“Such a shame that I didn’t get to say good-bye to my fellow inmates,” he said sarcastically. “Actually, Puchalski was the only guy I liked. I still can’t figure out what got into him.”

As Jordan used her chopsticks to pick up a piece of hamachi, she decided it was best to get her brother off that topic as fast as possible. “Sounds like he just snapped.”

“But why would he have a fork in his shoe?” Kyle mused. “That makes me think he was planning the attack, which doesn’t make sense.”

Let it go, Kyle. She shrugged. “Maybe he always keeps a fork in his shoe. Who understands why any of these felon types do what they do?”

“Hey. I am one of those felon types.”

Grey tipped his glass of wine. “And who would’ve thought you would do what you did?”

“It was Twitter,” Kyle mumbled under his breath.

“Maybe we should change the subject,” Jordan suggested, sensing the conversation could only spiral downward from there.

“Okay. Let’s talk about you instead,” Grey said. “I never asked – how did Xander’s party go?”

Now there was a potential land mine of a topic. “It went fine. Pretty much the same party as usual.” Except for a little domestic espionage. She threw Kyle a look, needing help. Change the subject. Fast.

He stared back cluelessly. Why?

She glared. Just do it.

He made a face. All right, all right. “Speaking of wine, Jordo, how was your trip to Napa?”

Great. Leave it to her genius of a brother to pick the other topic she wanted to avoid. “I visited that new winery I told you about. We should have a deal this week so that my store will be the first to carry their wine in the Chicago area.”

Grey’s tone was casual. “Did you bring Tall, Dark, and Smoldering with you on the trip?”

Jordan set down her chopsticks and looked over at her father. He smiled cheekily as he took a sip of his wine.

“You read Scene and Heard, too?” she asked.

Grey scoffed at that. “Of course not. I have people read it for me. Half the time, it’s the only way I know what’s going on with you two. And don’t avoid the question. Tell us about this new guy you’re seeing. I find it very odd that you’ve never mentioned him.” He fixed his gaze on her like the Eye of Sauron.

Jordan took a deep breath, suddenly very tired of the lies and the secret-agent games. Besides, she had to face the truth at some point. “Well, Dad, I don’t know if you have to worry about Tall, Dark, and Smoldering anymore. He’s not talking to me right now.”

Kyle’s face darkened. “Tall, Dark, and Smoldering sounds like a moron to me.”

Grey nodded, his expression disapproving. “I agree. You can do a lot better than a moron, kiddo.”

“Thanks. But it’s not that simple. His job presents some … challenges.”

That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

“Why? What kind of work does he do?” her father asked immediately.

Jordan stalled. Maybe she’d overshot a little with the no more lies promise. She threw Kyle another desperate look. Do something. Again.

Kyle nodded. I’m on it. He eased back in his chair and stretched out his intertwined hands, limbering up his fingers. “Who cares what this jerk does? Send me his e-mail address, Jordo – I’ll take care of it. I can wreak all sorts of havoc on Tall, Dark, and Smoldering’s life in less than two minutes.” With an evil grin, he mimed typing at a keyboard.

Their father looked ready to blow a gasket. “Oh no – you do not get to make the jokes,” he told Kyle. “Jordan and I make the jokes. You’ve been out of prison for four days and I seriously hope you learned your lesson, young man …”

As their father’s lecture continued, Jordan smiled gratefully to her brother from across the table.

Kyle winked in reply. No problem.

SHE SHOULD’VE REALIZED, however, that she wasn’t entirely off the hook.

“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” Kyle asked as soon as their father left.

Jordan sighed. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” Something had been nagging her all evening. Yes, she was mad at Nick for not calling her back, but she’d begun to wonder if she maybe, possibly, shared just a tiny bit of responsibility for their fight.

She toyed with the stem of her wineglass absentmindedly. “Do you ever think we’re not … open enough?” she asked Kyle. “With our feelings, I mean. I suppose we are kind of sarcastic sometimes.”

To his credit, he neither laughed nor scoffed at the question. “Mom was always the expressive one. When she died, I think the three of us sort of fell into this routine.” He smiled in a rare moment of sincerity between them. “But I think we get by well enough.”

Jordan shared the smile. She thought her family did pretty okay, too. Federal incarceration excepted. “But what about with other people?”

Kyle shrugged at this. “I shut down Twitter after finding out that my girlfriend cheated on me. That seems pretty expressive.”

“You could’ve just told her how hurt you were,” Jordan said gently.

Kyle fell quiet in response to her comment. They’d talked a lot about the infamous Twitter incident, but not about the feelings that had caused it. She’d sensed that her brother barely wanted to admit to himself that there were any such feelings.

“Telling someone how you feel can be risky, Jordo,” he finally said. “Once the words are out, there are no take-backs.”

She didn’t disagree with that. But if the alternative to gathering some courage and laying her feelings on the line was becoming an infamous Internet terrorist, perhaps it wouldn’t kill her to be straight with Nick. Yes, he could’ve made things easier by not acting like a stubborn jerk, but nothing about Nick had been easy since the night they’d met. It was one of the things she liked about him. Eighty-two percent of the time.

She took a deep breath, ready to start by being honest with herself. “Kyle … I think I screwed up.” She held up a hand, qualifying this. “Partially. Tall, Dark, and Smoldering deserves a lot of the blame. At least half. Maybe two-thirds. Of course, he’s probably sulking right now, thinking that I’m the only one who’s wrong here. He’s kind of frustrating that way. He gets under your skin, like a tick, or a burr, or a thorn, or …” She looked to her brother for help. “What else gets under your skin?”

“Scabies?” he suggested.

“Scabies? This is what you come up with?”

Kyle stared at her as if she was losing it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jordo. But I’ll say this, if you think you screwed up, there’s only one question – the same one you asked me five months ago: Can you fix it?”

Jordan sighed. “I’m trying.”

Her brother’s gaze was firm. “Try harder.”

She glared at him. “Okay.” Then after a moment, she nodded in concession. “Okay.”

DEVINE CELLARS WAS ready to go promptly at ten o’clock, and so was Jordan.

Nick still hadn’t called her back, but this was okay. She was pumped, recharged, and if he didn’t want to take her calls, that was just fine. She’d march down to that fake office of his and tell him how she felt in person. Hopefully, there’d be some corresponding indication that he returned her feelings, but she couldn’t dwell on that. This was new territory for her – the whole mushy, expressive thing – and if she thought about it too much, she might chicken out and resort to her quippy, self-protective defaults. And look where that had gotten her.

She knew from her prior conversation with Nick that Xander was meeting with Trilani that morning, and guessed that Nick would be busy until later in the day. To preoccupy herself until then, she threw herself into the store’s opening tasks. When she’d blown through all of those by 10:22, she looked around for something else to distract herself with. She was debating whether to alphabetize the wines in the store within each varietal type and geographic origin when the bell chimed against the front door.