Page 2 of The Summer of Everything

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 fromStar 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 woman 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.

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