Page 22 of The Summer of Everything

“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.”

“10,000what?” 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.

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