“No, it’s fine. Wear it for a while. Maybe we’ll get you a Red Sox hat eventually or something.”

Ben decided to leave the room. He couldn’t blame Ahmed for any of it.

“We’ll go to the Dish for dinner?”

“I’ve got a couple things to take care of. I’ll be over later.”

And without explaining, he went to his closet, pulled out his big Prince racquet bag, and walked out. Down the steps, out the back door into the heatless air, toward the eternal Dragon and the courts behind. He half worried now that Rory would spot him and want to play.

The building was dark as he approached but in the light from the streetlamps you could still see the newness of the window frames and door handles. How could his father have gathered the money for this and now have none left? Ben pressed the thumb latch on the side entrance and wondered whose job it was to lock the hundreds of doors to all the campus’s buildings at night and then unlock them again in the morning.

In the dark he walked through the lounge, waiting to hit his shin on something. At the doorway to the back annex he felt for the recessed switch plate, then flipped up all the switches. He turned off each light until just the farthest court, tucked against the emergency exit, was lit. His bag went under the wood-slat bench and he tied his shoes, then stepped onto the clean court and shut the door. It was so beautiful.

He slapped the dead ball up to the front wall. It lay down on the floor, and he scooped it up again and skipped closer to the wall and hit the ball high up so that it came back to him at shoulder height, and he took it out of the air and kept it on the front wall for three more volleys before tipping it with the frame and sending it spinning across the court.

He brought the edge of his racquet underneath the ball and flung it into the side wall, then volleyed it four more times, then let it bounce, and by this time it was coming up off the floor a little. Now he took his racquet back and instead of hitting at the ball, he just twisted his body and let his arm relax, and then the ball made a new sharp sound against the wall.