The Summer of Everything Read online

  RAVES FOR The Summer of Everything

  “There’s so much to love in Julian Winters’ The Summer of Everything: A delightfully heartwarming, super-supportive, diverse group of friends, a beloved indie bookstore, and, of course, Wesley Hudson. Wes’ struggles to figure out life and love were so incredibly relatable, and I cheered for him every step of the way. A must-have for every YA bookshelf!”

  —Sandhya Menon, New York Times bestselling author

  “Absolutely packed with Julian Winters’s trademark blend of heart and humor, The Summer of Everything is, without a doubt, the teen romcom of the summer. I can’t wait for readers to fall in love with the epically nerdy Wes and his group of charming (and hilarious!) friends.”

  —Phil Stamper, bestselling author of The Gravity of Us

  “Wes’s problems are lifelike, and he’s surrounded by eccentric, supportive, and inspiring friends who challenge and encourage him… his coming of age is endearing.”

  —Foreword Reviews

  “Julian Winters always writes with tenderness and care and respect for teen readers. The Summer of Everything is a big-hearted romance that gives queer boys of color the happily ever after they deserve.”

  —Kacen Callender, bestselling author of Felix Ever After

  “The Summer of Everything is an ice cream cone by the pool on a sunny day. I felt like part of the Once Upon a Page family and didn’t want to leave. An utter gem!”

  —Gloria Chao, author of American Panda, Our Wayward Fate, and Rent a Boyfriend

  “Winters does it again: a book about friendship, love, community, and the sometimes meandering path to adulthood, all in a great bear hug of a book that will keep your summer going.”

  —L.C. Rosen, author of Camp

  RAVES FOR How to Be Remy Cameron

  Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Seal of Approval

  American Library Association 2020 Rainbow Book List

  YALSA’s 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults List

  “The author pays homage to past and present LGBTQ wordsmiths Tennessee Williams and Benjamin Alire Sáenz, and has created an array of diverse characters without presenting them as preachy stereotypes and boxed-in caricatures… VERDICT Winters deserves a place in the YA literary canon.”

  —School Library Journal, Starred Review

  “I always smile my way through a Julian Winters book. Remy’s story of self-discovery is empowering and lovely.”

  —ADAM SILVERA, NYT-bestselling author of What If It’s Us

  “You’ve been warned: Remy Cameron is coming for your heart. I adored this tender, heartfelt love song of a book.”

  —BECKY ALBERTALLI, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

  “An endearing novel that gives hope to those who know what it’s like being different.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “I don’t often swoon, but I swooned HARD for this incandescent book. Julian Winters has crafted a deeply moving story of love, family, and identity that will stay with me forever.”

  —ADIB KHORRAM, award-winning author of Darius the Great Is Not Okay

  RAVES FOR RUNNING WITH LIONS

  Gold Winner, 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards | Teen Fiction

  Finalist, 55th Georgia Author of the Year Award (GAYA)

  #1 Amazon Bestseller | Teen & Young Adult LGBT Fiction

  “Funny, wise, and ridiculously romantic. It hit me right in the heart.”

  —BECKY ALBERTALLI, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

  “A heartwarming freshman novel from an author poised to be a modern Matt Christopher for an older audience.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Full of heart and full of hope… I loved being reminded what it’s like to be a teenager during a long, hot, messy summer, when everything is new and exciting, anything seems possible, and the world is opening out in front of you.”

  —SIMON JAMES GREEN, author of Noah Can’t Even

  Copyright © 2020 Julian Winters

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 13: 978-1-945053-91-7 (trade)

  ISBN 13: 978-1-945053-92-4 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939803

  Published by Duet, an imprint of Interlude Press

  www.duetbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  Cover and Book Design by CB Messer

  Background & Emoji Vectors © depositphotos.com/ckybe/in8finity

  Palm Tree Vectors Designed by Freepik

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Interlude Press, New York

  For everyone who hasn’t figured it all out yet: You’re okay. You’ll get there. Never stop dreaming. Enjoy the moment.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “No matter where this life takes you, there will always be someone in this world who loves you more than your imagination will allow you to understand. You’re never quite alone.”

  —Savannah Kirk, The Heart of the Lone Wolf

  Chapter One

  In every known definition of the word, Wesley Hudson is officially offended by what he’s just read. He closes the paperback and stuffs it into his backpack. He wants to scream, “Where does she get this stuff?” But what’s the point? It’s only him on a bench outside of LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal.

  Savannah Kirk—better known as Mom—may be a New York Times-bestselling Young Adult author and adored by her millions of social media followers, but to Wes she’s an anomaly. Not in a bad way. Wes loves that his mom is quirky, overly optimistic, totally liberal about everything, and funny as hell too.

  But her books are… weird.

  First of all, she writes Horrmance, which is a mixture of horror and romance. How is that a thing? How does one mix the styles of Stephen King and Rainbow Rowell and produce a bestseller? Well, besides a good marketing campaign. Wes hadn’t known there were that many people who wanted to read books about werewolves fighting a blood feud while trying to find a date to the prom.

  Obviously, Wes knows nothing about being trendy or the least bit cool. But Savannah Kirk’s latest hit, The Heart of the Lone Wolf, is just so cliché. In the book, the antagonist has just given the conflicted main character an ultimatum: List the five things she cares about most, and the villain will consider sparing those things from the destruction that will come from creating his perfect new world—beca
use, of course, the villain always gives you a choice.

  Wes pulls out his phone and checks for new notifications. No texts. No voicemails. Nothing. His flight landed an hour ago. Ella’s forty-five minutes late picking him up.

  Actually, this is all Ella’s fault. Wes rarely reads his mom’s books. Had Ella been on time, something he doesn’t think she’s been once in her life, then he’d be halfway home by now instead of considering his own list of the top five things he cares about most in life.

  What or whom would he save from mass destruction?

  A line of honking cars wages war for curbside parking in front of him. People come and go in rushes, wheeling luggage or backpacks and sometimes fussing children. There’s a lot of swearing, and middle fingers being tossed around from cars and SUVs.

  One thing’s certain: Wes definitely wouldn’t spare LAX from Armageddon. But he’s a born-and-raised Santa Monica kid, so California can’t go down in a heap of flames.

  He swipes to the notes app on his phone. Since he’s stuck waiting for Ella, he might as well kill time with a list. If there’s one area of impending adulthood Wes excels at, it’s list-making. He only wishes his ability to break down life’s most meaningless aspects into finely tuned bullet points impressed Calvin Hudson, his dad, in the slightest.

  “Don’t waste away this summer,” Calvin warned before Wes boarded his flight out of Siena, Italy. “This is your chance to figure out what you’re going to major in before college starts. Who do you want to be in five years?”

  Frankly, Wes doesn’t know who he wants to be in five minutes. An influencer? A teacher? Alive after suffering through that last chapter of his mom’s book?

  Whatever. Wes has no intention to “waste away this summer.” He has plans. Huge plans. Life-changing-like-in-Netflix-movies plans.

  Yes, he’s eighteen and should probably be considering what he’s going to do with the next four years when he attends UCLA in the fall. He assumed the whole “this is adulting” thing would happen post-high-school-graduation, but nope. A month in Italy with his parents didn’t help either. He thought the trip was a graduation gift, not a “figure your shit out” ultimatum.

  His parents are still in Italy, though. Calvin, a chef and a major fixture on the California restaurant scene, is extending his culinary base to Europe. They’re spending the summer starting Calvin’s new restaurant while Savannah works on her next book. So, Wes has space to solve this whole adulthood issue.

  For now, he can continue to be—by far—the coolest comic book geek to exist. He can return to epic, boss-level living. That basically consists of chilling with his friends and working at Once Upon a Page. He loves that place. It’s so laidback, Wes practically gets paid to kick his feet up all day.

  But this summer isn’t just about a strict diet of pepperoni pizza and reading Green Lantern comics, and maybe deciding what he’ll study at UCLA—a hard maybe. This is the summer Wes finally wins the heart of the guy he’s been crushing on since sophomore year of high school. He doesn’t have an actual plan for that either, but it’s going to happen.

  Life owes Wes so hard for giving him nerdy genes, a pain-in-the-ass older brother, uncooperative curly hair, and the inability to skateboard.

  “Have I told you how much I hate coming to L.A.?”

  Wes is mostly through with his list when he looks up. Ella emerges from the driver’s side of a familiar crimson compact car parked curbside. She’s wearing a long Like a Virgin T-shirt over black tights and has scuffed Vans on her feet.

  “You don’t hate L.A.,” Wes says.

  “Well, I hate LAX. Passionately. It’s a traffic abomination.”

  “Big facts,” agrees Wes. He drags his luggage to the passenger rear door. Ella pops it open, and he heaves his stuff inside. He turns back to her. “Is that how you plan to explain away your lateness?”

  “Fuck off,” Ella replies with zero heat. She tucks locks of her long, dark brown hair behind one ear. “Have you met the 405 at seven p.m. on a Sunday? Actually, have you met the 405 at any hour? It’s vehicular suicide.”

  “You’re still late.”

  “And you’re still a virgin. We can’t all win at life.”

  Wes frowns and pretends to be wounded by Ella’s words, but he can’t be. It’s one of the many things he loves about Ella—her dry sense of humor. And how freaking brilliant she is. Plus, her kill-your-enemies-for-you loyalty.

  She’s the kind of friend Wes will never quit.

  He thinks about Ella’s place on his list…

  The Five Things I Love the Most:

  Number Three—Ella

  Ella’s the closest thing I have to a sister. She’s got serious runner-up best friend vibes.

  It all started two summers ago at the bookstore. My first “official” year as an employee. Ella was a new hire too. She had this badass energy, so I introduced myself. Then she said the eight most horrifying words ever:

  “Do you give HJs on the first date?”

  Full disclosure: I pretended I didn’t know what an HJ was. I mean, I did—the internet does exist! But I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.

  Turns out, she’d caught me staring at a semi-cute dude who’d been browsing the fantasy section five minutes before—the same dude SHE was checking out. On the Kinsey scale, I’m a hard seven, even though that rating doesn’t exist. That’s how confident I am in my gayness.

  Ella was cool with it. To her, I was competition.

  “And I definitely give HJs on the first date.” She was so chill. I loved it.

  After that, we were bonded for life.

  Wes folds Ella into a hug. He’s half a foot taller than her, something he never teases her about and, though an anti-hugger, she never complains when he does things like this. Wes likes to think he’s the exception to all of Ella’s rules.

  He buries his nose in her hair and inhales. She smells like her favorite brand of grape bubble gum, the Pacific Ocean, and home.

  “I can’t believe you abandoned me for a month,” Ella says into his chest.

  “Did you miss me?”

  “The only thing I miss in life is the ability to go to a coffee shop without the douchebag male barista mansplaining to me the superiority of an Americano.” Ella pulls back, smirking. “You’re very replaceable.”

  “I don’t need your snark.”

  “Too bad. It’s a built-in luxury.”

  Ellen Louise Graham—the last guy who called her that is quite possibly missing a finger—is a punk rock dream: forest-brown eyes, pale rose-white skin, and unreachable levels of confidence in her body.

  “I’m fat and damn hot, okay?” she once told him before shamelessly hitting on some college dude loitering in the aisles of the bookstore.

  Ella sizes him up. “You look good.”

  “Uh. Thanks?”

  She slugs his bicep. “Take a compliment. I’m not handing them out like lollipops at the dentist’s office.”

  “Fine. Thank you. You look good too.”

  “I mean, as if that wasn’t obvious.” Ella winks. “But also, I don’t need your praises to validate my appearance. I reject your masculinist views on beauty and worthiness. My value surpasses physical attractiveness.”

  “I, uh…”

  He’s isn’t sure how to reply to Ella, mainly because Ella loves a good argument. Wes? Not so much, which sucked growing up with an older brother like Leo.

  Wes’s parents were college sweethearts. The seriously nerdy—Calvin named Wes after Wesley Crusher, as in the kid from Star Trek: The Next Generation—accounting major who landed a hipster, creative-writing wallflower. After their first year of marriage, Leo was born. Four years later, Wes popped up. No one’s said it, but Wes classifies himself as an “unexpected visitor.”

  A blaring horn startles Wes.

  A very impatient wo
man with frizzy blue hair and a death stare honks from her Buick. She wants their curb space, and Wes’s mini reunion is holding up the process.

  “We’re coming, Granny!” Ella shouts, dispatching an equally evil glare. She turns back to Wes. “I really hate LAX.”

  Wes jogs to the passenger side. Usually he’d be up for a verbal throwdown between Ella and Grandma Blue Hair, but he’s just graduated high school and been an out-of-work-almost-adult for less than a month. He doesn’t have bail money.

  Ella pulls into traffic, slowly giving Grandma Blue Hair the finger in her rearview mirror.

  Wes exhales happily. “Damn, it’s good to be back.”

  “Car, car… another car!”

  It’s a shame that Wes is going to die young.

  He’s got one hand on the passenger door, another braced on the dashboard, and his small intestine is currently lodged in his throat: Ella whips her car around the 405 as if she’s a Formula One driver. Above his head, a forest of tree-shaped car fresheners swings joyfully from the rearview mirror. A Taylor Swift Funko Pop figure, scribbled over with a black Sharpie to look dark and menacing, mocks him from the dashboard.

  This is why Ella’s runner-up in the best friend category: because Wes, who hasn’t left his mark on the world or met his favorite comic book writer, Geoff Johns, and has only been to one Weezer concert in eighteen years of existence, will die an underachiever.

  From the driver’s seat, Ella cackles. “Chill, Wesley.”

  “Do not call me that,” he says through his teeth. “Also, eyes on the freaking road!”

  The car weaves between two SUVs, dodges a Corvette, and barely misses making out with the grill of a semitruck.

  How is she able to drive at these speeds? It might be eight o’clock on a Sunday evening, but there’s no lack of traffic in Southern California. In fact, there’s never a shortage of traffic in the entire state of California.

  “Did you piss your Spider-Man briefs yet?”

  “I hate you,” grumbles Wes, but his words are drowned out when Ella cranks the volume on her cheap stereo system.

  The real travesty is that Wes is going to die while listening to “High Hopes” by Panic! At the Disco.