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He doesn't want it to end.

I close the notebook.

The room's very quiet. My hands are flat on the cover.

I don't want it to end either.

I've known that for a while, I think. I've just been very careful not to look at it. Like a shot you're not sure you can stop, so you don't move until you have to.

Wednesday morning, he's on the bench at five-twenty-five. Two coffees on the boards. One black.

"Morning," I say.

"Morning."

He doesn't say yes anymore before the session. I don't know when that stopped. I didn't notice it go.

I scrape my ice. I tap my posts. I drop into my stance.

He comes. The first one goes in, blocker side. The second one I stop, a pad save, and he swears cheerfully and skates back for the next one. The third one goes in. The fourth goes in off the crossbar, ping, and drops straight down over the line.

Three.

He goes back to the line with the fifth puck.

I watch him stand there. He's breathing hard. He's looking at me down the length of the ice, and even from a hundred feet away I can see his face. He's not thinking about how to beat me. He's thinking about how not to look like he's not trying.

He can't win this morning, though. He's only got three. Even if he buries the fifth, it's four. There's nothing at stake.

I come up out of my stance.

I don't make a show of it. I just shift. I come out of the paint, a step too far, to the top of my crease, and I stay square to him, and I leave the whole far side of the net open. A goalie would see it from the red line. A sniper would see it from the parking lot.

He sees it. I watch him see it.

He comes in. He comes in fast, and he gets to the top of the circle with the whole far side wide open in front of him, and I don't move.

And he puts it wide.

Not by a foot this time. By about four inches. Like he's trying to make it look close.

It hits the end boards. Bang.

He circles away. He doesn't look at me.

"Three," I say.

"Yeah. I know." He goes and gets the puck. "Bad angle."

"There was no angle. I gave you the net."

He stops with his back to me.

"I didn't see it," he says.

"Theo."

He turns around.