“I feel like summer never really ended,” Ryan said dreamily. He tossed the very end of his cone in the trash can on the corner of Court.

“Right?” Bruce agreed. “It needs to get cold or no one’s going to take school seriously. In fact, I’m considering cutting to go to the beach on Friday.”

“I love Rockaway Beach,” Liam mused. His family used to take the A train out there all the time in the summers. They’d bring a picnic and stay until well after sunset. Sometimes his dad would bring his ukulele and his mom would sing.

“He meant the Hamptons, loser,” Ryan said. “He has a house.”

The boys walked down Court, four abreast. Passersby averted their eyes and skirted the edge of the sidewalk to avoid them, as if frightened by the pack of teenage brutes. Liam smiled at this. Black Ryan was tall, but his legs were like toothpicks. Bruce was big all over and weird-looking, with bulging blue eyes and straight, dirty blond hair that fell to his shoulders, but he was kind of short. Ryan had the dark shadow of a mustache but a little-boy haircut, and he still wore the dorky yellow polo shirts and khaki pants his mom picked out for him. Liam was Liam Park, medium-tall, skinny, belt-wearing, pimply son of the school nurse and the lower school music teacher. Except for Bruce, the four of them were hardly a threat.

It was dark by the time they reached the schoolyard, but the entire neighborhood of Cobble Hill was safely outfitted with extremely bright white LED streetlamps, so they could see well enough to play. The basketball hoop was on the Kane Street side, right near Strong Place. Dried leaves had begun to collect around the edges of the yard near the tall chain-link fence.

Bruce kicked at the ground with his red Jordans. “Fucking leaves,” he growled and dribbled the basketball.

Black Ryan stole it away from him and shot an easy layup. Ryan caught the rebound, faked Bruce out, took a jump shot, and missed. Bruce caught the ball and dribbled it in artful circles. Despite his stocky stature, he was really good at basketball. Liam just stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching.

“You playing?” Bruce called to him as he continued to dribble. Black Ryan ran at Bruce and hurdled over him, laughing, like a hyperactive grasshopper.

“Fuck you, assholes!” Ryan shouted for no apparent reason.

Liam regretted joining them. The ice cream had not agreed with him. “You guys go ahead.” He shuffled over to the playground equipment and lay down on his back on the slide. “My stomach feels weird.”

“Your face is weird,” Ryan joked, but it felt like it wasn’t a joke.