Jackpot

Rico Danger is a seventeen-year-old high school senior in Norcross, Georgia, who works part-time as a cashier at the Gas 'n' Go convenience store. She shares an apartment with her mother, Stacia Danger, and her nine-year-old brother, Jax, and most of her paycheck goes toward bills Stacia cannot cover alone. On Christmas Eve, during a ten-hour shift, Rico sells a Mighty Millions lottery ticket to a wealthy regular she calls "Mr. Fifty" because he always pays with fifty-dollar bills. Shortly after, a small, elderly Black woman in a light-up Christmas sweater buys two tickets: one using numbers she has played since 1989, including her own birth date, and one Quick Pick, a randomly generated ticket. The woman gives Rico the Quick Pick as a gift. As the woman exits, Alexander "Zan" Macklin, the school's varsity quarterback and heir to the Macklin Enterprises toilet-paper fortune, enters the store. Rico, mortified to be seen working the register, hides in the bathroom.

That night, Rico watches the drawing and discovers her Quick Pick has no matching numbers, while the old woman's ticket matches several numbers including the Mighty Ball, the lottery's special bonus number. Five days later, news confirms that one of two winning jackpot tickets, worth $106 million, was sold at Rico's Gas 'n' Go, but no one has come forward to claim it. Rico's boss, Mr. Zoughbi, receives a $25,000 bonus from the lottery commission and gives Rico a $5,000 share, which she hides in her box spring.

Convinced the elderly woman holds the winning ticket, Rico needs the store's security footage to identify the woman's taxi. She asks Zan for help, having heard he was expelled from private school for hacking, and he agrees. He accesses Mr. Zoughbi's encrypted files and retrieves the woman's image and her taxi's license plate. They visit the cab company, where Rico fabricates a tearful story to extract the driver's name and a forwarding address in Birmingham, Alabama. That night, Rico gives Stacia most of her bonus after a heated argument about their financial instability and Stacia's refusal to apply for Medicaid, the government healthcare program for low-income families.

Rico and Zan drive to Birmingham, deepening their connection. Rico shares her family history: Her mother is biracial, her biological father is an Afro-Spanish man she has never met, and Jax's father is a white lawyer who abandoned them during Stacia's pregnancy. Zan reveals he signed a contract with his father to join Macklin Enterprises after his senior football season; violating it would cost him all parental financial support. In Birmingham, the cab driver confirms he drove the old woman to Victorious Faith Church in Norcross on Christmas Eve.

Back at school, Zan tries to include Rico in his social circle with his best friend, Finesse Montgomery, and Jessica Barlow, the class president who lives next door. When Jax develops strep throat, Zan sends his sister-in-law, a doctor, to treat him. Jessica invites Rico out one evening after a fight with her mother, who has an alcohol addiction, and they end up at Finesse's house. Rico accidentally falls asleep on the couch beside Zan and wakes entangled with him the next morning, but he assures her nothing happened.

Continuing the search, Rico and Zan visit the church and then the home of Maybelle Carver, the church's visitor coordinator. While Maybelle gives Rico a tour, Zan sneaks into her filing cabinet and retrieves a visitor card with the name Ethel Streeter and a PO box address. Jessica also reveals to Rico that she shares Rico's financial background despite appearing wealthy.

Rico calls the leasing agency for a house linked to Ethel's PO box and discovers the property is connected to Dover Financial. She and Zan visit the house, and in the Jeep outside, Zan tells Rico he really likes her, and she admits she feels the same. They visit Dover Financial, where Ethel's financial advisor turns out to be John Dover, the man Rico knows as "Mr. Fifty." Dover cannot officially share client data but turns his back and allows them to copy the address of Ethel's son, Bartholomew Streeter.

Zan invites Rico to his sister Tehlor's wedding, where Rico meets his family and learns he is half-Mexican and fluent in Spanish. At a family dinner the following week, tensions surface when Zan's father insists Zan forgo college for the company and criticizes the lottery as destructive, causing Rico to bristle while recognizing how pressured Zan feels.

While Zan is away during spring break, Rico drives alone to Bartholomew's address and learns that Ethel has died of chronic kidney disease, her belongings in a storage unit. Shortly after, Jax falls critically ill with bacterial meningitis and is admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. The family has no health insurance, and the hospital bill reaches $328,002.76. Rico eventually calls Zan, who becomes a regular visitor at Jax's bedside.

On the day before Jax's tonsillectomy, Zan orchestrates a prom-posal in Jax's hospital room. At prom, he asks Rico to be his girlfriend. She says she needs to think about it, but they share their first kiss.

Days later, Rico brings Zan to the storage facility where Ethel's belongings are kept, planning to break in and search for the ticket. Zan refuses. When Rico insists her family needs the money, Zan reaches into his wallet and produces the winning lottery ticket. He confesses he bought it on Christmas Eve, his eighteenth birthday, while Rico was in the bathroom, and forgot about it until she recruited him for the search. Rico is enraged by his months-long deception. Zan counters that Rico was also dishonest, hiding Jax's illness and visiting Bartholomew without him. He offers her the ticket, but she refuses, calling it charity. Zan tells her she is too proud and that everything she was searching for was right in front of her. Rico walks to the bus stop, and their relationship fractures.

Rico avoids Zan for over a month. She graduates, takes a second job, and the family is evicted. Their upstairs neighbor, Señora Alvarez, insists they move in with her. On the ticket's 180-day expiration deadline, Rico lies in bed regretting her refusal.

On Rico's eighteenth birthday, Mr. Dover appears at the Gas 'n' Go and takes her to breakfast. He reveals that an anonymous person donated the winning ticket to fund two trusts, naming Rico as a beneficiary. The trust provides a monthly payment of $8,333.33, coverage of Jax's medical debt, 529 education savings accounts for both siblings, and a savings account accessible when Rico turns forty-eight. Rico signs the documents, transfers most of the monthly payout to Stacia, who has found a job at Macklin Enterprises, and donates the rest to charity for families facing unexpected medical expenses.

Rico drives to the Macklin estate and learns Zan has moved out. She contacts the realtor who once showed her and Zan properties during a playful outing, and he gives her an envelope from Zan containing the address of a cottage they both loved and a key. Rico lets herself in and finds Zan in a rocking chair, having baked an apple pie. He reveals he is going to Stanford in the fall, having broken free of his father's plan. He offers Rico the second bedroom, but she declines, proposing they start over as friends. Rico tells him she is going to Space Camp, the childhood dream she abandoned years ago due to poverty. They share a hug, and the novel closes with both characters stepping toward futures of their own choosing.