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“What do we have here?” he said.

“Making friends, don’t I always?” Jo said.

“Not usually?”

Avery offered her hand. “Avery Kaplan.”

Realization dawned in Vincent’s eyes. “Ah. The girlfriend’s sister.”

Avery immediately grinned, delighted.

“Do you have any tips?” Vincent asked as he shook her hand. “On how to handle the burden of being the cooler sibling?”

Avery laughed, and Jo rolled her eyes.

It wasn’t bad, though, sitting with Avery and Dylan as well as Vincent and his wife, Sally. Thomas, Jo’s younger nephew, said hi and then immediately joined the other younger siblings playing under the bleachers. Once the game started, the adults didn’t keep up inane small talk, and when they did talk, Avery was sharp and witty. She reminded Jo a lot of Evelyn, actually.

The kids won, and Jo got dragged to ice cream with the team after, because Ethan asked her with too big a grin for her to say no. Avery chuckled as she walked beside Jo toward the parking lot.

“Who knew Jo Jones was such a softie?” she said.

“Only for my nephews,” Jo said. “And if you tell anyone, I’ll have to have you killed.”

Avery chuffed out a laugh, and Jo almost wished she weren’t Emma’s sister. She wouldn’t mind having a friend, but that seemed complicated here.

—

“Good morning, boss,” Emmasaid the next day, handing Jo her coffee.

“Morning,” Jo said. “Thanks.”

She was a little wary, but there didn’t seem to be anythingbehind Emma’s smile. Perhaps Avery hadn’t discussed last night with her yet. In that case, Jo wouldn’t bring it up, didn’t know exactly what to say anyway.I watched your niece and nephew play baseball last nightsounded a bit strange. She took her coffee and went to work instead.

Jo wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but she’d expected that writing Agent Silver would be easier. She was used to being television Jo Jones—a powerhouse who got what she wanted because she’d already proven herself. And while the whole point of branching out and doing Agent Silver was to push herself to do something she didn’t have experience with, it felt unsteady, not having a reputation and history of work to rely on. Film was brand new. Action was brand new. There wasn’t room for mistakes.

So she worked hard during the beginning of hiatus. She’d dive back intoInnocentsas summer went on, but she wanted a good first draft of Agent Silver before then. It meant she was a little busier than usual. Still, she made an effort to go to every one of Ethan’s games.

She waited for Emma to say something about it or to ask for the afternoon off, too, but Emma never did.

Things were good with Emma, though, and better with no one around. The asthma attack at upfronts had caused the rumors to flare up, but they had quieted down since then. Jo no longer felt like she had to analyze every interaction they had. She gave Emma directing “homework”—books to read, movies to watch. While it would likely be some time before Emma had the chance to direct, it was never too early to learn.

One day Jo was having trouble with a scene in Agent Silver, so she called Emma in to work in her office. Emma, as always, got to work silently, no questions asked. It wasn’t until Jo sighed for perhaps the forty-fifth time that Emma cleared her throat.

“Boss?” she said.

Jommmed at her but didn’t look up, her head buried in her hands.

“Is there anything I could help you with?”

Jo stretched, cracked her neck. “I cannot get this scene right.”

“Let me read it,” Emma said.

Jo stared at her. Few people had ever read a Jo Jones work in progress, and no one should’ve seen this particular one—the studio kept everything for Agent Silver on lockdown.

“I mean,” Emma said, shrugging slightly, “if you want. I could be a new set of eyes.”

Jo wasn’t supposed to show the script to anyone.