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“At just the right time,” I had said with a smirk in his direction.

“More like a little too late,” Theo had said.

“Because your opinion is the most true?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Mostly because this is my pool.”

Our conversation had been cut short by a football landing in the pool and splashing water all over the two of us.

“My bad!” Jensen had called.

Theo had gotten up and brushed off his jeans. His eyes lit upas he looked at me. “Is it just with me, or does he always feel threatened?” With those words, he’d walked away.

“Earth to Finley,” Max said, shaking my arm and pulling me out of the memory I’d nearly forgotten. “When does Operation Infiltrate the Football Team begin?”

I looked at the guys in their pickup game, suddenly not sure what exactly I was going to do or say to them but knowing I needed to do something. “Soon.”

“What’s up with the funky soccer net?” Deja asked.

On the far right of the yard was one of those freestanding nets kickers used to practice. I’d never seen one in a backyard, just in the stadium at school. Jensen definitely didn’t have one. Maybe that’s why he stayed the backup kicker all those years. “It’s for kicking a football,” I said.

“Let’s go check it out,” Maxwell said.

Next to the net was a large storage cabinet, its doors open. Inside were all sorts of football gear: pads and orange cones and more footballs, even one of those rolling sticks that distributed chalk powder into straight lines.

“Theo’s kind of obsessed,” Deja said, running her hand along a shelf.

Maxwell retrieved a ball and ran twenty feet away from us. “Ready?” he called.

“For what?” Lee asked.

“I’m going to throw it to you.” It was less of a throw and more an underhand lob that landed at my feet.

I picked up the ball and twisted it in my grip. Maxwell joggedback to us. I held a fake microphone to my mouth. “Maxwell, how does it feel to have thrown an unreceived pass that lost the game?”

He ignored my microphone like he usually did and twirled around with his arms outstretched. “It feels amazing.”

“I think it’s called an uncompleted pass,” Lee said.

“That doesn’t sound right either,” Deja said. Then she pointed. “Try kicking the ball into that net.”

I made a show of putting my fake microphone on the ground. “Like Jensen told me numerous times, kicking a football and kicking a soccer ball are two totally different things,” I said, eyeing the net. “Soccer balls basically kick themselves.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Deja said. “I’m beginning to think he wasn’t hiding his jerk at all. You just didn’t recognize it.”

“No,” I said defensively. “He meant that a soccer ball is round and it’s easy to put in motion.”

Deja scoffed. “So easy. I basically tell it where to go and it does my bidding.”

“I guess hewasmaking it seem like it took no talent to play soccer.”

“Not cool,” Lee said.

Had he done that with other things? Nice-guyed his insults? Tried to one-up me in everything? Felt threatened when he wasn’t the best? How had I not seen it before? Was that why he tried out for the podcast too? To prove he was better than me?

“Am I blind?” In my indignation I held the football out in front of me and drop-kicked it, like I used to do with the soccer ball.

I could tell right when the ball hit my foot that it wasn’t going to go where I’d intended it to go—in the net. My foot struck theball at an odd angle. It veered to the left, flying through the air, much farther than I realized it would go. It hit some guy all the way across the yard, who was standing next to Theo, on top of the head.