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I know that look. I wear it.

The fourth one I stop. He tries to go glove side, high, and I catch it clean and hold it up for one second so he can see it before I drop it.

He stops dead at the top of my crease, a spray of snow coming up off his skates and hitting my pads.

"Fuck," he says.

Not loud. Through his teeth. Like it's been sitting in his mouth for twelve hours.

"That's not yes," I say.

His eyes come up and meet mine through his visor. They're bright and wet at the edges from the cold, and from something else.

"Yeah?" he says. "What are you going to do about it?"

There he is.

He skates back to the line. He takes the fifth puck so fast he barely sets it, and he comes at me like he's angry at the ice, and he snaps it low blocker and I'm a half second late, I'm still thinking about the bus, and it ticks off my pad and slides wide by an inch.

Two for five.

He circles. He stops in front of me. He pulls his helmet off and his hair is soaked and there's a vein standing up in his neck.

"Two for five," he says. "Say it."

"Two for five."

"And I said fuck. So go ahead. Tell me. What do I owe you."

I look at him.

There are a lot of things I could say. Carry the bag. Eat when I say. Sit at the card table. All the things I've been saying for two weeks, all the things that make the room laugh, all the things that are supposed to make him smaller.

None of it's working anymore. He's bigger than he was yesterday. He's furious, and I'd rather have him furious than the thing he was on that bus.

"Room," I say. "Now."

The room is empty. It'll be empty for another hour. The lights are on their early setting, half of them out, and the whole place is cold and smells like rubber mats and yesterday's laundry.

He follows me in, still in his skates, clomping on the rubber. I sit down in my stall. Still in my pads. I take my mask off and set it on the shelf.

"Take your gear off," I say.

He stops in the middle of the room. "What?"

"Your gear. All of it. Here."

"Kovač."

"You said what do I owe you. That's what you owe me."

He looks at me. I look back. I keep my face the way I keep it in the crease. Still. I don't move. I don't do anything with my hands.

He drops his gloves on the floor. That's the first thing. Then his helmet, on the bench beside him. He sits down long enough to unlace his skates, his fingers stiff and clumsy from the cold, and I watch him fumble with the knots and don't say anything.

Then he stands up again in his socks, and he pulls his jersey over his head.

Then his shoulder pads. Then his elbow pads, one and then the other, the Velcro tearing loud in the empty room. Then the pants, the hockey pants with the suspenders, and he steps out of them, and then his shin guards, unwinding the tape from around his socks. He does all of it with his jaw set. He doesn't look at me once. He folds each piece and puts it on the bench in a neat pile, like a soldier.