A long-distance relationship is not something I predicted or saw for myself; it wasn’t something I wanted.

And.

It sucks.

“Mate, you should talk to Dad,” my brother says at last. “You need a plan—you can’t keep on like this. You’ll make yourself sick.”

I glance over at him; he’s stopped working on whatever he was working on and is giving me his full attention.

I never really took Jack seriously—he’s just always been my kid brother, in the background, a few years younger, so not really crossing my path. When I was finishing school, he was beginning.

We never hung out unless we had to, forced together by our mother, not bonding like I’ve seen my American mates do with their siblings because they lived together and played together.

Jack and I were in boarding school, and not even at the same one.

This is the first time he’s given me advice.

“You think I should talk to Dad?”

“I think…” He takes the laptop off his thighs and sets it on the bed beside him. “You should go to the States and figure out your shite with Georgia. You have to get closer or spend time together, one of the two.”

Wow.

Wow—this is unexpected coming from him.

“You have to do something. You can’t do this much longer, mate. Living here—I don’t mind it. Stay as long as you want. Mum and Dad pay my lease anyway. But you’re walking around on autopilot, refusing to date other people…”

He’s given me something to mull over, that’s for sure.

And I do.

It’s all I can think about for days.

Going through the motions, I go to work. I’ve started at my father’s firm as an entry-level associate. Yesterday he was actually in the office; he’s here in town, staying in his flat after leaving the office, in London for the week before going back to the country to be with Mum, a habit he got into when I was a lad.

We had lunch.

We had a chat.

I ring Georgia for a video chat, seated in my cubicle at the office, hoping I’m not interrupting while she’s in the middle of something or having dinner—but this is fresh on my mind and it has to be said.

Dad and I came up with a plan. Or, he did, and I’m about to lay it out on the line with my ex-roommate slash girlfriend slash wife.

She picks up almost immediately and I sigh with relief, smiling when I see her gorgeous face.

It looks like she’s at home, in bed.

Her parents’ place, since she moved home after graduating. Can’t afford a flat of her own, working a shite job while looking for something better.

“Hey babe, are you at work?” She’s adjusting herself on the bed and getting comfortable, fluffing the pillows behind her so she’s propped up for the call.

“I am. Just had a chat with Dad.”

“That’s nice—what time is it there?”

She still hasn’t figured out the time change, can never tell if it’s day or night or afternoon when she calls me. Sometimes she’ll ring me at one in the morning thinking it’s dinnertime, or at four AM thinking it’s noon.

But maybe she won’t have to figure it out much longer. Not after what I’m about to propose.

“It’s just after lunch. One thirty.”

“Oh good. I’m heading into work soon, though I don’t know if they’ll have much for me to do. I might get sent home early, which sucks since I need the money.”

“Sorry babe, that is a pisser.” But it’s also a great segue into the next part of the conversation. “Dad and I were talking and—well. I’m just going to throw this out there since it’s been on my mind.”

Neither of us have been able to sleep, texting each other at all hours of the day and night, making the situation that much worse. Making me miss her more.

There aren’t enough messages and video chats that can fix being an ocean apart.

“You know how much I miss you,” I begin.

Georgia nods. “I miss you, too. I miss you like crazy, but…” It hardly matters when you’re thousands of miles away.

“See, Georgie, that’s the thing. I can come back—Dad is willing to let me come back to the States. He’s giving me six months to work remotely, to figure out what we’re going to do, you and I.” I begin rambling, speaking a mile a minute, her smile fading the more I babble. “We can get a place for the next few months, and we can fill out paperwork—whatever you want to do. I can work from home and you can keep looking for a better job or internship, and six months is plenty of time to sort through the tangle. What do you think?”

She hesitates.

Speaks slowly. “You would do that?”

“Yes.” Of course. “When Dad suggested it, I almost fell out of my chair. They really liked you when you were here, Georgia, even if we cut ties at the end of it all and go our separate ways.”

I’m never going to find another girl like her, but I would try.

“But I’d only have six months. That would be it. And I…my life is going to be here, Georgia. I can’t make promises about that. I’ve always wanted to work for my dad and take over his business with Jack, and I don’t think that is ever going to change. But I’m willing—no. You’re important, and…shite. I love you. I don’t just want to leave you there. I want…”

She’s nodding along as if she understands, but she can’t possibly know that my heart is thumping out of my chest and my palms are sweating and I keep watching for someone in the office to walk by and overhear me pouring my heart out like an idiot.

Shite, someone actually could be listening; these walls all have eyes and ears and will probably talk, too.

“I can’t ask you to come back here, Ashley. You have a job there and your parents are important and—”

“You’re not asking me to come back, Georgie. It’s what I want to do.”

Her head gives a little shake. “I know, but…”

One of the executive assistants is approaching from behind me, stopping my girlfriend’s next few words.

At a leisurely pace, Beth strolls along with a notebook in her hand, obviously pretending not to notice I’m on a video chat with a young woman.

Georgia and I wait until she’s out of sight, and I lean in closer to the monitor.

“Look, I should go. Think about it, okay? I’ll only come back if you want me to.”

“Of course I want you to…it just feels so selfish. You’d be giving up everything to come back here and—what? Watch me work at the same basic job I’ve had for three summers while I scramble to find something better? Or an internship that barely pays anything? I’m still going to be stuck living with my parents.”

“Have you told them yet?”

She’s quiet. “No.”

I get it.

She sees no sense in getting them all worked up if we’re not going to stay together. It can just be a distant memory swept under the rug, and twenty years from now, she can tell the children she has with someone else that Once upon a time, when Mom was wild and crazy in college, she married her roommate in Vegas.

Then again, I wasn’t planning on telling my folks either—they found out by accident because they have access to my bank account.