60
"Oh, Missy. I'm so sorry."
"It ain't nothin' guys. If anyone here is used to gettin' spit up on by a baby, it'd be me."
"C'mon. You need to get out of those smelly, disgusting clothes, sweetie," said Nora. "I'm sure I've got to have something you can change into."
Missy followed Nora to the bedroom while Alex paid for the pizza, which had finally arrived, and Penny got drinks, glasses and plates out. Suddenly Alex and Penny heard raucous laughter coming from the bedroom. They rushed in to find Nora rolling around on the bed laughing while Missy stood in the middle of the room in her bra and panties.
"What's so funny?"
"I just pointed out that y'all were complainin' about Nora walkin' around naked with company comin' and here I am, the company, about to be standin' around in my altogether. Nora thought it was pretty funny."
"I'm counting this as a win for Team Nora."
"Fine, sweetie, but it took a little troll with a weak constitution for you to get the win. And I doubt that'll be happening again soon."
"And besides, it isn't like Missy is gonna spend the evening walking around the apartment naked like you do Nora. I'm pretty sure she's gonna put some clothes on. You are gonna put some clothes on, aren't you, Missy?"
"As long as y'all have somethin' that fits. I'm a little bigger up top than you gals."
"Actually I think I still have that Flash t-shirt that Sheldon loaned me."
"Penny, that was almost two weeks ago. I figured you would have given it back to him by now."
"Well, like he said, I stretched it out in odd places. Besides, I like it. It smells kinda like Sheldon. Sweet and comfortable."
"What are you sayin' Penny? Are you sweet on my brother?"
"Kinda."
"You gonna say somethin' to him?"
"He knows."
"Wait a second. What exactly is going on?"
"Looks like Sheldon bein' sweet on Penny isn't a one-way street."
"Hold on. There is nothing going on between me and Sheldon… right now."
"So there's gonna be?"
"I don't know…maybe. We talked a little about it. We aren't ready. I need time. We both need some time."
Nora and Alex looked at each other.
"Ya think?"
"Yeah. Neither one of us should be jumping into another relationship right now. We have a lot of other stuff going on. Stuff we should really be paying attention to. Sheldon needs to figure out things at work and Alex and me are going to help him with that if we can. And I'm going to see if I can have a career doing something I've wanted to do for a long time."
"Another thing, Sheldon and I were both pretty messed up by Amy and Leonard. It's gonna be a while until they're out of our systems. We owe it to ourselves and each other to go into our next relationship, whether it's with each other or with other people, poison-free."
Missy turned her back to the girls, took off her vomit-soaked bra and put Sheldon's Flash shirt on.
"Missy, I think that shirt's big enough to work for now. And I can take your stuff down to the laundry room and start it washing while we eat our dinner," offered Alex.
"That'd be great. I'm okay walkin' around here like this but I'm not sure I want to go out wearin' nothin' but a t-shirt."
"Sweetie, you've been in California for a while now. There are people walking around in a lot less."
"Yeah, but they ain't me. I may not be as uptight as Momma, but I ain't comfortable walkin' around almost naked outside. At least I ain't yet. Though if I spend any more time around Nora she'll probably have me takin' my clothes off in front of her artist friends just like Penny."
"Um, getting back to what got us here, what are we going to do about my ass of an ex? It's obvious he's not planning to let any of this go. Should we call Sheldon?"
"An' what would you tell my brother? Hey Shelly, my ex tried to drag me all the way to New Jersey and after Missy stopped him he threw up on her? What would that do except get Shelly angry when he can't do nothin' about it."
"Penny, I think Missy's probably right. Let's have some dinner and try to enjoy ourselves and if we have to do something about Leonard tomorrow we will."
Alex went downstairs to the building laundry room to put Missy's clothes in the washer and came back up to join the others for dinner.
"Penny, when do things start up with the Wil Wheaton thing?"
"Not for a while. But they want me to go to the conventions with Wil and promote stuff. There will probably be a couple of photo shoots and I'll probably do a couple of field reports."
"Sounds like fun."
"Yeah. I'm gonna see if I can get them to cover a plus one so maybe you guys can come along on a couple, one at a time of course. There's nothing local happening for a while."
"That sounds cool. Maybe I'll be able to do some cosplay."
Alex sarcastically responded "Um, cosplay for Nora is still walking around almost naked. She just wears body makeup."
"Alex!"
Missy was intrigued.
"Really, Nora. Aren't you nervous with all them fanboys around?"
"It's about the attitude, Missy. They're a lot more scared of me than I am of them."
"Still, not all of 'em are scared fanboys."
"I've been doing this for a long time. I haven't had a problem yet but I'm careful. Remember, I also bartend. I can see trouble coming. And usually I get out of the way but I can handle myself. I'm a lot stronger than I look. I would never put myself out there like that if I couldn't handle myself. Usually I meet a lot of interesting and fun people."
"And you probably had more than a little fun with them, right?"
"I'm not ashamed of what I've done in the past, Penny. Yeah, I had a lot of fun. Just like I'm sure you did and Missy did and Alex did. None of us are virgins."
"Sorry, Nora. I didn't mean to hit a nerve."
"You didn't. Not really. I admit I've done my share of sleeping around. I like to believe I'm past that because what Alex and I have is real and lasting. But I'm not going to pretend the things I used to do never happened. Some of those memories can come in pretty handy. Right, Alex?"
Alex blushed.
"So is this the point of the evenin' where we compare all our old exes?"
"Yeah, uh, no I think I'd rather skip that. I think we spent more than enough time with one of my exes tonight."
"Seems to me like Nora probably has the best stories but I'm with Penny. Let's skip it."
"Okay, another time. And trust me, I do have some pretty good stories."
"The guys keep saying What happens at ComicCon stays at ComicCon."
"Penny, I suspect those guys haven't had the same kinds of experiences I've had. If they did they'd never shut up about them. As a for instance, can you imagine what any of them would do at an orgy?"
"Run away?"
"Probably. But we said we weren't going to talk about this stuff tonight. But some other time…"
"Fine Nora. Now do me a favor and go down and put Missy's stuff in the dryer?"
"Okay, sweetie. Be right back."
As soon as Nora left Alex turned to Missy and Penny.
"I'm sorry if Nora got a little personal. She kind of likes to find people's buttons and push them."
"Nothin' t'apologize for. I like folks that are blunt and know who they are. Nora is both of them things. You're lucky. You'll always know where you stand with her."
"Thanks, Missy."
"Yeah, I guess I could learn a little from Nora. Instead of being embarrassed and ashamed of the stupid things I did and guys that I did I should just accept it all as part of who I am and move on."
"It's a lot easier said than done. Penny."
"Y'know, it's weird and a kinda nice hanging out with people who sort of have the same level of experience as me. It was different hanging of with Bernadette and Amy."
"Assumin' you mean sexual experience, sweetie."
"Yeah."
Nora came back into the apartment and saw the serious expressions on everyone's faces.
"Who died?"
"It's not like that. Penny was just mentioning that this group, us, we're all kind of sexually active and have been for a while. That wasn't really the case with her, Bernadette and Amy."
"Yeah, we were Amy's first female friends and she didn't know how to handle that. She didn't know what questions were inappropriate and she was constantly coming on to me in this innocent but totally creepy way."
"Do you think she might be gay?"
"I think she's just completely confused and she got this idea in her head that she has to be with Sheldon…or me…probably because we're the only ones who have ever shown her any affection at all."
"That's not a good reason to get into a relationship."
"She just doesn't understand and she's learning everything she knows from the Jane Austen novels she reads and us."
"Not a great idea."
"No. No it's not. And we've seen the results. But for someone who is supposedly pretty intelligent, Amy doesn't seem to want to learn. She's just like Leonard. She just figures that over time she'll wear Sheldon down. And Leonard came pretty close with me. If it hadn't been for Sheldon…"
"That ain't gonna happen to Shelly. Not if I have anything to say about it."
"I think Sheldon is doing just fine, Missy."
"I'll be a lot happier when Amy and Leonard are both out of his life for good and things can get more settled. Like Penny bein' home where she belongs."
"C'mon Missy. Alex and Nora have been great. They've made me really feel at home here."
"I didn't mean it like that. Y'all shouldn't have to avoid bein' in your own home. It's wrong."
"It's almost over. Right now it's mainly because there's nowhere for me to sleep there. As soon as that changes I'll be home and we can start rotating these little get-togethers."
"Got a question about that."
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you include Bernadette in this thing tonight? I know she's your friend, probably for longer than any of us."
"Yeah. I know. Here's the thing. I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. She has a lot more in common with Amy than I do and the two of them have been hanging out together a lot. In some ways they really click more than Amy and I do. Since stuff is still going on and I figured that the Amy thing would probably come up, I didn't want to put Bernie in the position of having to defend Amy. Even if she doesn't agree with what Amy's been doing she might not be comfortable with us ragging on her."
"Yeah, I guess I get that."
"Next time around I will invite Bernie. But I don't think Amy will ever really be welcome again. After what she did with the apartment and what she said to me I don't really think of her as a friend."
"Missy, I'm going down to get your stuff."
"Yeah, it's gettin' late. I have a suspicion that Shelly is waitin' up even though I told him not to. And tomorrow is a school day."