Her buoyancy was contagious, and for the first time since he had come back to California, the deep restlessness inside Rico relaxed. The room was filled with talented, interesting people. Song was right, this could be fun.

When he pulled away from the hug, he noticed that his lovely partner was back in the room. Yes, he felt it, shoot him.

A bitter little smile danced around her red, bee-stung lips—a combination of smugness and annoyance. Rico had no patience for it. And no, the fact that her chef boyfriend was right behind her, his body language all protective of her, had nothing to do with Rico’s lack of patience.

Rico turned back to the sweet person he was talking to.

Song was watching him with awe, which made him extremely grateful right about now. “You guys are guaranteed to get through the first few rounds. Given the, you know . . .”

“The video.” His eyes found Ashna again as she made her way across the studio toward him—not by choice but because DJ was heading this way and she had her hand hooked into his arm as though he were an overinflated life raft and she were swimming against a current gone wild.

Song gave him another hundred-watt smile, and he chose to mirror Ashna and cling on to it. “That was such an amazingly brave thing to do. You’re a hero!” Song said.

And yet, he had barely received a grudging thanks for his heroism. “It’s the curse of being a football player; you see a flying object and you automatically leap toward it.”

She loved that, laughed heartily at it. Rico loved that he didn’t have to work for her laughter, she gave it easily and he was as grateful as a starved puppy. As if he didn’t like her enough already, she turned the conversation to his last World Cup final, one of his favorite topics. They had come so close to losing that one. If not for that goal in the ninetieth minute, they would have gone to penalties. Song wasn’t kidding when she said she was a fan. She knew every detail of all the major games he’d ever played.

By the time Ashna and DJ made their way over, Song was in full-blown superfan splendor. The first thing she did when she saw Ashna was tell her how very lucky she was to have Rico as her partner. “Could you believe it when you found out?”

“No,” Ashna said, voice dripping sweetness even as she threw all sorts of eye-daggers at Rico. “I still can’t believe how”—or why, her eyes added just for him—“it happened.” Then she ruined things by adding kindly that Song’s chef was lucky to have her too.

Song beamed. “I’m so happy to be here!” she said delightedly before going off to join her chef.