Jordan looked up from his cake long enough to glower at his father. Wow, these two really could not stand each other. What was the story there?

“So what do you do, Mr. Fawkes?” I asked to veer clear of whatever collision course those two were on.

“It’s Dr. Fawkes. I’m an associate professor of environmental engineering at Cal Poly, and I run a consulting firm on the side.”

That explained the ‘global-warming machine’ comment he’d made. I took a breath and released it.

“Where did you attend school, April?” Jordan’s mother asked.

“I just graduated from UCI last June. I want to go to UCLA for graduate school.” We fell into silence again and I picked at my chocolate cake. It was delicious but overly rich, and I’d had my fill of it after the first few bites. “So, uh…you must all be really proud of Jordan, that he’s speaking at the TED conference.”

All of their heads shot up, faces turned to the man in question. His fork froze in the process of bringing the next bite of cake to his mouth.

“You’re speaking at TED?” his mother asked first. “When?”

He took a deep breath, let it out and then shot me a look that could kill.

“In a few weeks,” I said when Jordan did not supply the answer. I was shocked that they didn’t know.

Hannah cleared her throat. “That’s awesome, bro. You’ll be like, famous and all that. What are you speaking on?”

“How to be a shallow, materialistic mega-consumer, I’d imagine,” said his dad.

“Actually, how to live your life singularly to spite your own parent,” Jordan inserted without pause.

Awkward.

“Will we be able to watch the speech?” his mom asked as if neither had spoken.

When Jordan didn’t answer, I did. “It live streams on the Internet with a slight delay, I think. You’ll be able to see it the day he delivers it. I’m sure the schedule is on the website.”

“And here I thought you were all wrapped up in your Wall Street money-grab,” said his dad with a sardonic smile.

“Grant,” the Reverend began. “Enough.”

Jordan’s father’s face flushed as he turned to the Reverend. “What did you expect from this little maneuver of yours, Dad? Happy unicorns dancing in the woods farting rainbows and butterflies?”

“Yeah,” Jordan snorted. “There’s no reasoning with fanatics.”

Grant’s head whipped around and he gave his son a dirty look. “The fanatic label is just a fence-sitter’s way of justifying his own cowardice.”

“There’s no fence-sitting over here. You and I are clearly on opposite sides of a very tall fence,” Jordan growled in return.

Oh, dear. I tried to think of an excuse that would get me out of this room as quickly as possible. The full frontal confrontation was making my nerves dance with flashbacks of my parents screaming at each other during practically every exchange I’d ever heard between them.

With a shaky breath, I stood and grabbed my plate, heading once again for the kitchen. I’d hide in there until it was over. A minute later, Jordan’s mother was standing beside me at the sink with her plate.

“I’m sorry about that. Neither of us figured that Jordan would bring someone with him.” Ah, so she was in on it too. “It wasn’t fair to catch you in the crossfire like that.”

I cleared my throat. “That must get really old during family gatherings for the holidays.”

She nodded. “They’re too much alike and both very stubborn. They’ve always butted heads, but it’s been particularly bad since—well, you probably don’t care about all the family dynamics.”

“I’ve got a lot of dynamics of my own to deal with.”

“You’re just up here doing your job and stepped into family drama, completely unaware.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m really sorry. I hope that he’s being a good boss to you?”

“Uh. Yeah. He’s teaching me a lot. There’s—”

I was cut off when the door to the kitchen opened. With that same perpetual scowl, Jordan stalked into the kitchen straight toward me. “We’re going now.”

“Jordan,” his mom began.

“Not now, okay? We can talk later.”

“You’re upset.”

Jordan rubbed at his jaw. “I’m pretty pissed, yeah.”

“I’m, uh, gonna give you two a minute. I’ll be out in the car,” I said.