Page 55 of The Summer of Everything

“Yeah.”

Something cold and uncomfortable moves through Wes’s chest. In his back pocket, his phone is heavy. It taunts him with the list he created in Once Upon a Page’s bathroom:

Signs Your Crush Isn’t Into You!!!

2. If your crush shows signs of being into someone else, ABORT!

“I’m not really into playing games though,” Nico adds. “I want more than a trip to In-N-Out Burger and a little hand action in the back of his mom’s minivan.”

“Oh.” Wes’s shoulders loosen.Wrong again, Reddit. But his mind shifts into a new thought. “So, you’ve…” Why are his cheeks so hot at the prospect of using the word sex with Nico? He clears his throat. “Is Colton, like, the only one you’ve donestuffwith?”

“No.” Nico’s eyebrows droop. “Two others before him. It was all pretty low-key.”

“So not, like.” The golf ball-sized lump in Wes’s throat expands. “All the way stuff.”

Nico tips his head back, laughing.

Wes fakes a laugh too.

“Nah. Nothing like that,” says Nico, still chuckling.

“Cool, cool.”

Nico stares at Wes for a long moment with scrunched eyes. “Want me to walk with you to the bookstore for your shift?”

“That’d be nice.”

Nico shouts farewells to most of the skaters. He waves at Colton, something Wes wishes he didn’t notice, but then Nico’s arm drapes around Wes’s shoulders as they walk through the sand toward The Strand.

Once they’ve cleared most of Venice, Nico drops his board and hops on. He rolls slowly next to Wes, only kick-pushing every few feet. Comfortable silence floats between them. The sun is against their backs; the waves crash and sing to their left.

“I’ve been thinking of some cool ideas for the bookstore,” Nico says once they’re closer to Santa Monica.

“Yeah?” Wes tries not to sound too eager. “Are you gonna share?”

“Nope. Waiting to hear everyone else’s ideas first.”

“Just in case yours are inferior?”

Nico gasps, faking offense, before flipping Wes off. A nice sheen of sweat shines on his brow. Wind catches under his shirt and billows it outward.

“Nice shirt,” Wes comments.

“Ha. Better than the one I wore to prom?”

Wes grins sheepishly.

“Do you remember that night?”

Wes will never forget anything about prom. Not a single detail.

The second time Wes came out, it was voluntary. It was all thanks to Nico’s undeniable persuasion.

They didn’t go to junior prom. Nico’s mom caught the flu, so they chose to crash on his couch with Nico’s sisters for movies, orange soda, and cheese on crackers. Senior prom was a big deal to Nico. Wes, on the other hand, didn’t feel as though he’d miss much if they skipped it again. He had zero interest in poorly posed photos in rented tuxes. He hates dancing to generic rock ballads or hip-hop songs that require profuse amounts of dry humping. And there weren’t many out guys at their school. If they were out, they had older partners or straight friends who wanted to be their dates.

Nico glides down the boardwalk. He’s coordinated enough to skate and grin cockily at Wes. “Admit it—I killed that promposal.”

He did. Not at any point, in any world did Wes think Nico would askhimto be his prom date. At first, Wes thought it was a cruel joke.

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