Amy woke up the next morning in her brightly lit bedroom at the beach house. The light blue walls and ocean décor provided a warm and inviting feel to her room. She promptly checked her cell phone to see that it was merely 8:20am. She had no intentions of waking up this early, especially given the late night poker game following prom.
Clad in her purple, plaid pajamas, Amy stepped out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She caught a glimpse of her half-asleep face in the mirror, with her glasses slightly askew on her nose. Nothing about her appearance had changed in the past year, but Amy felt like a whole different person. Her mother used to be extremely protective of her, but since meeting her new friends and getting a glimpse of her new social life, she trusted Amy.
Amy freshened up a bit before making her way out to the front porch. She could see the ocean through two neighboring homes, calmly rippling in waves. Raj and Penny's cars were parked in the adjacent driveway, reflecting the bright morning sun. But Amy put those images aside for a moment to be nostalgic.
She sat down on the porch swing right by the front door, and it instantly reminded her of the night they attended their first party. Amy sat with Sheldon and listened to him talk about their future before he had really gotten a chance to know her. Howard and Bernadette were tracing through the front yard, threatening to dissolve their relationship. And Penny hadn't even noticed Leonard yet. Heck, she had barely noticed Amy. But 8 months later, they were all best friends. Her tenth grade self was still waiting for her to wake up from this dream, where bullies became friends and dreams became reality.
Then she remembered the events that most likely transpired during the night. Coitus. Penny slept with Leonard and Bernadette slept with Howard. And where was Sheldon? Sleeping with Raj. Except not that way…
Her train of thought was cut off by the sound of Howard sneaking out the front door, cell phone up to his ear. She was a bit put off by him wearing a silk, red robe.
"Ma! I'm here, I just didn't want to wake anyone else up in the house… Of course they're still sleeping, we were up late at prom last night… No, I didn't set an alarm to watch Dateline… YES TAPE IT FOR ME!"
Howard looked over and noticed Amy sitting on the swing, looking at him awkwardly. "Oh, hey Amy. Good morning." Amy just nodded in return, since Howard was on the phone.
He quickly resumed his conversation with his mother. "No, I was talking to Amy, not Bernadette… Well I didn't know she was up… Bernadette's not going to get pregnant… No I didn't… I just said NO I DIDN'T! I got to go. I'll talk to you after your appointment with Dr. Farmstein. Ok bye…."
When he hung up, he looked over at Amy. "Sorry about that, my mother was just checking on me."
"It's quite alright. As you can see, your phone call did not wake me."
"Any reason you're sitting outside so early in the morning?"
Amy shrugged. "I'm not a late sleeper. Although truth be told, I'm quite surprised Sheldon isn't up maintaining some silly morning ritual."
Howard looked down at his phone. "Whoops, Bernie's texting me. Guess she just can't have enough of me…" As he turned to walk back into the house, he leaned closer to Amy. "I know I told my mother we didn't, but we totally did!" Howard exclaimed with a giggle as he walked inside.
Amy just nodded to herself. She wasn't exactly interested in a sexual relationship with Sheldon at this moment, but she wanted to know that it would happen eventually.
She began to daydream about the possibility when she drifted back to sleep.
Two hours later, Amy was shrewdly woken up by the sound of knocking.
Knock knock knock, "Amy."
Knock knock knock, "Amy."
Knock knock knock, "Amy."
She jumped up and squinted to see a pajama clad Sheldon standing over her, knocking on the doorframe.
Amy took a deep breath. "Sheldon, what are you doing?"
"I find that to be a rather odd question considering you're the one sleeping outside in your pajamas." He replied.
"I came outside this morning to think, and then I guess I nodded off."
Sheldon nodded. "Yes, well, I'm uncomfortable being outside in my pajamas, so please accompany me back into the house."
Amy smiled a bit. "Sheldon, can I talk to you about something for a second."
"Alright, although one second is hardly an adequate amount of time to discuss any topic. So at best, you can try to convey your thoughts in such a short amount of time."
Amy just glared at him. "Nevermind, we'll talk later." She said as she followed him back into the house.
Around lunchtime, everyone got dressed in their beach attire and started to head out. Penny was walking around the house in her coral string bikini, making Leonard gawk at her continuously.
Raj nudged him in the arm. "Relax dude, it's not like you've never seen her naked before."
Leonard just smiled to himself, still delighting in the fact that his girlfriend was the hottest girl he had ever seen.
Eventually the other girls joined her. Bernadette wore a more conservative red bikini, since she didn't want anything falling out of a flimsy one.
Penny just shook her head as Amy came out of her bedroom wearing a long sleeve, forest green cover up. The material was slightly sheer, so Penny could see Amy's one-piece black bathing suit underneath it. To top it off, she wore a large, floppy orange hat with sunscreen on her nose.
"What the heck are you wearing Amy?" She asked. "We're going to the beach across the street, not the Bahamas on your 50th wedding anniversary."
Before she could respond, Sheldon emerged from his bedroom clad in a gray, knee length suit, white t-shirt, straw hat, and more sunscreen on his nose.
Penny shook her head. "Dear God, don't let anyone ever say you two aren't perfect for each other…"
Sheldon folded his arms in retaliation. "Excuse me, Penny. But some of us do not wish to take melanoma lightly. If you insist on wearing next to nothing this afternoon, you can borrow my SPF 75 sunscreen."
She scoffed. "No thanks, I'm actually looking to get some color."
Bernadette tilted her head. "I have some of the normal stuff in my bag if you change your mind, Penny. I really don't want to get burnt again. Last summer was not fun at all…"
Amy scrunched her eyebrows. "What happened last summer?"
Penny shook her head. "A bunch of us went to the beach one weekend and we were playing volleyball for like 4 hours. Bernadette got so red, she was still peeling a week before school started."
Bernadette squinted a bit. "Yea… body dandruff… how fun…"
Howard walked out of his room with a towel slung over his right shoulder. Immediately, Amy and Penny flipped their heads toward him, noticing his exceptionally short bathing suit.
Amy turned to Penny. "Who's the odd one out now?"
"So yeah, if anybody asks, you guys are my cousins and this is just some weird family reunion going on." She replied.
Leonard looked at Penny sympathetically. "Oh relax, no one cares. The beach is full of people that look far weirder than we do."
She turned to Leonard. "Well, it's nice to see you don't have any weird beachy attire going on." She said as she admired Leonard's camo print suit and superhero t-shirt. "You can put your shirt in my beach bag to keep it from getting all sandy when we go into the ocean, if you want."
Leonard cringed. "We're going in the ocean?"
"Uh, yeah… I mean, I guess you don't have to. I just meant we can share a clothes bag."
"Why thank you, Penny." He replied. "And I would take you up on that if I had any intention of taking my shirt off."
Penny made a weird face. "Wait, seriously? You too?"
Raj came over and put his arm around Penny. "Not everyone was blessed with luscious caramel colored skin, Penny."
She just shook her head and grabbed her beach bag. "Alright you crazy bunch of tourists. Let's go."
Penny was half way across the street when she noticed no one was behind her. She turned and saw her friends opening the trunk of Raj's car.
She turned around and walked back to them. "Uh, it's right there. I don't think we need to drive…"
Sheldon raised his eyebrows. "We are not packing the trunk. We are unpacking." He said as he reached in and grabbed a large umbrella.
"Oh, you've gotta be freakin' kidding me." She said in exasperation.
By the time they made it down to the beach, Penny was thoroughly embarrassed. "This is worse than vacationing with my parents…"
Her friends had set up two, rather large beach umbrellas, a series of nylon beach chairs, towels, bottles of sunscreen, a cooler, and a collection of other things she had no desire to learn about.
Penny merely laid out her towel and put her sunglasses on. She figured she'd spend some time tanning while everyone else got situated. Before long, Penny jumped up at the sound on a Frisbee landing in the sand beside her. She sat up and looked around, trying to find its owner.
"Hey, toss that baby over here. Sorry about that."
Penny squinted a bit and noticed a tall, good looking guy waving at her to return the Frisbee. Penny smiled a bit and stood up, proceeding to throw it his way. "It's okay!" She replied.
The guy looked a bit surprised at her throwing abilities. "Nice arm."
Bernadette was perched up on the towel beside Penny. "Oooh, he's cute. I wonder if he did that on purpose."
Penny snickered. "Nah, he would have come over here if he did. But he is kind of cute."
Before long, the incident repeated itself, and Penny ended up with the Frisbee again. This time, the guy walked all the way over to the girls to retrieve it, causing Amy to emerge from her umbrella and join the girls. The guys were far too distracted by a YouTube video on Raj's phone to notice.
The mysterious guy walked over to Penny and smiled. "Sup ladies."
Penny and Bernadette smiled a bit and politely waved.
"Looks like my Frisbee's got some good taste." He continued. He stood tall, with a rather well-developed upper body and beach-tanned skin. His dark hair was a bit messy, but suited his scruffy vibe.
Amy just stared in his direction for a good minute, intrigued by his charm and good looks.
Penny broke the ice by standing up. "Hi, I'm Penny. These are my friends, Bernadette and Amy."
Bernadette continued to smiled and wave, while Amy just stared.
"Sup. I'm Zach."
Amy tried to say hello, but it didn't come out quite right. "Hoo…." She uttered audibly.
Bernadette turned to Amy with a raised eyebrow, but Zach merely responded. "I said Zach."
Penny politely smiled. "Nice to meet you. Don't worry about the Frisbee thing. Happens all the time."
Zach looked concerned. "Wow really? Maybe you've got some sort of magnetic Frisbee attraction thingy going on. Do you have a metal plate in your head? I heard those things do some weird stuff."
Amy and Bernadette just looked at each other, wondering if this Zach fellow was serious.
"Anyway, you girls wanna play with us?" He asked. Penny turned to Bernadette, who merely shrugged at the suggestion.
Penny pursed her lips together. "We'll think about. We've got some stuff to do first."
"Alright, no problemo. But seriously, my uncle Marty got one of the metal plate things a few years ago, now he can always tell when it's snowing."
Amy raised her eyebrows. "But it never snows here…"
"And apparently it's not going to anytime soon. You're welcome." Zach said as he walked away.
The three girls just looked at each other with wide eyes for a moment.
Bernadette smiled awkwardly. "Well, we were right. He is cute… and seems nice…"
Penny shook her head. "I guess, although the lack of brain cells is much more of a turn-off since we've been dating our future scientists back there. Who would have thought?"
"I'm not sure the quantity of brain cells is the issue. But even my neurobiology background is stumped with this one." Amy added.
As Bernadette turned around to check on Howard, she noticed him gawking at some women strolling along the beach. Raj, of course, gawked with him.
"Will you look at those badonkadonks…" Howard said, loud enough for the girls to hear it.
Bernadette looked annoyed. "Howie! Behave!"
Penny walked over to Leonard. "Did you even see that guy talking to us just now?"
Leonard looked around nervously. "What guy? Where?"
Sheldon rolled his eyes. "She's referring to the buffoon with the Frisbee about 200 feet to our right. With the intelligence of a trained lab rat, minus the training."
Penny scoffed. "Well, at least Sheldon was paying attention."
"Negative. I was merely disrupted by the sounds of idiocy emanating from your direction."
Penny shook her head. "Anyway, I just thought you would have noticed that a good looking guy was hitting on your woman, Leonard."
He cocked his head. "Wait, now you actually want me to be jealous?"
"Not jealous. Concerned."
Leonard smiled. "You told me you wanted me to trust you."
"I do, but, you know, it'd be nice if you… oh forget it."
He laughed. "Penny, I love you. I'm not going to get all huffy because some guy flirted with you on the beach."
She sighed. "I love you too, I just want to make sure you're still paying attention to me…" Immediately, Penny stopped talking and froze.
Leonard stood up and blinked a bit oddly. "You… you love me?"
Penny tried not to cry. "Maybe."
