know what Penny has text me." Well, that's partially true, I don't know what that exact text message says but I know what it's about. He looked up at Priya, and upon noticing her still unconvinced expression, he sighed. "I'll just ignore that message. Okay? We'll just go back to my apartment and we'll ignore it."
Priya looked at him skeptically for a moment, before finally relaxing and putting her hands up as she stood up and walked to the door. "Fine."
Grabbing his bag and pulling it over his shoulder, Leonard sighed. Pocketing his phone, he wished he could just read the text from Penny, his desire to read it heightened by the fact that he wouldn't be able to read it for a while, until Priya wasn't around, and he found himself desperate to see what Penny had to say. As he left his office and shut the door, he found himself torn between how much he was loving the fact that there were two women in his life who were interested in him sexually - which was two more than he had ever expected, and hating how he felt this need to please the both of them.
Having made good use of her gift, which she had decided was most definitely a gift, Penny was in a far better mood for the rest of the day than she had been in months. Not even bumping into Priya in the lobby could dampen her newly found pleasure.
"Oh, hey!" Penny grinned, turning around from her mailbox.
"Hello." Priya gave her a small smile.
"How are things going with you?" Penny asked cheerfully, walking over to Priya.
"Fine." Priya took the smallest of steps backwards, slightly uncomfortable with Penny's sudden need to start a conversation with her with such optimism. "You?"
"Me? Oh, I'm doing great! It's been a good day!"
"Good, good." Priya nodded. "How come you text Leonard earlier?"
"Oh!" Penny shrugged, not phased by the question, but slightly startled by the realization that she needed an answer that wasn't related to her chew toy. Luckily, her mind was quick to come up with an answer. "One of his physics journal things of his was delivered to me yesterday by accident and I found it under my magazine earlier so I thought I'd let him know."
Priya breathed a sigh of relief which lightened her entirely; she felt herself relax as a smile fell across her face. "Oh! Okay, great!"
"Yeah, sure, I guess?" Penny shrugged, chucking a few circulars into the trash can by the door. "You know, we should get coffee some time."
"Umm, sure, that sounds nice." Priya nodded with a smile. She was certain that that was the first sincere, genuine smile she had given Penny since they had met. "I would like that."
"Great, well, we'll organize something next time, I'll let you get back to Raj's before it gets too late and there's no cabs!"
With a quick, cheerful goodbye, the two girls parted ways. Penny couldn't stop herself from grinning, and reminded herself to thank Amy and Bernadette in a subtle way for what they had given her.
Finally alone, Leonard pulled his phone out of his pocket as he headed into his bedroom, shutting the door before sitting down on his bed and clicking on his and Penny's text conversation, which held the message he had been waiting to read all evening.
Well I will have to have a look in my physics book and see if it mentions oscillation, i'll let you know :) If you seriously convinced sheldon to say 'the big o' in a physics lecture then you are definitely a genius and have to invite me to that lecture! Yeah amy is a bit obsessed, bless her, i guess she never read these things before - Sheldon is in for a real treat ha! And hey, you just forget about me and my chew toy or i'll tell you one of amy's stories about gerard. x
Chuckling at Penny's threat at the end of the message, he read over the text again. He was beyond pleased that Penny was going to look up in her book if oscillation was mentioned - he loved that she had taken an interest in physics, even if she still didn't understand it. The lecture, if he knew when it was happening in advance, he decided he would definitely invite her, since Priya never went with him anyway and Penny would appreciate the humor.
But it was the part at the very end which got him. 'You just forget about me and my chew toy' - what was that supposed to imply? He frowned, maneuvering himself so that he was sitting up in his bed, leaning against the headboard. Does that mean she's actually using it? He looked up from his phone with a raised brow as he considered this, then shook his head quickly to rid himself of the thought with a slight smirk. He decided it could simply be that she wanted him to forget about it because it was embarrassing for her, which he completely understood, and made a lot of sense. The whole thing revolved around a subject that was a very personal matter, which had somehow reached himself, Amy and Bernadette, and Penny was never one for sharing anything too close or personal to her. Though it's her own fault I know about it. She's the one who showed up drunk at my door and told me. He knew her well enough to know that despite making jokes about it, she was probably uncomfortable with it, and just wanted to pretend it hadn't happened - just like the time she had mentioned the dream in the first place. What she did with it, was none of his business.
Hearing the knock at her door which announced Amy and Bernadette's arrival, Penny frowned as she looked around her bedroom. Wishing she had actually tidied it up earlier instead of getting distracted by dancing around to her newly created iTunes playlist whilst singing into her hair brush, she quickly threw her comforter over her bed.
"I'm coming!" She yelled, as she picked up her chew toy from the nightstand. "Well, not in that way..." She giggled.
"Hurry up and unlock the door, I need to pee!" Bernadette yelled through the door.
Panicking, Penny jumped around her room, trying to think of somewhere to hide the object in her hand. She was desperate to stick to her 'this is a stupid, inappropriate gift' story, because she knew if the girls knew she had used it, there would be more questions than she wanted to answer - and she certainly wasn't ready for more tips from Amy that she had picked up from her use of Gerard. As Bernadette knocked on the door furiously, Penny sighed and chucked the chew toy into the back of her closet, at a loss of where else to hide it. She grimaced as she heard it hit the back of the wall and found herself desperately hoping that she hadn't just broken it. She rushed over to open the door and stood back to let them in.
"What took you so long!" Bernadette threw over her shoulder as she practically ran through to the bathroom.
"Were you using your chew toy?" Amy asked, grinning. "That's what delays me from answering my door."
Penny frowned as she sat down on the couch, wide-eyed. "Okay, eww. And no, I wasn't! I thought I told you we weren't going to be talking about that anymore!"
"My apologies. I just thought it would relieve some of your tension." Amy sat down next to Penny on the couch. "It helps."
"Yeah, well, no thank you." Penny gave her an awkward nod. "How about we just pick a movie?"
"Simply, I brought one over that I bought yesterday." Amy reached into her bag and pulled out a DVD case. "No Strings Attached."
"Ooh, I haven't seen that!" Penny took the case from Amy and got up to put the disc in, flipping it over to read the description on the back. "A guy and girl try to keep their relationship strictly physical, but it's not long before they learn that they want something more." Penny nodded slowly, smirking to herself as she turned around to open the disc tray. Sure sounds like my kind of film.
A/N - Thank you Tensor for the 'No Strings Attached' suggestion! Ok, where Leonard texts about oscillation - I was going to make it more nerdy but I couldn't make sense of what I found on google. If you have tumblr and read my post I googled 'define oscillation' and it came up with 'the process of oscillating between states' which didn't help one bit so I just had to leave it at that. I know as much about physics as Penny does. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I wrote it all yesterday (and a bit on Friday) - Saturday I worked 16 hours and then did 4 hours of tennis training yesterday so I am knackered, which works out well for writing as it means I just laze around with my laptop! So, Happy Hello Kitty Monday - enjoy the sunshine lovelies and let me know what you think! I will be with my two guys, Ben & Jerry, in my garden, writing out my next chapter which I am really looking forward to writing :)