The kitchen smelled like burnt coffee and the mint mouthwash Mom used at work, the kind that came in gallon jugs and somehow followed her home on her scrubs. She was standing at the counter with the mail fanned out in one hand like a losing poker hand, and Caleb had rehearsed the speech so many times on the bus that he started it in the middle.
"—and it's not just for games, it streams stuff, so we could cancel the other thing, the streaming thing, and that's like fifteen dollars a month, so it basically pays for itself in, like, three years."
Mom didn't look up. "Three years."
"Less if you count that I wouldn't need to go to Dev's all the time, which is gas."
"Dev lives four houses down."
"It's still gas. Technically. If you drive me." He set his backpack on the chair the way she was always asking him to, not on the table, as evidence of what a responsible person he was. "Everybody got one, Mom. Dev, Marcus, Tyler Gaines, which, Tyler Gaines can't even read the menus. They're all on together every night, and they talk the whole time, and then at school they're doing the bits from last night and I'm just standing there."
That made her look up. She had a crease between her eyebrows that hadn't used to be permanent. Caleb could remember when it came and went, like weather. Now it lived there.
"Bits," she said.
"Jokes. Like inside jokes. From the game."
She put the mail down. She put it face down, which he noticed, and which he would think about later, when there was a lot to think about. "Bud," she said, "I can't. I'm sorry. We can't afford it right now."
"It's five-fifty."
"I know what it costs."
"I have ninety-one dollars."