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“Well, yeah. She figured out who Diana was.” Callie was so delighted it almost made me forget that I was pissed off with her—and now with Liv too. “So, tell me everything. Did she call you?”

“No, I . . .” I came on to her in a bar after admiring her perfect ass from across the room. “We ran into each other.”

“Oooh, even better. Where?”

“Never mind. I could have used a heads up, you know. This is a big fuckin’ deal and I don’t appreciate you keeping this from me.”

“I’m sorry, Levi. Really. It’s just you never want to talk about anything. Your parents or Josh . . .” Her voice softened. “We thought it was best that Diana decide whether she wanted to contact you or not.”

Though I could see why they would think that—and in a way they were right—it still pissed me off that they’d kept this from me. And to know that they talked about me like I was some wounded kid who needed to be protected. It hurt to acknowledge that she was right. I didn’t talk about my parents or Josh. I couldn’t. Not when it was my fault.

Born under a bad star.

My silence must have said as much. “Levi? Are you still there. Please don’t hang up, okay?”

“I’m here.” My head was pounding, all the fear I’d tried to quash down at Indy saying she needed me, rearing its ugly head. If she needed me, then I couldn’t run away again. I couldn’t put the necessary distance between us before things would go to shit. “I need to make sense of all this.”

“If Diana found her way to you, that means something, right?”

“I don’t know, Cal. Look, I need to think. We’ll talk later.” I hung up and flopped down on the couch. Maybe Callie was right. Indy and I had unfinished business, and she needed me. I just hoped that I would make things better and not worse.

“All right. I’ll do this favor,” I said to whatever force was out there listening, the stars, the universe. “I won’t be anywhere near her on October twenty-first, but you got to do me a solid this time.”

There was no answer. I set the meteorite down in front of the photo, tapping it for good luck.

***

“So, let me get this straight. We were engaged, but we broke up last week?” I repeated as Diana explained her plan over coffee. We were sitting outside Piazza San Marco in Venice, watching pigeons scrabbling for crumbs. We’d decided to meet up an hour before the scheduled lesson time so Diana could prep me on what to expect.

“Whose fault was it?” I asked what seemed like an obvious question.

“Pardon?” She sipped her espresso, and my eyes dropped to her lips as they closed around the rim of the cup.

“Well, did you break up with me because of my frail constitution? Or was I driven mad with jealousy because you were constantly going out and leaving me alone in my sick bed?” I dipped my biscotti into my latte.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” she admitted, setting her porcelain cup down, crinkling her nose and drawing her eyebrows together. I recognized that look of consternation, and it was as adorable now as it had been when she was thirteen.

“See, that’s how you got yourself into this mess. Improvising. An improvised lie is like a twisted ball of yarn. You can no longer see where it ends or begins.” I plucked Indy’s uneaten biscotti from her plate. “This is really good. I need to get the recipe.”

“Hey, I was going to eat that!” she cried.

“Were you though? You hate ginger, which I always thought was funny since you are a ginger.” I hesitated a moment before shoving it in my mouth.

“Stop acting like you know me so well. It’s obnoxious.” Indy sighed. “You’re right though about improvising. It’s not my forte.”

“That’s an understatement.” I snorted and she kicked me under the table.

“Let’s just say that we grew apart. Work got in the way, and we never had time for each other.”

“Sad, but believable.” Even more tragic was the truth—that I couldn’t be in Indy’s life because I wasn’t good for her.

The waiter brought my second espresso—this time without the cookies, which was disappointing—and I opened a cube of sugar and set it on my tiny, mouse-sized spoon. I watched it dissolve into the dark coffee while I considered my next question. I didn’t want to sound too eager, but the curiosity was killing me. “What else did you tell her about me?”

Diana’s eyes turned into two amber moons of panic. “Uh . . .” She sipped at her empty cup. “I don’t remember everything I said. Improvising, you know.”

“Come on, Ind—Diana. You have to give me something besides being a sickly dancer, which, by the way, was a strange choice.”

She blew at irritated gust of air from her mouth sending one of the tendrils framing her face flying. “You’re a pilot.”