Page 37 of The Summer of Everything

And there’s Wes, staring at Nico, mega heart eyes included.

“Hashtag love it,” says Kyra as she double taps her phone.

“Ultimate squad,” Cooper announces. “We’re just missing El’s Bells and Zay.”

Wes can’t take his eyes off how he looks at Nico in the photo. It’s so obvious. How could Nico not see it?

Hashtag Best Friend Crushes are the Worst.

Chapter Nine

Returning home after leaving thepier, Wes is surprised to find Ella sitting on the green sofa, feet under her, phone squeezed between her hands and dark trails down her cheeks.

“Hey,” he says cautiously, nudging the door closed with his foot.

Ella’s eyes are wide and glassy. “Sup.”

“Okay.” Wes toes off his shoes, moving guardedly as if she’s a velociraptor ready to claw out his organs. Ella’s not that scary—thirty percent of the time—but she never cries. He’s certain shehascried, probably as an infant, but he’s never witnessed it firsthand.

She sniffles. Her nose is red.

“Ella?”

She exhales loudly, clearly annoyed by the way Wes is tiptoeing closer. “Chill out, super-geek, I didn’t just fail to raise a hell demon to run for mayor while I exact revenge on the girl who left me for dead.”

Wes snorts. Last summer, provoked by a book snob obsessed with a certain poorly written vampire saga, Ella and Wes binge-watched the entireBuffy the Vampire Slayertelevision series online. It’s an hour’s drive from Newport Beach to Santa Monica, so Ella spent weekends on the green sofa after her shift downstairs at the bookstore. Faith, the rebel slayer, was an instant favorite of Ella’s. Wes leaned more toward Willow because, hello, lesbian witch. But they both agreed season four never happened.

Ella turns her phone over and over between her hands. “Mom called.”

Oh.

Wes has met Victoria Graham on three occasions. Each time, she barely spoke four words to him. She’s not a mean person, simply someone fully focused on her priorities. Wes isn’t one of them. Victoria is a striking woman with reddish-brown hair, wide shoulders, and an affinity for anything pastel. And her words cut faster, harder, more lethally than anything Ella’s ever used to fend off strangers brave enough to look her in the eye for more than five seconds.

The tension between Ella and her mom is something Wes learned early in their friendship to observe but never ask about unless prompted. Ella claims that, when she was little, Victoria would fawn over her cheeks and chubby thighs. But somewhere between nine and ten, things shifted. Victoria stopped pinching Ella’s cheeks and started “suggesting” Ella join a soccer team or a volleyball club. Ella should try flirting with the boys from the football team instead of hanging with the art club kids. Listen to a little more fun pop music instead of brooding goth rock.

“Are you—” Wes pauses, rubbing his chin.Choose your words carefully. “Do you want to punch something?”

Ella sniffs, wiping snot from her nose. “Always.”

“Cool,” says Wes, dropping down next to her. “Not me?”

“You’re basically bones and curls. It’d be disappointing to break you without trying.”

Wes eases an arm around her stiff shoulders. “Did she say something?”

“She always says something.”

“Does she want you to come home?”

Ella’s laugh is this sad, pathetic thing. “No, she’s quite fine without me there to tarnish her image. Why have a daughter in person when you can just as easily FaceTime her to expound your disappointment in her? Technology’s the best.”

Wes hums. Is it selfish that he wants to talk to his own mother? Despite her constant word vomit about writing and publishing and Twitter, there’s something about the sound of his mom’s voice that Wes needs once a day. It’s a comfort.

With all the madness of the day, they haven’t spoken. She messaged him about depositing money into his bank account for groceries, but that’s about it. Wes does the math. Savannah might be still awake, writing.

“I can’t wait until summer’s over and we’re moving onto campus,” sighs Ella. “It’s like, for the most part, I’ll be done with them. Four years or more where I’ll be focused on becoming my own person.”

“You’ve always been your own person.”

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