His father had been a football legend, a god, they called him back in Brazil. Rico had no idea what he would have done with that legacy, after his pai’s death, had their relationship been public. When Rico was very young, he had barely seen his father. His mãe had been a single parent for the most part. Back then Rico had hated football. His mãe loved to tell the story of how Rico had been afraid of the ball—how he’d run from it when someone kicked it to him. When she’d told his pai, he had taken that as a personal insult and started to make time to play with him, and Rico had fallen in love with the sport. Football had given him his father.

“The fruit doesn’t fall too far from a tree, no?” His pai loved to say anytime Rico won his league games for his age group. It was true; everything he knew about the game he knew because of Pablo Silva.

Rico hung up his smock in the back room and left Smoothie King. His shift had been canceled because the smoothie machine was broken. His boss had given him the rest of the day off and paid for his shift. Finding reliable teenage employees in Woodside was apparently not the easiest thing. Tests, sports, musical instruments, volunteer hours, their own start-ups—all of that took priority over a job serving yogurt mixed with wheat germ and coconut milk to other teens.

Rico was possibly one of the only students at GB High who had no idea what he was going to do with his life. A sin in this part of the world if there ever was one. From the age of thirteen he’d known he was going to play league football. Now he couldn’t even imagine it. Ash wanted to go to UCLA on a soccer scholarship. Her father wanted her to go to cooking school, a laughable idea, because: Ash in a kitchen? Ha! If she wasn’t training and sweaty, she was always moving and restless, as though she were still playing in her head.

Rico was also possibly the only student at their school who needed to make his own money. Being the love child of a football legend meant his financial support had died when the legend did, and Rico hated asking his aunt for money. He hated that she had to support him on her housekeeper’s salary and make space for him in the cramped back house of the estate she worked at. Auntie Lena tried hard to make him feel at home, but he’d lost the only home he’d ever wanted to live in when he left Rio. The fact that Ash’s uncle’s house was just half a mile from Lena’s meant he’d gladly live there forever. Being near Ash was a matter of survival.