Jock Royal (Jock Hard 4)

Life had to go on.

Now that I have my degree, I have to fulfill the promise I made to my dad, his company, and—well, it’s time to start earning a living for myself.

I can’t chase a girl I’ve only known for a semester around America; it wouldn’t do. Granted, I married this girl, but still—it hardly counts.

She hasn’t even told her mum and dad as far as I know.

Jack is on his laptop in the middle of his bed, back against his headboard. He takes his glasses off when I come in, setting them on the comforter.

“What’s going on?”

I shuffle in and rest on the end of his bed. “I don’t know, I’m just…” I lift one of my shoulders in a shrug.

“I can see that. Does this have anything to do with your absent wife?”

“She’s not my wife.” I fiddle with the band on my left hand, having worn it since I left her at school, after packing my belongings and hers, stacking her boxes near the door so when her parents came, all they would have to do is load them in the car.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

Some of it we sold online, some of it was left at the curbside.

For now, the house will remain empty until the lease is sublet.

“I mean…she is though.”

It’s been nearly two months since I was in the same room as Georgia. Sure, we video-chat and sext and do all those things—but it’s not the same.

Soon, we have to shite or get off the pot.

Fill out the paperwork or don’t.

Georgia keeps saying she wants the annulment, but has she done anything about it? No.

I don’t think she’s even gone online to look at the paperwork.

“Brother, what are you going to do? You should see yourself—you’re miserable.”

Am I miserable?

I miss her.

I miss every last little thing about her, including the annoying stuff, like the loud way she eats carrot sticks, or how she sometimes would snore at night and steal the blankets.

Dumb, little things.

But am I miserable?

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.”