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“What would you build? If nobody had to hire you. If it were only up to you.”

I open my mouth.

Nothing comes out of it.

Gabi waits.

“I do not know.”

“Okay.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the first honest one you’ve given me tonight.”

She goes back to the cake. I sit there with the question.

On the television the third period starts. I count his shifts without deciding to. Gabi watches me do it and says nothing about that either.

“How many?” she says eventually.

“Twelve minutes. They will not give him more on the road.”

“You know that?”

“I know that.”

She hugs me beside the car. She almost never hugs anybody without warning.

I do not thank her. She does not wait for it.

He gets in.

I am on the sofa with the lamp on, and on the side table at his end there is a glass of water. It is not cold anymore.

He stops in the doorway with his bag still on his shoulder and looks at the glass, and then at me.

“You’re up.”

“Yes.”

He puts the bag down. He picks up the glass and drinks half of it standing, and does not say anything about it, and I do not say anything about it, and then he sits down in the place it was waiting for.

“How was Gabi?”

“She ordered cake I did not ask for.”

“Good for Gabi.”

He picks up the tablet. “You mind?”

“No.”

He puts tonight up and runs it to the second period. Their zone, his line, the puck coming around the wall.

“Your entry is bad.”

His eyebrows rise. “You’ve been in hockey for four months.”