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“Um . . .” Claudia Visconti would be there! I had to meet her, and Levi did say he wanted to help me. “You know, I can ask him.”

God, this would be humiliating, but it was worth a try. Across the table, Sabrina shook her head at me and mouthed, “What are you doing?”

I wished I knew.

***

After lunch, I drove Sabrina and Pete back to his place. Pete, a notorious lightweight, had one too many glasses of prosecco at lunch. Sabrina was helping him out when I announced I was borrowing the car and leaving her there to go on a brief errand. She was not easily duped and stared at me like I’d lost my marbles.

I’d tried to explain the whole fake fiancé debacle to Sabrina on the vaporetto after lunch. But Pete was there and I didn’t want him to know that I’d made up the story. He’d think I was delusional. And maybe I was, but it was also kind of his fault by making me think Reginald Harris was a big perv in the first place.

“This is a really bad idea, but since I can’t talk you out of it”—she blew me a kiss—“watch out for yourself.”

“Have fun with your fiancé,” Pete mumbled, making drunken air quotes with his fingers and stumbling toward the door. Sabrina rolled her eyes and followed after him. “You owe me big time for this!”

Without overthinking it, I drove north toward Aviano. Going back there was a homecoming of sorts: I was born there. It was my dad’s last overseas mission before finally leaving active service to become an instructor at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Aviano Air Base had also been at the top of Levi’s wish list when he was still a cadet. He and Josh had spent hours arguing over their respective career plans, knowing full well that they’d probably not be stationed together often over the course of their careers. Josh wanted to go to South Korea or Japan. Levi, however, had taken one glance through my parents’ photos from Aviano and had immediately fallen in love with the snow-capped mountains and the blue waters of the Adriatic. And, of course, as far as he had been concerned the pièce de résistance was the food.

“I can get Italian food anytime at Nonna’s,” Josh had argued. Our paternal grandmother lived next door. She was originally from Bergamo and, like any good Italian grandmother, her favorite pastime was cooking for her grandkids. But I secretly think she loved cooking for Levi even more than us. Honestly, he could have won an Academy Award for the way he’d clasp his hand to his heart and sink to his knees when she made her famous lasagna.

Since being back in Italy, I’d avoided coming anywhere near Aviano. Since Josh’s accident the roar of jets filled me with anxiety. Right after the accident, my dad had argued that at least he’d died doing something he loved. We should all be so lucky, right? Once flying gets in your veins, he’d explained to us once, there’s not much you can do but go with it. The thing was, I don’t know if it ever really was in Josh’s veins or if he did it to be like my dad, who was his hero. Space was really more of his passion. Sometimes I’d think he would have been just as content studying the stars from the ground, as an astrophysicist in some small college on the East Coast.

Levi, on the other hand, really did have flying in his veins. My dad always used to say that Levi was one of those guys who was just born to fly. He never got sick from g-force training, unlike Josh who had passed out on more than one occasion. Levi never struggled with landing at night or flying in formation, whereas Josh was always beating himself up for having messed up again. He probably should have flown bombers or helicopters, but somehow, and maybe it was a favor to my dad, they’d given him jets.

So did he die doing something he loved? Maybe, maybe not. All I knew was that his death had changed my relationship to flying for good, and it brought me no pleasure to show up at the base.

I pulled up to the main gate, rolling down the window to speak to the man in the welcome kiosk.

“Buongiorno.” I flashed him my best smile.

“You can speak English,” he replied emotionlessly.

“Oh, okay. I’m here to see an airman. Jasinski. Levi.”

“Do you have a visitor pass?”

“Oh, no . . . I don’t have one, but my father was a commander here, Mike Russo. I was actually born here.” I started rambling, and he tapped his pen against his clipboard. “Would it be possible to contact Levi?”

“No, ma’am. Can’t say if we have anyone by that name. If he wants you to visit, he needs to apply for a visitor pass at least thirty days in advance of your visit.”

“Thirty days? Surely, you could make an exception.” I smiled again, trying to charm him. If Ashleigh was here, she’d probably get immediate access.

“No visitor pass. No access.”

There was no sweet talking this guy, so I threw the car in reverse and pulled over to the side to think. A jet took off, rising rapidly over the base. It reminded me of those days when Levi and Josh would take me to watch the planes land at the Academy. We’d lay on the hood of Levi’s car and let the planes roar over us.

I followed the road around the base to a small field of brown grass behind the back runway, which was just being hosed down in preparation for more planes to take off. With the mountains behind the base, I felt like I was right back in Colorado. Even more so when I spotted Francine parked off to the side. For a minute, it was as if I’d wandered back into some forgotten memory.

And sure enough, there was Levi stretched out over the hood of his car, Ray-Bans balanced on his nose, in an old pair of jeans and T-shirt, unbothered by the cool autumn air. As I pulled up into the grass next to him, he turned with a scowl, then sat up slowly as he recognized me. He looked scruffy again, so at odds with my memory of him as a clean-cut golden boy. He stood and crossed his arms as I hopped out of the Jeep, averting my eyes from the very distracting sight of the veins popping on his muscular forearms.

“I thought I’d hallucinated Francine the other day,” I told him. Oh, the memories I had of this car—learning to parallel park, sitting on the hood on a hot summer day listening to music, and then, of course, that awful night when, standing next to her, I’d begged him to kiss me. “You’ve taken good care of her.”

“Yeah, well, we go way back.” He ran his hand over her dark red exterior. “Got her a new paint job over the summer. Still red. Like your hair.” He smiled then waited for me to say something, but I didn’t know where to begin. After another award silence, he said, “So how’d you track me down, Ind—Diana?”

“Well, Levi, would you believe me if I said I just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

“Nope, you’re a terrible liar. Always have been. It’s one of your best qualities really.” He waited, studying me like he already knew what I was going to say.

“Ugh, okay, okay. I need your help,” I admitted.