Page 22 of The Other Brother

“Yeah, our family kind of has an addiction to them,” Cody says.

This is what I’ve always been up against. The guy does cryptic crosswords with his sisters, for Christ’s sake. How can anyone compete with that?

“Nerd alert, nerd alert,” I chant.

“Don’t mock what you can’t do,” Mel replies.

I narrow my eyes. “I can so do a cryptic crossword.”

“You want to bet?”

“Sure. What are the stakes?”

Mel looks at me evaluatively. “Whoever loses the bet has to clean the bathroom for the entire time we’re here.”

I nod slowly. Decent enough stakes. But there’s room for improvement.

“Loser also has to publish the winner’s choice of a post on all of their social media accounts,” I suggest.

Mel’s eyes narrow. “You’re on.”

Okay, so I’ve never done a cryptic crossword before. I don’t actually think I’ve ever completed a normal crossword. But a key part of winning is never letting your opposition see fear.

“Done.” I smirk, stretching out my hand to seal the deal.

“You need to complete the crossword by yourself, and no googling,” Mel says as she shakes my hand.

“Of course.”

Okay,so it turns out that cryptic crosswords are really hard. After I clean up the table, Mel rips one out of the book (randomly, to ensure she’s not giving me the most difficult one, I have lots of experience with my sisters and bets).

I sit down at the table and read the first clue.Going up or down, it goes round and round. Five letters.

What the hell?

The next clue,Type of lies told by those cleanly shaved. Nine lettersis not much better.

Mel and Cody begin their own cryptic crosswords just for fun. Because, you know.

Half an hour later, I’m grinding my pencil into a large hole in the page.

“How’s it going?” Mel throws me a smirk as she pushes her chair back and heads to the kitchen to grab herself a drink of water.

I use my hand to cover my quarter-complete crossword as she goes past.

“Awesome,” I say.

Cody flicks a look at my page, then looks at Mel.

“Can you please grab me a Coke while you’re up?” Cody asks.

“Sure.”

While Mel has her back turned to us, fishing a Coke out of the fridge, Cody slides me his completed crossword, taking mine in return.

I stare at him.

He stares back, a faint smile lifting his lips.