The Summer of Everything Read online

  Wes has never had a type. He’s equal-opportunity when it comes to guys. But skateboarder Nico has always created extraordinary chemical reactions inside of him.

  “Yo, Alvarez!” Zay marches from between the aisles for a high-five. “Saw your moves out there. A respectable eight out of ten.”

  Nico rolls his eyes, laughing. “¿Qué pasa, Jones?” He zigzags his way through the store to press a kiss to Mrs. Rossi’s cheek. “Buenas tardes, Señora Rossi.”

  Ella says, “You’re drooling.”

  “Shut up,” Wes says, scowling.

  “Just pointing it out,” Ella comments with her phone directed at his face. Wes is certain this video evidence will haunt him for years to come, but he can’t focus on Ella. Nico and Mrs. Rossi are almost finished talking. He needs to worry about what’s going to come out of his mouth.

  Which is… he’s still undecided.

  “Hey,” Nico says, dumping his skateboard behind the counter.

  “Hey,” Wes says, forcing that one word through his tight throat. He looks down at Nico’s board. “Sweet.”

  He can tell it’s new—the wheels are still a fresh pink. On the underside are exotic florals and flamingos, a beautiful mash-up of greens and pinks.

  “Picked it up last week,” Nico says, way too pleased. “Breaking her in.”

  “Nice. How’s she ride?”

  “Wesley, are you thinking of taking up boarding again?” Nico’s index finger rubs across the zigzag scar that splits his left eyebrow.

  The last time Wes was on a skateboard, Nico was teaching him a basic trick when Wes promptly jacked it up, launching the board backward and airborne. The tail smacked into Nico’s eyebrow. The result: a near-concussion for Nico, blood ruining his favorite My Hero Academia T-shirt, and stitches.

  “I’m not very good at… uh, that. Boarding.”

  “Yeah, you’re not,” Nico says with an embarrassingly sympathetic grin.

  Wes’s face and neck are painfully hot. “How’re your sisters?”

  “Fussy and annoying as ever,” Nico sighs. His mom works from home, but Nico usually babysits his younger sisters during the summer so she can focus on her job. His dad was a biochemist who worked long hours, so Nico’s always had a role in watching over them.

  “You love it,” Wes teases.

  Nico can pretend all he wants, but he enjoys being dragged away from video games to play dolls or hide-and-seek with his sisters. He doesn’t mind helping with homework either.

  “I do,” he concedes. “Here.”

  Nico passes Wes the cardboard cup. Curling steam emanates from the hole in the plastic lid. It smells strong and earthy and delicious.

  Though undocumented, Wes’s relationship with tea dates back to when he was six years old. On weekends, he couldn’t sleep at night until his dad limped through the front door like a zombie after working double shifts at the restaurant. He’d haul Wes into his arms and boil water for two mugs—one for each of them. Calvin would steep a sachet of fruity herbal tea for Wes. They’d camp out on the green sofa, Wes creased into Calvin’s side, to watch reruns of cartoons until Wes finally succumbed to exhaustion.

  The tradition continued into Wes’s teens, though without Calvin, who shifted his schedule to be home at more reasonable times. But Nico replaced him on the sofa for homework and vicious battles on Mario Kart. And he’d always bring tea for Wes.

  Wes pops the lid, inhaling. Darjeeling. He takes a careful sip, smiling around the lip of the cup. He whispers, “Thanks,” but he knows what he should be saying: “I love you.”

  “No hay problema,” says Nico.

  “Okay,” Ella grunts, hopping off the counter. “This is boring.” Over her shoulder, she adds, “And I think I’m gonna hurl,” with enough of a smirk that Wes knows she’s been thoroughly entertained by his recurring inability to “man up.”

  He’s glad someone’s enjoying his failed romantic comedy.

  Nico has an obsession—Pinterest. Like a curator at a gallery, he collects artwork and quotes and scenic photography. He has mood boards for mood boards. It’s a harmless hobby. But Wes would be lying if he didn’t admit he loves the way Nico’s eyes crinkle as he talks about each pin the way a wordsmith talks about their poetry.

  Wedged between the wall behind the front counter and Nico’s warm body, Wes drinks his tea. Every swipe to a new pin, Nico says, “This one’s sick,” while checking to ensure Wes approves. He always does.

  “This is my new favorite,” Nico whispers. Black and white text over a blurred photo of a bicycle clearly using the Gingham filter reads, “I’m not single, I’m not taken, I’m simply on reserve for the one who deserves my heart.”

  Yeah. Mine too. Wes’s future Instagram bio will read: “Whipped and pathetic since day one.”

  The words are right there, plain as day, in Wes’s mind: Do you want to go out sometime? As, like, more than friends?

  Nico swipes to another pin. Some sort of architecture. Nico’s all over the place with his interests.

  Just say it.

  The next pin is Nightwing fanart.

  Wes says, in a small voice, “I haven’t seen you draw in a while.” Nico used to love to doodle heroes and villains in the margins of his notebook in class. He’d sketch on any surface that would hold Sharpie ink. He’d use highlighters to outline capes and eyes and hair on college-ruled paper.

  The skin between Nico’s eyebrows is pinched. “Kind of got away from it, I guess.”

  He did. Right around… Shit. Wes is an idiot. Nico stopped drawing after sophomore year. Just after Mr. Alvarez died.

  Wes’s shoulders pull tight. He glares at the dirty toe of his once-white Converse All-Stars, studying the yellowed laces. He wipes his sweaty palms along the thighs of his jeans.

  How did he forget?

  “Hey.” Nico’s bony fingers squeeze Wes’s right knee. “The Smiths, Pearl Jam, or Nada Surf?”

  To other people, One of These Three Things is probably the corniest, most childish, third-grader-bored-on-a-summer-road-trip game. But to Wes and Nico, it’s a keepsake, one they use to navigate through slow days at the bookstore or times way too heavy for deep discussions. It’s a get-out-of-jail free card they’ve used frequently when something awkward happens.

  Admittedly, it’s a knockoff of that old, stranded-on-a-desert-island game. But instead of choosing three objects, players have to pick the one thing they can’t live without from three options chosen by someone else.

  Wes ponders his options.

  “I think I know,” Nico says.

  “You do?”

  “Duh.” Nico’s lips twist up smugly.

  Wes loves that, though Nico’s Spotify is crammed with current hip-hop artists and a few guilty pleasure pop tunes, Wes can still scroll through and find random songs by Foo Fighters or Gin Blossoms. That he’s influenced Nico enough to create an entire playlist called Shit for Wesley.

  It’s in this moment that Wes realizes he can’t simply blurt out his feelings for Nico. Hell no. He can’t half-ass this. Nico, who has playlists in his phone dedicated to Wes, who brings him tea, who doesn’t call Wes out for being a forgetful friend and invoking memories of his dead father, deserves better than that.

  Wes needs to conduct research; gather intel. If Wes is going to do this, he has to ensure there’s no way Nico will reject him. This moment requires a bulletproof list of ways to ask Nico on a date.

  “Dude.” Cooper leans eagerly across the counter, interrupting Wes’s thoughts. “You’ve got to go with the Smiths. It’s Morrissey.”

  “No, no,” Anna objects. “Pearl Jam. Relatable content.”

  “Are you stoned?” Cooper squeals.

  Wes has no doubt that Anna is, but she continues to tie her hair into a loose braid, swaying as she says, “Oh. 10,000 Maniacs. Natalie Merchant is a goddess.”


  “Uh.” Wes raises an index finger, remembering he still hasn’t responded to Nico. “They weren’t an option.”

  “10,000 what?” Zay’s head pops up from between the aisles.

  “Zay, my man, get over here. You’re in desperate need of a full musical education,” demands Cooper.

  “I missed all of this?” Wes whispers to Nico.

  They’re close enough that Wes can smell Nico’s citrus shampoo and the sugary orange soda on his breath when he says, “It’s Nada Surf, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Wes exhales. He watches as Cooper and Zay argue over the definition of “quality music” while Anna draws Nico into a conversation about cows or aliens. Maybe both. He excuses himself. He needs some fresh air.

  Outside, evening cups its hand around Santa Monica, leaving it warm under rose gold skies. Wes inhales the spicy scent of the meats being grilled at Taco Libre. Couples pass him, holding hands.

  Wes unlocks his phone, then opens Google. He searches “how to ask out a crush.” There are nearly two hundred million results.

  “That’s so rad,” he whispers to his phone. After a deep breath, Wes bookmarks webpages.

  Someone’s watching Wes.

  As he pulls on Once Upon a Page’s front door for the fifth time, trying to get the lock to catch, he can sense the heavy stare.

  It’s twenty past nine p.m. The twinkle lights above Colorado dance overhead, moving with the breeze off the ocean. Wes would’ve been upstairs by now, devoting more time to his research, but in that last hour the bookstore was open, some Fratty McAsshats descended upon them, dicking around in the comics section. Wes spent twenty-five minutes restoring peace to his inner sanctum, which meant he was twenty-five minutes late counting the deposit, filling the till for the morning, and reciting the lock-up procedures with Anna.

  He shouldn’t have been the one training Anna, anyway. It’s Mrs. Rossi’s job. But she bailed three hours ago, looking haggard and pale. A month without him is starting to show in her eyes and the slow movements she made around the store. He hopes they both can survive his first semester at UCLA.

  Now, he’s tired as hell from working a double, starved—even though Nico brought him two greasy slices of pepperoni pizza before ditching to help wrangle his sisters for family dinner—and he has a stalker.

  Anna sidles up to his left side and whispers, “Oh, my Zeus. Tall, dark, and extremely handsome watching you.”

  Wes pivots and groans. No, this guy is not tall and handsome. Dark? Definitely. In a side-by-side comparison, he’s the guy that gets all the looks while Wes… is just there.

  Leo Hudson, being firstborn and irritatingly dramatic in the most banal situations, is the Killmonger to Wes’s Black Panther. Everyone’s eyes automatically go to Leo’s perfectly wavy, crow-black hair, his pug nose that’s on the right side of adorable, his gym physique, and the way he can pull off a suit.

  “Ugh. He’s nobody,” Wes finally says. “Just my brother.”

  Number Four—Leo

  I suppose I should include Leo somewhere on this list, right? We’re blood. But I don’t really know where to put him… besides in the trash.

  That’s not fair. I don’t hate Leo. But I also didn’t miss him much while I was in Italy. Maybe if we were like the younger Leo and me, the ones who only cared about collecting Pokémon or hanging at the beach, I would bump him higher. Seriously, where did those kids go?

  I have genuine moments when I think I’m adopted. There’s no way I could be related to Leo. We’re like the distance from Earth to Neptune: 2,703,959,960 miles. I had to Google that. Right now. And that’s the kind of thing I’d rather do than spend time with this alien version of my brother.

  To be honest, I think the distance between us only grows the older we get. But he’s my brother. And, sometimes, I miss… us.

  Briefly, Wes glares at Leo before finally forfeiting the part of himself that refuses to be mature about this. “Hey,” he says to Anna. “I’m good from here. See you tomorrow?”

  “Are you sure?”

  Nope. “Positive.”

  Anna pats his shoulder once, then disappears into the blur of people marching toward Ocean Avenue.

  Tiny beads of sweat pop across Wes’s hairline. He’s more annoyed than nervous about talking to Leo. Hands jammed in his pockets, he crosses the street to where Leo stands outside Tongva Park.

  “Sup?” Wes’s playing this totally chill.

  “You look thrilled.”

  Wes sizes him up. “And you look… the same.”

  Leo has most of their mom’s features, with Calvin’s mouth and the Hudson family’s warm-fawn complexion. He’s in typical Leo gear—crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled and bunched around his elbows, matching tie and socks, loafers. He’s still studying for the LSAT, but he already dresses the part.

  The only suit Wes owns is his prom tux buried in the back of the closet. It has a giant stain. Seriously, who drinks cranberry juice and White Claws? Santa Monica High students, clearly.

  “Good trip?” Leo asks.

  “Yup,” Wes says, blandly.

  “Glad to be back?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is that all you got?”

  Grinning, Wes replies, “Yup.”

  “Well.” Leo pulls at his shirt collar, watching people shift around them. “Leeann’s glad you’re back.”

  Wes can’t control the way his face reacts to her name. He loves Leeann. She laughs at all his accidental dad jokes, and, when he came out to her three years ago before a family dinner, she smiled, punched his shoulder, and warned him not to hoard all the local guys for himself just in case things didn’t work out with Leo.

  They’ve been together since sophomore year of college. Sweethearts, just like Wes’s parents and the Rossis. Wes wonders if that’s a running joke in his life. Is everyone destined to find their one great love in college?

  He scuffs his shoe on the sidewalk. “How’s wedding planning going?”

  “I’m gonna pull my hair out before we even get down the aisle.”

  Wes doubts that. Not with their dad’s genes.

  “We almost picked a venue. Can’t agree on flowers. I don’t even want to think about a guest list.” Leo brushes a hand over his low fade haircut. When they were kids, it was curly and dark like the ocean under a moonless sky. “She can’t find a dress either.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Maybe you could help her with that?”

  A prickling heat spreads in Wes’s chest. He squints at Leo. “Why? Because I’m gay?”

  He’s so tired of this—the gay thing. The constant assumption that, because a guy is queer, he loves playing dress-up and lives for musicals and obsesses over Drag Race. He’s sick of the morbid perceptions of the LGBTQIA community. He’s sick of the stereotypes. There’s no one kind of queer person. There isn’t a right or a wrong version.

  “What? No.” Leo’s eyebrows scrunch together. “It’s not like that at all! Leeann loves you. She respects your opinion. You could tell her to wear a trash bag, and she’d do it. Not because you’re gay. Because she freaking trusts you.”

  Wes blinks twice. No one thinks that much of his opinion. Well, Nico, probably. But no one else. “I’ll, uh,” he stammers. “I’ll call her.”

  “Thanks.” Leo fixes his wrinkled sleeves. “Have you started looking for a real job around campus yet?”

  And there he is, the true Leo Hudson. Wes’s been expecting this. “I have a job. I plan to keep it.” He waves behind him at the darkened bookstore. “I get paid to—”

  “Stack comic books?” Leo finishes. “That’s real world-changing stuff.”

  Wes crosses his arms. Leo has always had a problem with him working at the bookstore, as if being a bookseller is a lesser job. He expects Wes to find something closer to his field of study. But Wes ha
s no clue what that’ll be.

  “Dad says,” Leo starts, but Wes tunes him out.

  He hates this part too. Leo has the better connection with their dad. Yes, Calvin and Wes had their tea and cartoons on weekends. Yes, Calvin’s the one who introduced Wes to the bookstore. But since Wes turned thirteen, it seems the gap between them keeps expanding. Leo and Calvin can talk on the phone for hours. They love the same sports teams and food. And all Wes shares with Calvin now is their inescapable geekiness.

  It’s not enough.

  Leo exhales, as if he can tell Wes isn’t paying attention. Wes rubs his forehead. He motions toward the pale pink building behind him. “Do you want to come up?”

  “I’ve already stopped by.”

  Of course Leo has. He’s probably washed the dishes, reorganized their mom’s bookshelf, and inventoried their dad’s cooking alcohol collection to see if Wes or Ella have snuck any.

  “Tell Ella to clean up,” demands Leo.

  “I’ll tell her you said hi,” Wes replies smugly.

  “And you’ll call Leeann?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it, Wes.”

  “Fine,” Wes hisses. “I’ll call.”

  Leo looks ready to say something sarcastic but doesn’t. He whispers, “Thanks,” in an almost sincere tone before nudging past Wes and disappearing into a fleet of tourists migrating toward the pier.

  Wes finally drags himself to the loft. His first day back at the bookstore is officially a disaster.

  “When it comes to matters of love, you’re always dancing with devils.” The music surrounding them was a din under Daemon’s melodic voice. “Devils of temptation, constantly reminding you this love isn’t enough. Devils of jealousy. Devils of uncertainty leading you to chaos and emptiness.”

  “You think love is confusing?” Elisabeth asked. A lock of her walnut-brown hair slipped from its neatly tailored bun.

  “Love is the very definition of confusion.”

  Elisabeth smiled, though she wasn’t sure if it was her or the itching noise around her pulling at her lips.

  Beneath their feet, the ballroom’s black and white pattern blurred. Dark, then light. Light, then dark. They danced in continuous circles—a waltz defined by helixes.