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The weekly soccer game is cancelled, because no one wants to play in this breathless, humid heat. Murphy and Raven take the ball out anyway, and kick it around the grass for a few minutes, listlessly, pointlessly. But the sun burns hot on the backs of their necks and the previous week’s rains have made the lawn, and every tree and flower and plant in the park, grow wild and with abandon, so that the thick grass forms an impossible carpet, and it’s no use to try to put together a simple, two-person version of a game.
“Our friends are weak,” Murphy announces, kicking the ball up and grabbing it, tucking it under his arm. He’s staring out toward the playground at the far end of the park, where a bunch of kids are caught up in an excited, rousing game of tag. One of them makes his escape up the slide. Two others are circling each other, back and forth around the jungle gym. “Those little munchkins are running around as if it weren’t a hundred and ten degrees—why can’t we?”
“We tried,” Raven reminds him. She winces as she sits down on one of the benches by the field, the metal burning the backs of her legs, and reaches for her water bottle. The click of the plastic spout as she pushes it back is almost as satisfying as the cool drink itself, seems to capture that perfect moment of anticipation before she tips her head back and chugs. She has to remind herself to leave some for Murphy, too. How much better it would feel, though, just to open the top and dump the rest out on her face. “We’re not—we’re not eight anymore, I guess.”
“Speak for yourself.” He’s still watching the kids, holds his free hand out blindly for the bottle. Raven passes it off to him, but doesn’t stand, so he has to take two side-steps closer just to reach. Up close, she can see a patch of sunburn across his nose and cheeks. She runs the back of her wrist across her mouth, swipes her hand across her forehead, trying to rid herself of sweat, watches as Murphy tilts his head back and closes his eyes and drinks.
He hands her back the bottle, empty now, and she rattles it distastefully and slips it back into her bag. “Yes, I know,” she says, “you’re a child at heart.”
“One of my many endearing qualities.”
“But it doesn’t make you immune to heatwaves.” She takes a deep breath, lets her shoulders briefly slump forward on the exhale, and glances over, too, at the playground. Murphy’s not wrong. The kids are to be envied. Even from here, she can discern their high, excited shrieks, bits of laughter, cutting through the stillness of the thick, stagnant air. The afternoon is warm, straight warm, bright with sun and not a hint of cloud, on top of the humidity. Feels like pure summer on her skin. Murphy offers her his hand, and pulls her up.
Securely on her feet, she doesn’t let go. She swings her bag over her shoulder, twines her fingers through his, and they start shuffling their way through the overgrown grass.
“What were you like as a kid, Reyes?” Murphy asks, glancing at her sideways, the question so unexpected and yet so serious that she has to bite back a smile. “Let me guess—you were one of those weird little girls, right? Always making up dark stories for her dolls and digging around in the dirt?”
“Something like that. I was really into robots for a while. I think I pretended all my Barbies were androids.” She grins. “Aaaaand you were the little boy who could never be trusted to just play quietly by himself, weren’t you? The always-getting-into-trouble type?”
“Maybe. But wouldn’t that also describe you?” He tilts his head, an exaggerated frown between his brows. Raven stops them in their tracks, leans up, and kisses him on the nose.
If her hands were free, perhaps she’d fist them in his shirt, pull him down—
But. Even the thought abruptly stills. From somewhere still distant, behind them on the street, a tiny, faintly familiar melody is playing. She falls back on her heels. Murphy, too, is looking out past her shoulder and squinting. When Raven turns, she catches sight of the truck too, and her memories of the gentle, thin little tune fall into place.
The ice cream truck is yellow, with a striped yellow and white awning stick above from the window, still closed, on the side. As they watch, its already slow pace becomes a crawl, the music clear and bright like rays of sun through clouds. Then it pulls over to the curb, and the children at the playground take notice of it, and their excited yells and stomping feet drown all other noises out.
Raven hasn’t seen an ice cream truck since she was a kid herself, didn’t even know they existed in this town, but for one certain and undeniable second she is nine years old, scraped knees, gangly and too tall for her age, sweat across her nose and dirt on her cheek, exchanging a handful of wrinkled bills for a rectangle of vanilla ice cream, coated with chocolate, on a stick.
She looks back at Murphy and sees his gaze is just as distant, his mouth slightly open, his tongue darting out to run across his lower lip.
“Think we should…?” she says.
Murphy laughs once, short, and squeezes her hand. “Reyes, I thought you’d never ask.”
They hang back at the end of the line until the kids have gotten their ice cream and dispersed, then let go of each other’s hands, so Raven can pull her wallet out from the bottom of her bag. Murphy volunteers to pay for them both but she won’t let him. He orders an ice cream sandwich and she buys an ice cream bar, then waits until the truck has pulled back onto the street, leaving a cloud of exhaust and heat in its wake, before she throws away the wrapper and takes her first bite.
The chocolate crunches and shatters, and the ice cream almost falls. She holds out her hand to catch it, just in case, then flicks out her tongue to grab a stray bit of cold from the corner of her mouth. Somehow, without meaning to, she is holding back laughter—the moment is not funny but it’s wonderful and feels like joy.
Murphy is staring at her, the slightest smile on his face, but she can’t read it.
“What? I haven’t had one of these in years. It tastes exactly the same.”
“Yeah,” he laughs. He sounds like he’s been knocked out of a spell, slightly relieved, and slightly faint, shaking his head at himself as he unwraps his ice cream sandwich, too, and takes a bite. “It’s chocolate and ice cream on a stick,” he adds. “It always tastes the same.”
“So? Maybe I’m a kid at heart, too.”
They start walking again, toward the lot where Raven left her car. Balancing the soccer ball, her bag, the ice cream, does not allow them to hold hands. But the unexpected sweetness, cold and sugar on her tongue, lessens the hot rage of the sun still beating down, makes the heat wave seem like only another ripple in an endless, free season: something she’s missed without knowing she was missing.
Murphy stops them abruptly, with an awkwardly thrown hand against her arm. Raven stumbles to a halt a half-step ahead of him. “What?”
“You’re dripping.”
She doesn’t know quite what he means. Then she follows his eyes down, to where a slow trickle of melted ice cream is sliding down the side of her hand and her wrist.
Murphy’s already finished with his. He crumples up the wrapper and throws it neatly into a nearby bin. His gaze, when it returns to her, is much too secretive, too private, for the outdoors and the middle of the day.
“Let me help,” he says, and before she can answer, he leans down and presses a wide, wet kiss to the edge of her palm. She feels his tongue laving across her skin. Her breath catches.
When he looks up, she lets out a shaky breath and tries to smile. “If you’re not careful, my ice cream is going to drip all over your face.”
And Murphy, in response, only laughs. “Kinky. Maybe we should save that for when we get home.”