Archie loved summertime. I liked parts of it, certain months, the first two. We’d been hiking through the woods, the late July day so humid, both of us had stripped down to just shorts and shoes. Every inch of flesh on our bodies, exposed or not, was ripe with sweat, the parts that did show now as shiny and slick as the gymnasium floor at the rec center where we often played basketball. I sucked at basketball, but it was fun with Archie. He was pretty bad, too, despite having the perfect build for it, now, at six-four. We never played when anyone else was around. More than once, we ended up there close to midnight, since I had the key to the rec center. The first time had been back in back in the fall of 2008, I recalled.
“I’m bored.” Archie had called me just after nine on a rainy Friday
