Page 23 of The Summer of Everything

“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 overDrag 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 freakingtrustsyou.”

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 has 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.

---