Chapter 13 Forty Dollars
CALEB
I spent thirty-eight of my forty dollars on tacos and stood in Eli’s kitchen counting exact change on the counter while he watched me from the doorway with the expression of someone who had a full list of opinions and was deciding which ones were worth saying out loud.
“You could call Walter,” he said.
“I know.”
“He would put money in your account before you finished explaining the situation.”
“I know that too.”
“He wouldn’t even ask questions.”
“I know, Eli.”
“Then why are you standing in my kitchen counting coins like this is a moral decision instead of a financial one?”
I stopped counting.
Because that was the part I hadn’t said out loud yet.
“I’m not ready to sit in front of him,” I said finally. “And explain that my father froze my bank account over a girl I’m contractually pretending to date because of a draft situation he created in the first place.”
I picked up the bag.
“Not yet.”
Eli leaned against the frame.
“She’s not just a girl,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “She isn’t.”
That ended the conversation.
Not because there was nothing else to say.
Because there was too much.
I drove to Mia’s with the window down.
The truck already smelled like tacos and bad decisions, and I didn’t want to arrive at her apartment carrying that with me.
She opened the door before I knocked.
Worn hoodie. Damp hair from a recent shower. No clipboard. No jersey. Just her.
The real version.
Her eyes moved immediately to the bag.
“You actually brought tacos,” she said.
“I said I would.”
“You had forty dollars.”
“Had,” I corrected. “Now I have two.”
She stepped aside.
The apartment felt quieter than usual.
Her mother was asleep.
Lamp on low.
Two glasses of water already waiting on the table.
That detail stayed with me longer than it should have.
Mia always prepared things in advance like she was expecting interruptions from life itself.
We ate at the table.
Nothing dramatic.
No weight in the air that demanded attention.
Just food. Just quiet.
We talked about Jamie, who apparently believed he was NHL-bound at fourteen and had strong opinions about defensive spacing.
We talked about the team.
The scout.
The camp.
Things that could be discussed without breaking anything open.
We did not talk about Sunday.
Not once.
After dinner, she washed the dishes.
I dried them.
It should have been simple.
It was simple.
And still, it felt like something I had never done before.
Normal things always felt unfamiliar when you were used to everything being structured around expectation or performance.
Mia moved in her kitchen like she didn’t think about being watched.
That alone was different.
“I think about you when I’m on the ice,” I said.
She didn’t stop washing.
“Not plays,” I added. “Not positioning. Just you. Sitting on the bench like you’ve always been there, like you see everything before everyone else does.”
The dish she was washing was already clean.
She kept washing it anyway.
“I think about you when I wake up,” I said.
“Before anything else.”
She stopped.
Set the dish down.
Turned.
“Caleb,” she said.
“I know.”
“You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it puts it in the wrong category.”
“What category?”
“The one where I remember this started as a transaction,” she said carefully. “And I am supposed to be acting like it still is.”
I looked at her under the kitchen light.
“Does it feel like a transaction right now?” I asked.
She didn’t answer immediately.
Then:
“No.”
That was the problem.
Not the contract.
Not the money.
Not my father.
That.
I kissed her.
It wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t planned.
It was just immediate.
Like something that had been building without permission finally stopped waiting.
She kissed me back.
Her hands were still slightly soapy from the dishes.
She laughed against my mouth once, surprised, real, like she hadn’t expected herself to respond that way.
That sound did something to me that I didn’t have words for.
Something I didn’t fully recover from afterward.
When I left, she walked me to the door.
“Caleb,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to figure out your father’s situation,” she said.
I stopped.
“What kind of figure out?”
“A practical one.”
That made me more alert.
“Don’t do anything alone,” I said immediately. “Whatever you’re thinking, I need to know first.”
Her smile appeared.
But it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Same time tomorrow,” she said.
“Same time.”
I walked down the stairs.
Halfway down the block, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I picked up.
“Caleb,” a woman’s voice said. Controlled. Careful. “It’s your mother.”
My steps slowed.
“I heard what your father did with the accounts,” she continued. “I need to see you. There are things you don’t know.”
A pause.
“Things about the girl you’re trying to protect,” she said. “And I think you should hear them before this goes any further.”
The street felt colder.
Empty in a way that made sound feel far away.
“What things?” I asked.
“Not on the phone,” she said immediately. “Tomorrow morning. Please.”
Then she hung up.
I stood there for a moment without moving.
Cold air in my lungs.
Tacos still in my stomach.
And something heavier forming underneath it all.
Because the timing wasn’t accidental.
It never was.
My mother calling now.
My father escalating.
Mia saying she had a “practical idea.”
It all connected too cleanly to be coincidence.
And the worst part was the thought I didn’t want to complete:
Whatever my mother knew…
Mia already knew it too.
And she hadn’t said a word.