Page 21 of The Other Brother

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s just my dad.” He shrugs, but his shoulders are still tense. He sits back down on the couch and picks up the guitar. “Sometimes I think he wants me to have a career in music even more than I want it.”

Damn Frank.The phrase pops into my head so naturally, in a maternal voice. I may have heard my mother utter this phrase once or twice. A week. For my entire life.

“He’s very musical, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, he was on the cusp of making it professionally. I think he’d just made it into the philharmonic orchestra, but then Kate came along, and he had to find a better paying job.”

Oh, that’s right. When my mum seduced the poor musician, got pregnant, and forced him to give up his dreams. It’s an awesome bedtime story. I’m surprised Hallmark hasn't made it into a movie yet.

Cody continues, running his hand up and down the neck of the guitar as he speaks. “He gets pissed when I spend too much time mucking around with my own compositions rather than learning my concert pieces.”

He looks so bleak in that moment I have an urge to cheer him up.

“You know my philosophy when it comes to parents?” I ask.

“What’s that?”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Cody cracks a grin. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

Chapter6

“So, you survived teaching Ryan the guitar?” Mel asks Cody that night at dinner as she helps herself to more of the salad.

“Did you not expect me to survive?” Cody asks.

“I expected to come home and find you rocking in the corner. I think there’s a support group for Ryan’s teachers. I can get you the number if you want.”

“Better than the support group for all the people who’ve been on the receiving end of your humor,” I mutter. “Now that’s a trauma no one will ever recover from.”

Mel goes to kick me under the table, but my reactions are too quick, and she kicks the chair leg instead.

Cody levels her with a gaze. “Actually, he was good. He’s a fast learner.”

Good is probably stretching it somewhat. Still, a warm feeling flows through me at his praise.

“Cody picked up surfing really fast too,” I say, and a shy smile stretches across Cody’s face.

Mel looks between us, her eyebrows raising.

We eat the rest of the dinner with only minor bickering between Mel and me. I don’t know what it is with my sisters, how we manage to bring out the twelve-year-old versions of each other. It’s a bit embarrassing having someone external here to scrutinize our interactions. Especially Cody.

“Oh, I almost forgot. When I was in town today, I got us a surprise.” Mel’s tone is so nice I look up from where I’m scraping the remains off the plates into the garbage disposal. Generally, if one of my sisters uses that tone on me, they’re either sucking up because they want something or trying to conceal that something nasty is heading my way.

But of course she’s not talking to me. She’s talking to Cody.

“What kind of surprise?” Cody doesn’t look nearly as suspicious as I would in the same circumstances.

Mel reaches into a shopping bag that’s propped up by the side of the couch. “A whole book of cryptic crosswords. I found it in the bookstore in town.”

I snort. I’m waiting for the rest of the joke, but a genuine smile spreads over Cody’s face.

“Cool,” he says.

“Cryptic crosswords?” I coat my words in so much derision it’s surprising they don’t sink to the floor the moment they leave my mouth.