Sheldon slammed his lunch tray on the cafeteria table next to his roommate. "What's his issue?" quipped Howard.

"No! Why did you have to ask?" Leonard groaned. "If we don't ask, he won't talk about whatever it is. Because you asked, you are forcing us to suffer through his complaining for the next thirty minutes rather than enjoying our lunch."

"I got called to President Seibert's office. East Texas Tech has asked for me to teach a course this summer. I don't teach. My talents are better used working on equations in my office here, not teaching a bunch of twenty-year-olds who are repeating a physics class that they couldn't pass during the year."

The other men at the table exchanged silent glances before Raj tried to turn the situation for Sheldon to see the positive. "Oh, come on. It's kind of exciting that they've heard about you and your work and requested you. They could've gotten anyone from any university to teach the course, but they want you."

"I'm not going," Sheldon crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back into his chair. "I'm beyond returning to what I'm sure has turned into a full-fledged redneck community college over the past twenty years. It was well on its way when I attended."

Leonard eyed his roommate out the side of his glasses. "Just go. They invited you, meaning they'll pay for a hotel and food while you're there. You can visit your mom on the weekends. You've been saying how much you miss Meemaw. I'm sure she'd love to see you."

Sheldon sulked in his spot as his roommates set plates on the coffee table in front of him. "Perk up, buddy," Leonard encouraged the man, "Everyone will be here soon. Wolowitz texted that they just picked up the food."

"Amy is coming. You're still okay with that, right?" Penny gently asked, sitting next to him on the couch. Dropping his head into his hand resting on the arm of the couch, he nodded ever so slightly. "I know she's only joined us twice since you guys broke up last year. Are you okay with her sitting in her usual spot next to you? Or should I swap seats with her?"

The physicist's answer was interrupted by the door swinging open with Howard, Bernadette, Raj, and Amy filing in. "Look who we found outside!" announced Raj.

Rushing to her best friend, Penny engulfed Amy in a hug, "You're here! You said you would call when you landed. We're having a girls' night tonight."

"Just a head's up," Leonard said as he hugged the woman who had been missing from their group for months, "Sheldon's in a mood. He was asked to teach a summer course at East Texas Tech and doesn't want to."

Sheldon was quiet throughout the meal until Amy turned her attention to him, "Why don't you want to teach that course?"

"East Texas Tech is nothing more than a redneck community college."

"If memory serves me, that redneck community college is the reason you have done everything you've done. Didn't you start taking courses there while you were still in high school? It might be good for you, leading to other opportunities at the university here. I'm sure you're infamous there, having graduated at fourteen. Don't you think the students there now would love to hear your experiences? You're an example that they can move on to bigger and better things."

Shrugging his shoulders as the rest of the group stared at the former couple, Sheldon ceded his opposition to the opportunity, "I guess you're right. I'll email President Seibert in the morning to let him know I'll do it."

"Okay," Bernadette clapped her hands to divert attention away from the pair, "Let's go across the hall and leave them to play their video games."

The girls quickly exited apartment 4A and found themselves lounging around Penny's apartment. "Before we get too into this, I'm unfortunately staying with my parents since I'm back for my dad's birthday. My mother asked what time I'd be home so she could set the alarm and I said ten," Amy shared. Before the other women could object, she continued, "That means I should be leaving by nine-thirty at the latest."

"How did you do that? He'd been bitching about going to Texas since he was called to President Seibert's office this morning according to Howie," Bernadette sipped her water while clicking on the television.

"I don't know," Amy mirrored her ex-boyfriend's actions from a few minutes earlier and shrugged her shoulders. "I guess I still know how to speak Sheldon even though we're no longer dating."

Handing Amy a glass of wine, Penny commented, "There might be half a country between the two of you, but you guys aren't over. I know it."

"We're just friends, nothing more. I tried getting back together with Sheldon on Thanksgiving and he shot me down."

"Keep telling yourself that," chortled Penny, topping off her wine glass.

"Okay," Bernadette waved her hands around to bring the attention in the room to herself, "If you could get back together with him, even now that you're living in Texas, would you?"

Amy quietly pondered the thought of re-entering a relationship with Sheldon, this time with fifteen hundred miles between them. "The idea of long-distance is not appealing. If we were closer, I'd be more open to the possibility, but I don't think long-distance would work well for us. I've been trying to move on since he said he wanted to remain friends."

Penny and Bernadette exchanged a look before Penny inquired, "That was six months ago. You say you've been trying to move on, but are you really? Have you gone on any dates since you moved? Do you have any friends in Texas?"

"Um, Missy and I have hung out a few times."

"Missy, like Sheldon's sister, Missy?" Penny interrupted. "How did that happen?"

Picking at her cuticles, Amy was starting to wish it were two hours later so she would have an excuse to leave. "I don't know if you heard that Sheldon and I ended up sitting next to each other on a flight from Phoenix to Houston back in March. We talked on the plane and he gave Missy my number after. She called me and we got coffee a few weeks later."

"Interesting. Missy hasn't mentioned that the two of you have been hanging out."

"So, Bernadette, how's the baby?" Amy cut off Penny to change to focus of the conversation to the other woman in the room.