Page 60 of The Summer of Everything

Nico reaches out to tug on a few of Wes’s curls. “Eres el major, Wesley.” He shuffles from behind the counter and fist-bumps Zay on his way to the door.

“Wait!” screeches Cooper. He holds his phone above his head, beaming. “Major notification just received.”

“What alien language are you speaking?” Ella snaps.

Cooper continues to wave his phone around. “So, my buds Jimmy and Savvy hit my DMs about this kicking get-together happening two nights from now. Beach bonfire. Tunes. Fellowship. Cool peeps community outreach at its finest.”

“First of all, no one calls themselves Jimmy in this decade,” Ella says. “He sounds sketch.”

“He’s cool.”

“Coming from you, that’s confirmation of this person’s shadiness,” Ella declares.

“There’ll be booze.” Cooper wiggles his eyebrows. “And choice selections of herbal refreshments.”

Ella closes her eyes and sighs. “Fine. Where?”

“The Howls,” Cooper sings, eyes lit like a field of stars.

Wes drops his head into his folded forearms.The Howls. First off, it’s the most vapid name he’s ever heard. Generations ago, a group of pre-college freshmen found a location off the beach that was hidden by rocks and scrub. They called it The Howls because, when the wind hits just right, it sounds as if the ocean is emitting this haunting song. Secondly, it’s not that much of a “secret.” Adults know about it but choose not to give the kids who convene there hell because it’s harmless and no one’s been killed yet.

But it’s notorious for its summer parties hosted by people without the kind of pull and fake IDs to hit up real clubs, the ones who would rather spend summer getting wasted than think about the future—the intoxicated Wes Hudsons of the city.

Cooper glances around their small circle. “So, are we all in?”

Zay shrugs. “Sounds harmless.”

“That’s what all the murder victims in horror movies say,” Wes mutters.

“If Kyra goes, I’m in,” Anna says. Wes gets that. They’re both young college girls. If he was Anna, he doesn’t know if he’d be caught without backup on the beach at night with a bunch of slacker teens like them.

Cooper’s phone chimes, and his face lights up again. “She’s in.”

Something warm passes over Anna’s face.

“Wessssssss?”

Wes isn’t really in the mood for sand in his shorts and pretending to care what song the dude with the guitar is singing. Also, navigating conversations about college with strangers is the worst. It doesn’t matter. He’s not going without Nico, which is the most unlikely thing to happen because…

“Sweet. I’m down,” Nico says.

Wes’s face falls. It’s not as if Nico doesn’t party. They both have, occasionally. But they were the two teens most likely to skip those things for a night at the movies and burritos after.

“Wesley?” Nico blinks at him.

“Uh.” Wes’s truly perfected this deer-in-the-headlights thing. His shoulders droop as he says, “Sure. Sounds dope. I can’t wait.”

He’s become a first-rate liar.

Chapter Fourteen

The first sign this isgoing to be a terrible night: Someone’s singing Ed Sheeran in an off-key, raspy voice.

From above the rocks, Wes surveys the scene with narrowed eyes and crossed arms. The tuneless singer is a white guy with unkempt brown hair, the beginning of a five o’clock shadow, and an unzipped red hoodie that shows off his bare chest. He’s sitting at a firepit, surrounded by a small group dressed in enough flannel and denim to be an American Eagle ad. Slowly, others join their band from different parts of the beach, enchanted by the flames and bad pop covers.

“Beer, here. Beer, there. Now we’ve got beer everywhere,” shouts some frat-bro-wannabe with a giant cooler resting on one of his wide shoulders. The gold, curled script across his oversized sweatshirt says, “CAL,” and Wes’s not surprised.

The Howls is notorious for drawing this kind of audience.

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