Page 109 of The Summer of Everything

Oh. It’s Wes and Lupe.

Hashtag family. Hashtag SME. Hashtag my world.

Squinting against the fading light, their eyes meet. Nico sucks on his lower lip. Wes forgets to breathe. It’s a head rush. Their shoulders and knees and the edges of their feet touch.

Nico looks away first. “Do you think my dad would be proud of me?”

“Of course,” whispers Wes, rocking in Nico’s direction.

“Do you think he’d want me to go to Stanford?”

Wes’s heart rests behind his teeth. What should he say? That he doesn’t want Nico to go to Stanford. But that’s not fair. That’s not what Martín would say.

“Is it whatyouwant?” he finally asks.

Nico stares at his knees. “I don’t want to leave my sisters. Or my mom.” His shoulders shake when he inhales. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Yeah,” Wes says softly, too much a coward to scream, “So don’t go,” the way his brain wants him to.

Nico sniffs. “I hope it doesn’t change anything, but I think I need to.”

All Wes hears is,Because of you, Wesley. I need to get away from you. “Okay,” he mumbles, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Does it change anything?”

Straining to keep his expression neutral, Wes shrugs.

“Wesley.” Nico sighs loudly. “Sometimes it’s hard to be your friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

Wes winces. He deserves that. Before the summer, he was mild-to-acceptable by crush standards, an easygoing kind of pining. But for weeks, he’s been on edge and frustrated and the kind of douchebag he’d never be friends with.

“It’s impossible to be your friend when…” Nico pauses, nose wrinkled. “When I want more.”

Yes, Wes has been difficult and insufferable and—

“What the—”

Nico cuts him off with a slow-building grin. It’s all crinkle-eyed; the corners of his mouth stretch like clay. He bumps their shoulders.

“When I saw the way you and that guy looked at each other that day…” Nico lowers his head.

Ugh. Manu. Fortunately, they still follow each other on social media. In fact, yesterday, Manu messaged Wes a funny meme. Wes messaged back with a funnier GIF. They continued like that for five minutes. And it wasn’t the least bit awkward when they wordlessly agreed to stop. It was cool.

“Itkilledme, dude,” Nico gnaws out. “I was jealous as hell.”

“You what?”

Wes has lost all concept of sentence structure. Was anything on hisSigns Your Crush Isn’t Into Youlist applicable to Nico?

“I’m not your mom,” Nico starts, then his face scrunches. “Okay, that came out wrong. I’m notlikeyour mom. I suck at words and confessions. I come up with plans in my head, but execution? No bueno.”

Wes laughs at that. He could teach Nico a thing or two about lists. But also, he could sit here, be quiet, and let Nico finish.

The evolution of Nico’s expression continues as he frowns at his feet. “I don’t know how to say all the things I want.”

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