The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers, page 1
VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
First published in the United States of America by Viking,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2022
Created by Dovetail Fiction, a division of Working Partners Limited, 9 Kingsway, 4th Floor, London WC2B 6XF, England
Text copyright © 2022 by Dovetail Fiction, a division of Working Partners Limited
Interior art copyright © 2022 by Anne Pomel
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 9780593464786 (Hardcover)
ISBN 9780593528914 (International Edition)
ISBN 9780593464809 (Ebook)
Edited by Kelsey Murphy
Cover art © 2022 by Anne Pomel
Cover design by Kaitlin Yang
Design by Monique Sterling, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: Boy 100
Chapter 2: The Prince
Chapter 3: The Pumpkin
Chapter 4: The Decree
Chapter 5: The Library
Chapter 6: The Friend-In-Law
Chapter 7: The Squire
Chapter 8: The Palace
Chapter 9: The Prologue
Chapter 10: The Enchanted Lady
Chapter 11: The Knight Princess
Chapter 12: Wish Granted
Chapter 13: The Gifts
Chapter 14: The Mouse
Chapter 15: The Squire Captured
Chapter 16: The Festival
Chapter 17: The Bad Luck
Chapter 18: The Partnership
Chapter 19: The Believer
Chapter 20: The Mural’s Muse
Chapter 21: The Little Worries
Chapter 22: The Cage
Chapter 23: The Departure of the Squire
Chapter 24: The Ball
Chapter 25: The Search for the Squire
Chapter 26: The Counsel of the King
Chapter 27: The Kingdom Helps
Chapter 28: The Stroke of Midnight
Chapter 29: The End
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For David, who fought hard for the right boyfriend in this book
Chapter 1
BOY 100
How do I know it’s love? Because I’ve already thrown up twice, and I haven’t even asked him out yet. Although my friends could’ve done without that information, they agree that my anxiety-induced stomach issues provide the perfect excuse to skip school and ask out my first boy ever.
Who could focus on imaginary numbers or the Teapot Dome Scandal on a day like this? The signs that I should finally make my move are everywhere: the typical gray soup of overcast skies has finally broken apart over the Chicago skyline, giving way to a hopeful Tiffany blue. It’s the first warm day we’ve had in half a year, which is perfect for my current mission because I can slip into my favorite black tank top that makes it look like I have ripped arms (twist: I don’t!). I don’t feel guilty skipping. I’ve already finished most of my finals, junior year is basically over, and half the seniors won’t even be present today.
Like Andy McDermott.
I’ve been circling Andy all through May with the steely-eyed focus of a shark circling a drowning sailor. He’d been dating this girl in my pottery class for almost a year, but she cheated on him during spring break, they broke up, and then Andy started showing up at our school’s LGBTQ+ club meetings.
As secretary of the club, the only meeting minutes I recorded that day were OMIGAWD ANDY IS HERE.
Hannah, my best friend (and best spy), managed to learn that Andy would be ditching class to go to Grant Park to record TikToks for his band. So that’s where I’m headed, as fast as my penny board will take me.
The miniature hot-pink skateboard bucks under the weight of my overstuffed satchel, but I easily correct my balance. I am, after all, a little toothpick boy who is seventeen but looks twelve. Spring wind whips against my face as I glide across the rust-colored bridge between my home on the Gold Coast and the Loop downtown. When I reach the lake, I realize the entire city has chosen to play hooky: sailboat owners, bicyclists, joggers, picnickers—each of us desperate to take advantage of the first hint of warmth since October.
Yet the soothing wind does nothing to quiet the acid bubbling in my stomach.
Today is the day Micah Summers asks out his first boy, win or lose.
It better not be lose!
When I finally stop my board outside of a stone barrier leading into Grant Park, a stroke of luck finds me: Andy McDermott is already here. And he’s alone. It’s unfathomably rare to find Andy without his circle of intimidating friends.
Yet here he is without them, in line at a street-side hot dog cart.
Andy is a boy straight out of a fairy tale—but, like, the vaguely punk kind from Descendants. He has curly dark hair dyed aquamarine at the tips, a smattering of freckles over his lightly tanned cheeks, a stud earring, a flannel shirt tied around his waist, and silver rings on every finger. Ideal retro-music-video vibes.
Breathing steadily, I lick moisture back into my lips, clip my board to the back of my satchel, and join Andy in line.
He doesn’t see me yet. My heart won’t settle.
The hot dog vendor—a boisterous older white woman decked out in Chicago Bulls merch—waves Andy forward to take his order.
How am I supposed to start a conversation? Once I manage that, how do I ask him out in a way that’s casual enough to not be off-putting, yet direct enough to avoid our date becoming a passionless friend hangout?
In real life, boys aren’t fairy-tale princes; they’re terrifying, unknowable creatures who hail from the woods of mystery.
No time to breathe. I leap to my phone for backup and text Hannah: Emergency! McDermott is in line ahead of me getting hot dogs. What do I do?
Her reply comes swiftly: Ask him out!
I nearly strangle my phone. Since seventh grade, Hannah has dated one pristine, popular boy after another—and she’s always the one who gets asked out first—so I don’t know why I think her advice will ever be applicable to me, a gay boy who hasn’t even reached a middle schooler’s dating level yet.
Thank you, Hannah, but how? I reply.
Just ask him if he wants to eat hot dogs together. But, like, make it SOUND like “hot dog” is code for something else.
You’re making jokes while I drown!
Offer to buy his lunch!
At last, a concrete, actionable first step! Hannah is the queen.
“—run it through the garden,” Andy tells the hot dog vendor in his coarse, husky voice.
“That’ll be four fifty,” the vendor says.
I lunge forward, credit card outstretched, before Andy finishes hunting for his wallet. “It’sonme,” I blurt in a single, mishmashed syllable.
Andy staggers backward, shock etched across his scruffy face.
Oh no. I moved too quickly.
“Sorry!” I raise my arms in surrender for some unknowable reason. “It’s, um, on me?”
Andy flutters long lashes, and his startled expression softens into a crafty smile. That’s nice. Breath returns to my chest. “Oh, hey,” he says. “Micah? From the school club thing, right?”
He recognizes me!
“Yes, uh . . .” I say, handing the vendor my card. My gaze leaps around wildly, landing on anything but Andy. The plan is breaking apart fast. To Andy, this twerpy little white kid he barely knows just jumped out of nowhere and isn’t explaining why.
“Are you getting a dog, too, hon, or just buying his?” the woman asks.
The sidewalk is swirling. No way I could eat anything. “Just his,” I mumble.
“Well, thanks,” Andy says, his friendly tone powerless to relax me.
With ungodly effort, I meet his eyes—dark brown and flecked with gold. He’s smiling.
It’s too much attention. My stomach squeezes.
Smile, Micah. I obey. Too much teeth! I close my lips. Now you look queasy. I am queasy! Andy’s smile begins to fade. You’re losing him!
Andy’s pierced eyebrow rises. “You . . . don’t know what I’m doing tonight?”
The sentence was supposed to be I don’t know what you’re doing tonight, but if you’re free, do you want to go to a movie/dinner/whatever. But of course, I chickened out on the important part, so I sound like a creep!
“Here’s your card, sweetie,” the vendor says before handing Andy a tinfoil-wrapped hot dog and bag of SunChips. A woman behind me nudges her children ahead to order, and Andy and I shuffle out of line together.
Literally what am I doing? Do I just follow him around all day like some sad ghost?
“I mean, if you aren’t busy tonight . . . uh . . .” I stammer.
Mercifully, Andy knows where I’m going with this. Wincing slightly, he leans closer. “Hey, Micah . . . I’m super flattered, but—”
“No worries!” I gasp. “Happy graduation, happy hot dog, bye!”
I sprint in the opposite direction with the intensity of a gazelle about to become a jaguar’s lunch. I don’t slow down until the toxic pool of acid inside me disappears.
My heart shrivels inside my chest. Once again, I couldn’t do it.
As soon as I’ve safely put several blocks between Andy and myself, I drop my penny board and skate to Millennium Park—a bit touristy, but at least I can disappear into a crowd. Disappearing is what I need right now. After hopping off my penny board, I kick it into my arms and squat, cross-legged, a few yards from the Bean—a gigantic, reflective art installation of, well, a bean.
I open my satchel and pull out a charcoal pencil and Moleskine sketchbook. As soon as the textured paper hits my fingertips, the heat of my humiliation begins to simmer.
I put myself out there—sort of—but got shot down—also sort of.
That’s really a bummer. Time to put the crush to bed and draw Andy out of my mind.
Beginning with wide, rough pencil strokes, I sketch Andy McDermott, but not as he is—how my crush made me feel. I exaggerate his features: his aqua-dipped hair becomes a shoulder-length mane; his eyes become glowing, golden moons; his flannel shirt becomes a torn, billowing, medieval tartan.
He’s a pirate, like Westley in The Princess Bride. Or a wolf shifter from one of the romance novels I used to sneak from my mom’s bedside table.
A wolf-pirate.
I add visual flourishes, like a nighttime forest scene tattooed down his left arm. A hoop earring instead of his stud. A pair of baby fangs peeking out beneath a thick mustache.
He looks nothing like the real Andy McDermott. In my fantasy, the wolf-pirate Andy whisks me away to his home deep inside a wicked forest. No need to ask him out and fumble my words—I am merely a wolf-pirate’s willing captive. In this fantasy, I’m not a seventeen-year-old who’s never even had a whiff of a date . . .
Unlike my friends, I never outgrew fairy tales, because I don’t think they’re silly or fake. To lonely little queer boys, they can seem just as real as anything else—more so because I control the story. In reality, I’m a wreck. I can’t speak. I can’t even look my crushes in the eyes. I control nothing. But in fairy tales, love can be as idealized as I want. I can be anyone.
When I draw, I’m me.
I open Instagram, and my heart lifts with renewed strength. Even though my art account—@InstaLovesInChicago—has been dormant all week while I finished finals, my follower count has grown by another thousand people. I’m almost to 50K! I try not to read comments, so I don’t know if they’re positive or negative, but just being reminded that this many people are seeing my art is everything I need after today’s letdown.
“I’m super flattered, but . . .” I couldn’t even let Andy finish his rejection, as if it would be less of a rejection if I stopped him halfway through. Whether the end of that sentence was but I’m not interested or but I’m not ready yet after my breakup, he doesn’t share my same feelings. Like a shoelace coming untied, the feeling I thought was love unravels into what it really is: a one-way infatuation. Love goes back and forth.
Oh well. Another miss for Micah Summers.
Like the ninety-nine other misses (or near-hits, as I optimistically call them), the ghost of my crush lives on in the romantic drawing of what might have been.
When I got this sketchbook for my birthday two years ago, it had 208 empty pages. To date, ninety-nine of them contain finished sketches of my Instaloves Boyfriends, each one kissed with a loving spritz of permanent Krylon adhesive.
Sealed. Posted to Instagram. Perfection.
Ninety-nine boyfriends.
Good thing nobody knows it’s me behind the account. My family was on this reality show a few years ago (and everyone knows my dad), so the last thing I want is the whole internet knowing how many flopped crushes Micah Summers has endured. Making Instaloves anonymous keeps it about the art, not gossip. It’s given me the space to play around and find my artistic voice.
I glance at my DM notifications—an endless column of unread messages from fans. In the tiny preview windows, they all ask variations on the same question:
Where is Boy 100?
When will you post Boy 100?
Boy 100 WHEN?
When will my prince come?
My chest sinks again. Ninety-nine crushes, and I’ve asked out zero.
All week, I thought Andy was Boy 100—the crush who finally becomes something more. But fate has decided Boy 100 is still out there, waiting for me like I’m waiting for him.
Chapter 2
THE PRINCE
The wolf-pirate smells that you’re afraid, but your discomfort is something he cannot abide. “You don’t have to say anything,” he whispers. “I know a place we can go where it’s just us.” You look into his golden, animalistic eyes and instantly feel safe. This scruffy stranger knows exactly what you need. He knows how to be gentle with your feelings but fearless enough to make fun of you just the right amount.
You board his vessel and set sail for his family’s ancient castle. Once there, you camp in the mountains. He serves you mulled cider in a ceramic mug he cast himself. A loyal wolfhound perches at your side.
I close Instagram without posting my drawing.
Andy’s hands came out looking too big. They’re not right.
Nothing’s right!
Usually what makes my Instaloves feel so real is that I keep myself out of it. When you look at my drawings and read the caption, you are swept away. You live the fantasy. They’re all based on my real crushes, but it’s my job to exaggerate them so people feel what I feel. Yet this time, an invisible, heavy boot pushes against my stomach as Andy stares back from my sketchbook, his hands all misshapen. His allure is somehow missing.
Why did I get it wrong this time?
I sigh. This failed crush hurt. I thought I saw something in his eyes, something interested. Maybe I’m deluded. Maybe he is interested but still too raw from his breakup. Or he could’ve been open to dating if I hadn’t blown it so spectacularly.
My phone buzzes with Hannah’s text: Soooo??? When I text a thumbs-down, she replies, Meet us at Audrey’s in 20 mins? Elliot will make your chai.
Elliot.
She is relentlessly trying to get me to be friends with that guy. Gays don’t always need to be friends with other gays based on that trait alone! I want to text her back a sassy No thx! but she’s being too nice. As I board across town, Chicago’s inaugural hot summer day singes the hairs on my neck. God, I missed this toastiness. I’m sure by July, I’ll be begging for October, but for now, this warmth is all I need to lift my spirits.
That and an Audrey’s chai.
Audrey’s Café is my newest obsession. Hannah brought it into my life at the perfect time, because I can no longer show my face around my previous haunt, Intelligentsia.
A former Instaloves Boyfriend—number 59—works there.
In fact, as I turn the corner toward Audrey’s, Mr. 59 is in the Intelligentsia window changing signage to display their summer selections. I can almost see the number 59 pop over his head. He spots me crossing the street, his long, dark bangs flopping in front of his eyes. He smiles, but I’m too traumatized by my latest disaster to smile back. He tosses me a peace sign, and—miraculously—I’m able to return it as I zoom away.
