“Call me when I’m twenty-eight,” I plead.

He laughs, and then he falls somber again.

“So we’re talking of you being unable to be the one to come from there . . . to here?” he asks me.

“I don’t know. I suppose . . . we can figure it out. It’s not like we can’t talk sometimes.”

“Agreed.”

“It’s complicated. I mean . . .” Can we simplify? How about we simplify? “Maybe when I’m twenty-eight, you’ll be ready, and I’ll be ready too—”

I’m waffling. I know I’m waffling.

“I’m just going to kiss you for the hundredth time, if that’s all right with you?”

His finger slides up my cheek as he cups my face in his palm and presses his lips to mine, and my toes curl a thousand and one times. My heart beats a thousand and one times in one second.

I’m panting when he pulls back to look at me with hot hazel eyes.

“I’m going to miss kissing you.”

He looks at me. Just that.

Just looks at me.

My throat is tight and I cannot, cannot, breathe. I want to tell him to tell me to stay. I want to tell him I love him. I want him to tell me he loves me back. But I’m afraid. Afraid that this is just a moment, that it’ll pass.

That he’ll leave me. That I’ll leave him.

That it just won’t work.

Stop being afraid. Just trust in this, Livvy.

I lift my head and kiss him and he groans softly, licking my lips. He pulls my face closer and licks me again, a deep, tender flick of his tongue.

Then his lips are gone and I’m silenced by his dark, thoughtful expression.

“I was always going to go. That’s the plan, right? Own a business at twenty-six, etcetera etcetera,” I say.

He looks at me. “Letting you go right now is the most unselfish thing I’ve ever done.”

“You’re the one who gave me the courage to really believe I can follow my dreams and do it.”

He just looks at me, his eyes really dark.

My eyes sting.

“Goodbye, Callan. I . . . I learned a lot.”

And I did. I learned you can’t always count on your life plans to go your way. Sometimes some higher power somewhere has a bigger picture. Puts you where you didn’t expect to be. To learn what you need to learn. Life sometimes doesn’t run in the cycles it’s expected to. We are all here for a blink. Life changes in a blink. We fall in love, sometimes, in a blink.

He stands and clenches his jaw, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s a stupid rule, Livvy. So are some of mine. We like to control our environments, but the more I try to control this, the more it slips out of my hands. Time doesn’t matter, really. I understand you have your rules, but I’m breaking yours when you’ve done nothing to break mine.”

“What?” I ask, laughing.

“Just saying,” he says. There’s a warning in his eyes.

“Goodbye, Drake.”

“Goodbye, Fanny.”

I take my promise ring and put it in his palm. “Can I give you this? Not like a promise or anything, just . . . I don’t know,” I ramble. I kiss his jaw and force his palm closed around my ring. “Goodbye, Callan.”

I hold it together as I take the elevator to the lobby and head home with my box. But I fall apart with my grandma’s queen of everything pillow.

I don’t feel like a queen now, I don’t feel like anything amazing now.

Tahoe drives me to the airport.

I’m hiding my weepy, swollen eyes behind a pair of sunglasses, quietly staring out at Chicago.

“Carmichael came to talk to me.”

I think I hear my heartbeat faltering. “Oh.”

“He talk to you yet?” He seems very curious.

“No. I mean, we said goodbye yesterday. We’re friends and on good terms. We’re texting each other next month if he manages to stop smoking.”

A silence, then a soft chuckle. “Okay then. Call me and tell me how that goes.”

I don’t know how my brother can sound so amused when I’m sure that I won’t feel amusement or true joy for a long time in my life again.

“You going to be okay?” he asks as I step out of the car and Tahoe comes around to hug me.

“Yes.” I look into his blue eyes, so like mine. “Don’t get into any fights.” I scowl at the fading bruise around his left eye.

“Don’t make me,” he warns, then he grins and wraps me in a bear hug. “You tell him you love him?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No. It’s better this way. I don’t want to pressure him into anything and I belong in Texas.”

“Do you?” is all he asks, his lips half curled even as I nod emphatically and board his plane.

I feel an odd sense of loss. I smile and wipe a tear from my eye and clutch my vomit bag as I fly in my brother’s jet back to Texas, though the feeling in my stomach doesn’t seem to be related to my fear of heights at all.

I just don’t know if I’m flying in the right direction.

This was the plan. Callan just wasn’t in it and now that he is, I’m struggling to believe what my nana once said, that maybe I could have both. I’m transported to the terrace. Olivia. Callan. To his teasing smile. His expectant gaze when he pushed me. To the way he lost control in bed. To the cigarettes we shared. The stolen looks and the forbidden touches and the talks.

The talks.

The slow, irrefutable, irresistible smile of his. It was perfect.

He was perfect.

Callan

Lovely girl.

Lovely fucking infuriating girl.

She’s a fucking lovely infuriating girl and I’m behind my office desk, staring at her fake ring, rich beyond measure and as miserable as they come. My whole life is as fake as this ring Livvy wore.

Jesus.

I let her go.

Despite every inch of me screaming to grab her to me and never let her leave. I could see her begging me to let her go. This is her dream. I won’t hold her back.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

I’m not fucking buying it, not even for a dime.

I’m not this guy. I’m the guy who wouldn’t get it. Why my friends would go balls deep for just one. I do now. This is me now.

I call T.

“I’m all in.”

I hang up then I grab my keys. First thing on my mind—a meeting at Carma for some much-needed restructuring. Second, I’m getting a real ring to replace the damn fake one on her finger.

I’ll give her a month. But that’s all she’s getting. I’m not taking no for an answer. This is my girl—all that’s required is for the stubborn, irresistible little Miss Roth to see it.

Livvy

I’ve heard it too many times. Be careful what you wish for. But still millions of people are out there wishing. I got my wish. I got a kick-ass internship, a kick-ass recommendation from Callan Carmichael, CEO of Carma Inc., and Daniel Radisson scooped me up like a football for the touchdown.

It should feel absolutely great—I’m climbing the ladder of success, step by step.

I could think Callan’s recommendation might have been influenced by my bed skills, but I know that man too well: he wouldn’t endorse anything or put his signature on any paper that he didn’t fully believe in.

And he fully believed in me, right from the start—he gave me a shot. Taught me the ropes. He even let me go so I could chase this dream.

The satisfaction I should feel isn’t there, though, because somewhere along the way I started thinking of other possibilities for my life. I should be proud I stuck with the plan. Instead I feel like there’s this giant vacuum in my life and nothing can fill it.

Radisson Investments in Austin wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. Even with me living with Mom and Dad only an hour away and Nana’s grave so close, I’m not as motivated. Daniel leaves me alone and just says, “Good job.” Always “Good job.” I wonder if he’d say that even if I were putting in only a halfhearted effort. I almost am.

I crave Callan’s voice telling me, “You can do better.”

I’m thinking of veering off on my own a little earlier than expected, but I know I’ve yet to sharpen up my investing skills a little more.