The Summer of Everything

by Julian Winters

  “And yet…” Ella waves her phone in Cooper’s face. “…that book still sells like mad. They even made a movie.”

  “Not a good one,” Lucas says, frowning.

  This is why Lucas remains in Wes’s friend club. Lucas gets it. Morgan Weatherford blows. He’s a subpar author who writes the same tired girl-princess fantasy, where some rando guy is her only agency and helps save her kingdom, that men have thought they could pull off for decades. Problem is, the people with power—also privileged men—have been boosting guys like Weatherford for just as long. The patriarchy at its finest.

  Plus, Weatherford was a total dick to Savannah when she asked for a blurb for her fifth book. Wes has never forgotten watching his mom restrain tears while explaining it to his dad at her birthday dinner a few years ago.

  “No,” Wes says firmly.

  “Zay says that’s all he can find,” says Ella. “We need someone. Soon. We don’t have forever to save this place.”

  “We don’t have long at all,” Anna says, appearing from the back, a stack of papers in her hands.

  Holy Shazam, is everyone creeping Mrs. Rossi’s private things?

  Wes doesn’t have much room to complain, since he’s organizing this entire plan behind Mrs. Rossi’s back, but still.

  “September sixth. That’s it. That’s all we have,” Anna says, flipping through the documents.

  A scream is crawling up Wes’s throat. He shuts his eyes. Deep breaths. He can fix this.

  “There have to be other options,” he says, voice strained. “It’s freaking L.A.”

  “Yeah, on mad short notice too,” Ella argues. “Zay’s trying.”

  “He can try harder!” Wes demands. Ella lifts an eyebrow; her mouth is flat. Wes isn’t going to fight about this. Zay can do better. They all can do better to keep Once Upon a Page open.

  “We still have at least six weeks,” Wes continues. “There’s time.”

  Everyone’s quiet. Ella exhales heavily through her nose while tapping away at her phone. Someone else’s phone buzzes on the counter.

  “Oh! Sorry to ditch, but I’m having fajitas with Mom,” Lucas announces, pocketing their phone.

  “Sweet,” says Wes. He accepts Lucas’s fist-bump.

  “Yeah, I guess. She’s really on this quality time thing.” Wes can see through Lucas’s nonchalance. They love spending time with their mom.

  It makes Wes miss his own mom. He needs to FaceTime her tonight. Maybe he’ll catch her during breakfast. Savannah’s always extra chatty over brioche and espresso.

  Wes wishes he could ask his mom for ideas to save the bookstore. But he can’t. If she knows, she’ll call Mrs. Rossi.

  “Thanks for the book,” Lucas says, holding up the graphic novel Wes had stashed in his backpack. Blackest Night. Wes special ordered a copy for Lucas.

  “It’s my favorite,” Wes says.

  “I know.” Lucas beams.

  As Lucas high-steps it out the door, Nico glides in, kicking up his board. “I think I’ve nailed it.” He grins animatedly, unsettling his glasses on his nose. He has an iPad in the hand not holding his skateboard.

  “It took me most of the night…” Nico drops his board behind the counter, then parks it next to Ella. He taps the iPad’s screen awake. “…but I think I came up with some artwork to advertise the open mic night and children’s story time.”

  On screen, Nico swipes through a few fully colored sketches.

  “Siiiiick,” Cooper says.

  “I’m marginally impressed,” Ella agrees.

  “I tried to come up with multiple options.” Nico’s thumb drags across the screen. “Then I had to format and resize so Coop can throw them up on Insta and Twitter.” He opens a gallery with all the designs.

  “This is perfect, bro.” Cooper claps his hands together. “Send them my way when they’re ready. I’ll be sure to tag you. Gotta get those follower counts up.”

  “I’m just trying to keep this place alive, dude.”

  “Word.” Cooper squeezes Nico’s shoulder.

  Wes leans in for a closer inspection, careful not to press too far into Nico. A calculated distance. That night at The Howls still haunts his thoughts. In one way or another, he’s crossed off every bullet point from his Signs Your Crush Isn’t Into You list. The universe has firmly told him, “No, this isn’t happening.” He’s accepted that.

  Well, ninety percent of him has accepted it.

  A beastly sound erupts from Wes’s stomach.

  Nico peeks over his lenses. “Have you had lunch?”

  “No.”

  “Wesley,” Nico says in that protective warning voice that Wes appreciates.

  “It’s been busy.”

  They both glance around at the scattering of customers in the store. The only noises come from Ella’s gum popping and Anna’s love for Alanis Morrissette any time after three p.m., when she can growl lyrical profanity without too many judging eyes.

  Nico passes Wes the iPad. “Burritos. On me.” He hops down from the counter. “MexiCoke?”

  “Please.” Yup, Wes isn’t beyond begging. He repositions in Nico’s spot on the counter as Nico gathers his skateboard. Adobe Illustrator is still open on the screen. He scrolls through the bookstore designs. Underneath is a gallery of other sketches and doodles. Most of it is original art. Sick graffiti tags and a few realistic portraits. Wes recognizes Mrs. Alvarez and Sofía, but much younger, when Sofía only came up to Wes’s kneecap and Mrs. Alvarez didn’t have an irremovable sadness behind her smile.

  “Hey.” Wes pinches the sleeve of Nico’s black T-shirt when he passes. “You’re drawing again?”

  Nico peeks at the iPad. “Sometimes.”

  “These are really good.”

  “Nah. They’re shit. I’m just messing around.”

  “No,” Wes insists, tugging harder on Nico’s shirt. “This is incredible. You could get into art school with this stuff.”

  Nico doesn’t respond, which Wes guesses is an invitation to continue, though Nico’s eyebrows shift inward.

  “You know, UCLA is one of the top five art schools in California,” he says, pointing at the image of Nico’s mom and sister. “You could learn a lot there.”

  Nico’s eyes narrow.

  Shut up. Shut up.

  But Wes doesn’t. “You could kick it around here. Be at home with your sisters, study art. And…”

  Be with me.

  Holy hell, that ten percent of himself that hasn’t accepted he and Nico aren’t going to work is still getting in the way. He’s so selfish. Is he trying to convince his best friend to stick around Santa Monica to pursue an art degree for Nico’s benefit or his? He doesn’t even have an airtight argument. Nico’s already been accepted into Stanford. What’s he going to do? Call the admissions office and cancel? Who cancels on Stanford?

  “Stanford is a top five art school,” Nico says. His cheeks are hollowed, showing all the tension behind his jaw. “It’s also where I’m going to study medicine because of my family, in case you forgot.”

  “I didn’t,” Wes says, his voice small.

  “Then drop it.” Nico snatches the iPad from Wes’s loose grip. “Art school isn’t for me. Art school won’t bring back…” Nico nudges his glasses up, wiping at his eyes. “Mierda. Forget it.”

  “Okay,” whispers Wes. But he knows he won’t.

  He stares at Nico’s back as he pushes out the door. Briefly, Nico looks over his stiff shoulder. Wes’s mouth opens, then closes. Nico disappears. Wes knows he won’t be back with a burrito and a MexiCoke.

  He knows he’s royally fucked up.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So, I told him…” Leeann pauses to take a sip of her green iced tea.

  In true hot-tea-only elitist form, Wes frowns at her.

  Leeann ahhhs
at him because she’s aware of his vehement disdain for iced teas. She continues, poking her phone screen awake: “We have to finalize the wedding party in the next two weeks. I love your brother with all my heart, but he’s such a slacker when it comes to the finer details of this wedding thing.”

  Chin propped against the meat of his palm, Wes hides a smile behind his long fingers.

  Leo, a slacker? In what world?

  “I’m sure Grace and Tiffany will be thrilled when you finally choose a maid of honor,” he says.

  “Assuming they’re in.”

  “Assuming they’re in,” Wes repeats, laughing.

  “I dunno.” Leeann picks at her everything bagel, careful not to get the chunky avocado she’s spread all over it on her fingers. She chews, head tilted, looking thoughtful. “I should just have one of those Mad Max, post-apocalyptic duels for that spot. I love my sister, but I think Tiffany might win.”

  This morning, Wes witnessed Tiffany verbally take down a florist who wasn’t prepared with a selection of sample flowers for Leeann despite an appointment scheduled two weeks ago. No offense, Grace, but Tiffany would slay that contest.

  Leeann wipes her hand on a brown paper napkin, then dives back into her tea. “I’m kind of dreading the menu planning next month. You think Grace is bad? Wait until Mei Chen critiques a caterer on traditional spring rolls.”

  Wes has never met Leeann’s parents. They live in Oakland. But he can’t imagine anything worse than Grace—except maybe Leo.

  He plays with the crystalized sugar on top of his blueberry muffin. His Darjeeling sits near his left hand, growing cold. Kyra keeps shooting him death glares from behind the bar. It’s a special white tea, the coffee shop’s featured Brew of the Week, but he doesn’t have it in him to enjoy it.

  Usually, it would’ve been Nico handing him a cup of tea, not Kyra.

  Nico.

  It’s been a solid two days since Wes said the stupidest shit imaginable and Nico stormed out of the bookstore. To Wes’s surprise, Nico returned with a burrito for him. They didn’t talk about it. Nico restocked shelves; Wes bummed around the front counter. But he still can’t shake it.

  “So.” Leeann jabs at the melting ice in her cup. “Are we going to talk about what’s got you so distracted, or would you like to discuss how I was dropping hints about the wedding party to see if your lazy brother finally got the balls to ask you to be his best man?”

  “He hasn’t.”

  “Huh.” Leeann’s got her phone in one hand, tapping away. “Noted.”

  “Stop,” Wes pleads while pawing at her phone. “I really don’t feel like dealing with Leo at the moment.”

  “Fine.” Leeann lowers her phone. “But we’re talking about whatever’s got your brain all fuzzy. I swear, Hudson men are like Fort Knox.”

  Wes doesn’t disagree. Truthfully, he isn’t up for discussing Nico. Something in his brain keeps reminding him that Nico’s the last thing he should be thinking about. Not when there’s the bookstore and UCLA and certain doom the moment he answers one of his dad’s texts.

  “How do you know this is what you want?” asks Wes.

  “This?”

  “Yeah, like.” Wes circles his hand around his head, as if that explains anything. “Life. You’re only twenty-three. How do you know you want to get married? To be in love? To drink green iced tea of all things?”

  Leeann’s hair flies in front of her face when she snorts.

  Wes continues. “How do you know you want to be a pediatrician? That you wanted to go to Pepperdine? That, every morning, you know what the hell is going on and still don’t have a meltdown?”

  Leeann blinks at him a few times, then shrugs. “I don’t.”

  “You don’t?” Wes’s screechy voice alarms a couple as they walk in.

  “No, I don’t.” Leeann scoops hair behind her ears. “Not always.”

  Wes face-palms into both hands. The fortune cookie lied. His horoscope misrepresented his future.

  “I take everything one step at a time. And even then, I sometimes trip. I’ve made some awful decisions, before and after meeting Leo,” Leeann says.

  Wes nods into his hands. He knows Leeann’s not perfect—her love of iced tea proves that—but as far as great examples go, she’s the closest this world has to flawlessness.

  “I almost went to Ohio State.” Leeann grins when Wes peeks from behind his fingers. “I know, right? O-freaking-hio.”

  Wes mouths Wow at her.

  “I didn’t always get along with my parents. And Grace was the epitome of a perfect daughter. I wanted to scream all the time. I had to get far away.” She clears her throat. “I didn’t know what I was going to study or who the hell I’d know out there. But I was going.”

  “What happened?”

  Leeann stares down into her cup. “Perfect little Grace had a pregnancy scare. My parents flipped the F out.”

  Wes loves that, sometimes, Leeann refuses to use actual swear words while talking. She says she’s preparing for a life in childcare. Admirable, but still funny as fuck.

  “My mom begged me to reconsider my plans.” She shrugs again. “It was the first time I felt like she cared. Like, if anything happened to me, she’d never survive it. I dunno—it made me feel loved. Morbid, right?”

  Wes shakes his head. “Sounds like most of us.”

  “My mom spent weeks with me curating a list of schools on the west coast,” Leeann says. “My dad, the dentist who never vacations, took an entire week off. He drove me up and down the coast.”

  Wes watches her shred the napkin into tiny brown snowflakes, forming a pile in the center of the table.

  “I didn’t like Leo when I met him,” she continues, softer. “In fact, he tried his shot with my roommate and missed. I felt so sorry for him, but I didn’t think I was in his league. He knew what he was going to be from day one.”

  Even though she’s not looking, Wes nods.

  “But then, outside the library, we got to chatting.” The brightness of her expression dwarfs the afternoon sun streaming through the giant front windows. “He’s got no game. Like, none.”

  Wes grins victoriously. The Calvin Hudson disaster-flirt gene is strong in both his sons.

  “I asked him out.” She snorts. “You only live once, right? I didn’t think he’d fall in love with me.”

  When their eyes meet, Wes wiggles his eyebrows as if to say, Come on, you’re a ten.

  “Wes, I have hella calendar reminders. I make good checklists. I have Grace and Leo kicking my ass when I mess up.” Her fingers are wet from the cup’s condensation when they brush Wes’s knuckles. “I don’t know what I’m doing eighty percent of the time. I just know, when I want something, I find a way to level up and go after it.”

  Kyra sweeps by their table, stealing Wes’s forgotten cardboard cup of tea and replacing it with a fresh one. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes scream, Drink, before she walks away.

  This time, Wes complies. He likes the hint of sweetness in it, though the heat burns his tongue. There are worse things happening in his life than a little singed flesh.

  He tries to dissolve his thoughts in the steaming tea.

  What do I want in life? A lot, actually. A clue on what to study at UCLA. A rough sketch of a five-year plan, just in case anyone—his dad—asks. For DC to finally get on Marvel’s level with their films. An easy way to get over his obsessive crush on Nico. To keep his laidback job at Once Upon a Page.

  Wes clears his throat. “Hey. I need you to do me a favor. A big one.”

  “Is it negotiable?”

  “Maybe?”

  “Will it violate the terms we’ve already set up as future in-laws?”

  “Possibly, yeah.”

  Leeann squints at him, chin cocked. Her drink is nothing but melted ice, a translucent green hue. She sip
s anyway. “Go on.”

  “I need you to…” Wes inhales deeply, chest puffed. “…talk to Leo for me.”

  “What? No.” Leeann slams her cup on the table. “Hudson men—zilch game and stubborn. I swear.”

  “Lee,” he pleads, reaching for her hand.

  She doesn’t snatch away, but she glares.

  “It’s important. It’s…” Wes’s throat swells as if it’s infected by some rapidly debilitating virus. But he trusts Leeann. He can share this with her. “It’s Mrs. Rossi and the bookstore.”

  He explains most of it, minus a few details like how he’s going behind Mrs. Rossi’s back and how he hasn’t informed his parents. Leeann slurps green water, a weary expression on her face. But when he’s done, she reaches for her phone.

  “This is breaking some kind of sibling law,” she mumbles.

  “I know.” He smiles apologetically. “Next wedding planning sesh, I’ll buy lunch.”

  “Damn right.”

  Wes slouches in his chair. He tears at his muffin, still not eating it. A foot nudges his under the table.

  “It’ll work out,” she says. “All of it.”

  “How do you know?”

  Leeann taps her index and middle finger to her temple, eyebrows waggling. “Batgirl always knows, young Robin.”

  * * *

  After two days of absence, Mrs. Rossi is back, which means Wes has a rare day off. To be honest, he doesn’t mind the whole seven-days-a-week thing at Once Upon a Page. Even on his days off, he’s known to spend at least three hours downstairs chilling behind the front counter, flipping through comic books. But today’s plan is sleeping in and bingeing anime shows on Netflix. It’s the adult thing to do, right?

  Wes’s plans are ruined by nine a.m., though. There’s an incessant thumping at the loft door.

  “Door, Wes!” shrieks Ella from down the hall.

  Wes digs the heel of his left hand into his eye as the door swings open. It’s Leo. His teeth clench his phone; one hand grips a white paper bag from a local bagel shop and his keys; the other hand holds a coffee cup sloshing liquid on the hardwood floor.