Penny entered the kitchen, leaned against the counter and let out a breath.

Almost from the start things had gone south.

They had arrived at the party and Leonard was a mess due to nerves. For some reason he had ditched his usual layers and decided to wear a jersey. Which would be fine as this was a Football party, except, it was a Hockey jersey…from a Canadian Team.

'Hamilton Tigers' His Jersey proudly displayed. The black and yellow colors that were meant to represent tiger stripes made him look like a bumblebee instead. Not to mention how awkward he was in it, adjusting it every five seconds.

And then he introduced himself to her friends…as if it were the first time he's meeting them.

"Uh, we met before, at Penny's superbowl party." Brian looked confused.

"What are you doing?" Jon asked as Leonard tried to do some sort of complicated handshake.

"Nice to meet you." Carly very subtly covered her cleavage after Leonard stared for a moment too long.

Not a great first introduction as her boyfriend.

Leonard adjusted the neck of his jersey again and smiled. Things were going surprisingly well.

Everyone else was wearing jerseys as well, even some of the girls. Though the girls' jerseys were modified to be more fashionable. One of the girls, Carly, was wearing a pink jersey with a lot of cleavage and Leonard had been careful to sneak peeks at her because he didn't know how the jersey stayed in place but he was certainly enjoying it.

One of Penny's friends was sitting on her boyfriend's lap and Leonard wished he could do the same with Penny, but his girlfriend was taller and heavier than him. Everyone around the table was smiling and joking around, Penny also came back from the kitchen with a new drink, so he tried to tell them a joke.

"Why was the best footballer in the world asked to tidy up their room?" Leonard waited excitedly before revealing the punchline. "Because they were Messi!" He had googled that joke and it was the most upvoted one about Football.

Utter silence.

It's not like they were angry at him, but the group looked confused. Penny included. He was starting to sweat because he was sure that the joke would kill. He had visited like eight different websites just for that joke.

"Oh! You mean Lionel Messi?" The girl in the pink jersey asked. He needed to remember her name.

"Err yes?"

"Oh…but he plays soccer, not football." She said slowly, confused.

"Oh! Oh! I know of that guy. But I'm surprised you know him, Barley." Jon said.

"Diego loved soccer and I remember him mentioning that name before."

Soon the conversation moved but Leonard felt like his joke and he had been largely ignored. He took a drink of his glass to try and swallow the feeling of humiliation but his face was burning and he was sure that the back of his neck was covered in sweat.

He turned to look at Penny and was scared of seeing her cringing or look disappointed in him but she smiled at him before returning to talk to one of her friends and her smile felt like a reassurance that he hadn't messed up.

"Hey, Leonard right?" Keith? Yeah, Keith. Keith talked to him. "I see that you're a Hockey fan but what do you think about the Steelers? Do you think they really overlooked the Jaguars because they were anticipating a rematch with the Pats?"

Very few times in his life he had experienced panic like this. He didn't know that they would ask him about the game.

"Oh, mark my words, Juju Smith is going to get that ROY award." Brian jumped in.

"Suresuresuresure but did you see how they scored in this game? Roethlisberger found Brown easily! Antonio is going to be MVP this season." Jon added.

Leonard looked from one man to the other, lost. He had no idea what they were talking about, shame, panic and self-loathing roiled in his belly. He nodded to whatever they were saying, hoping that it would prevent him from answering.

The men bantered with each other and despite everything, Leonard longed to be part of the group. He wanted to be able to make jokes about football, to be able to talk about the game…but he didn't know how.

"C'mon, let Leonard talk." Keith once again tried to draw him into the conversation.

For a moment he considered lying, to pretend to know what they were talking about, but he knew that they would catch him.

"I…actually don't like Football that much." Leonard muttered.

"Oh, so what sports do you like?" Keith probably thought he was being nice but to Leonard it felt like bullying, as if Keith was shining a spotlight on him.

"Oh you know, normal sports." Leonard said and even as he said it, he knew it was stupid. He couldn't raise his eyes from his drink, he was afraid that they would laugh at him, make fun of him or even worse, ignore him completely.

"Ha, ha! You're so funny sweetie." Penny interrupted their conversation. "Leonard is not a sports guy. He's a Physicist."

"Oh! Like Sheldon?" The girl that was talking with Penny asked and something inside him coiled around his heart. This was his chance to be normal, to be one of the guys and he was being compared to Sheldon.

Fuck that.

"No! I'm nothing like Sheldon! I'm smart but I don't go around rubbing it in other people's faces. I don't need people to call me Doctor every single time. I don't need to have my food made to microscopical detail and I can drive myself places without having a meltdown!"

HIs chest heaved with the effort of trying to stay calm but even in this state he didn't miss the looks shared between the friend group.

It wasn't until he started coughing that he realized the trouble breathing was not because of his anger but because of his asthma. Taking his inhaler and doing a couple of shots was another arrow to his ego, what normal guy needs an inhaler?

"Excuse us." Penny pulled him into the hallway and into a bedroom.

His face was flaming and he could hear his heartbeat beating loudly against his ears, he was hot and cold and he was pretty sure that he was sweating out of every pore in his body.

To her credit, Penny waited until he was breathing somewhat normally before laying onto him.

"What the hell was that?!" She was fuming and had her hands on her hips.

"I…I don't know. I'm sorry. I just heard them compare me to Sheldon and I didn't want them to think that I was anything like him. This was my chance to just be another guy but…I don't know, I felt like I was not good enough."

"Leonard…" Penny stopped talking and took a deep breath. "Sweetie, if you wanted to be able to talk about Football with my friends, why didn't you research or try to learn about it?"

"I didn't think that ALL conversation would be around the game. I thought they would be talking about something else and…well, Football is kinda boring." Leonard sat on the edge of the bed and shrugged.

Penny squinted at him. "So you wanted to fit in and be one of the guys but don't want to learn about the one thing this party was about?"

"I…it's not like that. Girls like you usually don't date guys like me okay? I'm doing my best here so you don't get tired of me and go back to one of the meatheads you usually date. I want to be here so people know you have a good boyfriend."

Penny breathed in sharply and closed her eyes. "Leonard…are you saying that you're only here because you were afraid that if you weren't that someone would have flirted with me and I would have gone with them?"

That was certainly something he had been afraid of. He finally got his shot with Penny and a part of him was scared that she would get bored and leave him when a muscular and handsome guy appeared in front of her.

He tried to find a way to voice his thoughts without putting his foot in his mouth but was coming up blank.

After a long moment Penny opened her eyes. "Well Leonard?"

"I just don't want to lose you."

Penny sighed. "We're not done talking about this. For now, we're going to go back to the party. My friends are regular people Leonard, not creatures you have to decipher, just tell them about your sci-fi shows or comics or something and you'll find a common interest, I'm sure."

"But I don't want to talk to them about nerdy things."

Without another word, Penny left.

"Yikes…" Carly said once Penny and her boyfriend disappeared down the hallway.

"Yikes indeed." Toni said and she downed her drink.

Jon rubbed at the back of his neck and then pulled on his earlobe, trying to think of a way to word his thoughts.

"Okay, what just happened?" Erica asked out loud. The game now forgotten.

"I don't know but…the reaction to being compared to Sheldon was weird right?" Jon finally said. That was the part that stuck out to him the most.

Everyone nodded.

"Look guys, I know that it was weird, but this is also his first time meeting us as Penny's boyfriend and not just her neighbor so let's cut him some slack." Dani was always the voice of reason.

"We've all done dumb shit when nervous, right?" Keith added.

Jon reluctantly nodded but Brian pushed against it. "Look, I'm all for second chances but we're here trying to talk to him and he's just stonewalling us. And I don't know about you guys but the way he was ogling Carly while Penny was right there by his side didn't exactly give me a good feeling about him."

Carly had ended up covering herself with a light sweater borrowed from Toni because Leonard couldn't stop looking at her chest.

"I kinda wish Sheldon had come instead." Toni joked.

"Katia is also going to be here any moment now." Carly piped up.

"Yeah, and Penny is not going to be much longer I bet. Look, just try to make sure the rest of the day goes smoothly. You guys, talk to him about your Dungeon game you've been talking about so much, I'm sure once he relaxes it'll all be okay." Dani took charge like always but no one fought her on what she said.

The doorbell rang. Carly looked at her phone and went to answer the door.

Penny sat on the passenger seat and she looked intently out the window as Leonard drove them home.

"So…that went well I think." Leonard said and even without looking at him she knew he was giving her an awkward smile. "I like your friends."

Penny didn't reply and Leonard kept yapping away about how much fun he had at the party.

She had to close her eyes and try to tune him out because it seemed that they had attended two different parties.

After their conversation in Toni's guest bedroom, a new girl had arrived at the party. Katia, she was a new friend of Carly's. It was just one more person, nothing special, except Leonard spent the rest of the night following Katia like a lost puppy.

"I think they liked me too." Leonard continued.

Jonjon tried to talk to Leonard about Dungeons and Dragons. Her boyfriend's self admitted favorite game, and what did her boyfriend said at Jonjon's simple question?

"Ah, no, I don't, I'm not into that nerdy stuff. It's kinda childish right?" He said while trying to smile confidently. Somehow missing the frown on Jonjon's face.

"Maybe we can do it again." Leonard kept talking.

"...yeah, maybe…" She finally said and pretended to fall asleep.

"I'm so sorry." Carly was holding hands with Katia as she apologized.

"It's okay, but maybe next time if he's going to be here it's best that I don't come, yeah?" Katia smiled weakly.

"No, no, don't worry. He's the boyfriend of our friend but I don't think he's going to be a regular here. Right?" Carly asked the group.

Grimacing, Dani had to agree. "Yeah…I think we had enough for a while." She rubbed at her face with both hands. "Okay, I'll talk to Penny." She paused before addressing everyone. "Are we the assholes? Please tell me we're somehow to blame for this shit."

"Sorry, but no." Toni served herself another drink. "Also, what was with that macho attitude, everything was childish?"

"Yeah, that was not cool." Jon had deflated after Leonard shot down the Dungeons and Dragons talk.

"I wasn't a fan of the Sheldon freakout either." Brian had Erica on his lap as she dozed off. "Honestly, what was that?"

"Oh yeah." Keith said with a mouth full of chips. "Sorry. But yeah, that was weird as hell."

Dani shook her head as if trying to clear it by the action alone. "Please tell me Sheldon is not like that. I've only seen him a couple of times."

Jon grabbed a handful of chips while replying. "Nah, Sheldon is direct. He doesn't do subtle or false. Because of that he can seem a bit of an ass until you realize he's the most direct person ever. Just tell him what you want or need and he'll do the same."

Brian nodded. "He rubbed me the wrong way at first, not gonna lie."

"Besides, he really is as smart as he claims. He's got two Doctorates." Keith added while trying to recover the bowl of chips from Jon.

"When are we meeting him anyway?" Brian asked, yawning.

"He said we can do Thursday night. I'll go pick him up and then drop him back at his apartment. Jon stretched after replying. "He doesn't drive."

"Okay, we'll go dancing or something." Carly said while searching for her keys.

"It's a plan." Dani confirmed. She wasn't looking forward to her conversation with Penny but knew that she couldn't just ignore it.

Penny sighed tiredly as she basically threw herself on the couch.

She didn't have the energy to deal with Leonard tonight, as he dropped her off at her door he was still smiling proudly but she didn't want to deal with him at the moment. Maybe that was wrong of her, but she just wanted to sleep.

Sheldon was watching TV when Leonard walked happily into the apartment.

"Hey Sheldon, buddy. Once again, thank you for not going. I think it went well."

"I wish I could say 'That's nice' but the reality is that I don't care."

"Thanks buddy."

"Sarcasm?"

Leonard didn't reply but gave him a thumbs up.