Page 103 of The Summer of Everything

Leo exhales. “They still made fun of you. So, I thought if I pushed you far enough away, they wouldn’t be able to talk shit about you. You wouldn’t be around. They’d find a new target.”

“And?”

“They did.” Leo’s eyes finally lift, soft and glassy. “But by then, the distance between us was so big, I didn’t know how to bring you back.”

Poisoned or not, Wes sips his tea. It burns in the way he needs. He tries not to remember what it was like to have Leo shout at him or slam his bedroom door in Wes’s face. It doesn’t work. He can recall every time Leo wouldn’t let Wes follow him and his “friends” to the beach, every moment Wes wanted to share a new comic with Leo, but he wasn’t there.

“I wasn’t a good brother back then,” Leo admits. “Or now. There are times when I don’t know the right things to say.”

“Yeah, well.” The heat from the tea barely dissolves the lump in Wes’s throat.

“But you’re stillmybrother.” Leo frowns. “I give a shit about you.”

Wes snorts. But the honesty in Leo’s guilt-stricken eyes is unavoidable. Wes blinks until that sheen dampening his eyelashes passes. “I know,” he says tightly.

A quiet filled by Beyoncé’s voice settles over their table. Wes refuses to cry. But that eight-year-old version of himself crawls out of the shadows Leo put him in, warming Wes’s chest, making him wish they’d said any of this to each other sooner.

“I need a best man.”

Wes sits up, shoulders drawn like a boss. “Are you asking or telling me?”

“I’mtrying,” Leo says, incredulous.

“It’s a weak effort.”

Leo gags; his body shifts as if he’s two seconds from reaching across the table and duffing Wes on the shoulder. But he doesn’t. “Well?”

“Am I allowed to quote Green Day during the reception toast?” Wes wonders.

“Hell no.”

“You’re a dick,” Wes mumbles.

“Thanks. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

A laugh floods Wes’s mouth.Who is this alien?

“Are you gonna ask Nico to be your date?” Leo leans back, his expression relaxed.

Wes’s the one choking this time.

“Don’t act, bro,” says Leo. He takes a quick sip of his drink. “You know you want to.”

Wes face-palms, groaning. Of course Leo knows. Of course, the universe has let everyone in on Wes’s secret except the one person who should know.

“I have no clue what to do,” he mumbles into his hands.

“Wes,” Leo says, “If the worst thing you do in this lifetime is fall in love with your best friend, then I’d say you’re doing pretty damn good.”

* * *

On his lunch break, Wessneaks into the alley behind Paseo Del Mar. He squats, spine pressed to the pastel pink wall, while scrolling through his contacts. He inhales deeply for courage before pressing the FaceTime button. It takes two rings before the video comes in fuzzy, then crisp.

“Wesley?”

And there he is, Calvin Hudson, droopy eyes deep brown with green flecks around the outermost parts of his irises. His hair’s cut close; the shadow of a beard and mustache outline his mouth. There’s a touch of gray in the black. His voice’s groggy, but so warm.

“Hey, Daddy.”

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