Her Striker by Charlene Raquel

Chapter Fourteen

 

 

Dean pulled the covers off Drew and yanked on his foot. “Get your ass out of bed.”

Drew turned his head toward his nightstand. “Dude, it’s 6a.m. What the hell?”

“You need to go over there and talk to her.”

“You’re kidding, right? I was planning on talking to her, but not this early.” Drew rolled over.

Dean tugged Drew’s leg hard, pulling him partially off the bed. “You’re avoiding her. You’re always up earlier than this for your morning run.”

“Get off, moron.” Drew crawled back onto the bed, facing the mattress.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.” Dean folded his arms and glared at him. His best friend was avoiding reality. He had told Drew about his conversation with Sam and how she was under the impression that Drew blew off Gwen. Drew had closed down and gone to bed, claiming he was tired. An empty bottle of Jack Daniels laid on its side on the floor. His friend was going to try to hide, but Dean wasn’t going to let him.

“Why are you bothering me?” Drew mumbled into the sheet.

“Because you’re not a coward, and you need to go over there and find out what happened three years ago. She also may be able to help you with Landon. She was here when it happened.”

“I’ve got a game this afternoon, jackass. Get out so I can go back to sleep.” Drew closed his eyes, determined to ignore his best friend.

“You have an hour before I come back in here.”

Dean stormed out of Drew’s room, heading for the coffee table where he left his laptop. Drew had confessed, one drunk night a couple of years ago, that he had emailed Gwen repeatedly the summer he left, and she never answered a single one. He wondered if Gwen’s father had somehow intercepted them.

The more he researched Richard Mason, the more dirt he dug up. The man had no morals, ruined reputations of people who went against him and had no respect for women. Dean had no idea how he hadn’t been caught in his dirty dealings, pay-offs, and bribes.

Drew stumbled into the living room a few minutes later, rubbing his eyes. “I’m up. Are you happy now?”

Dean tossed him a bottle of water. “Pain meds are on the counter. You look like shit.”

Drew growled at him as he made his way into the kitchen. Swallowing the pills, he downed half the water before capping the bottle. He should have never drunk so much but he started to feel guilty for treating Gwen badly and for not trying harder to figure out what had been going on with her. He knew how bad her parents were and what they had planned for her, and he left her with them. He should have known better.

“Sulking and hiding out here is not going to fix things. Get the truth from Gwen and move the hell on. You can’t wallow in guilt and shame. Shit happens. You are both here now, and you can do something to fix things. That girl is hurting and needs you.”

“I fucked up.” Drew rubbed his bloodshot eyes again. Damn, hangovers sucked. He was going to play really well in his game this afternoon.

“Who cares. Talk it out and move on. You were both young.”

Drew nodded. “I’ll head over there after I grab a shower.”

 

~*~*~

 

Gwen knew Drew was at her door before she opened it. The goosebumps along her arms and the butterflies in her stomach were great indicators. “Hey.”

Drew didn’t have his signature cocky smile. He stood there waiting for her to not only let him inside her apartment but into her life again. “Hi. Want to take a walk?”

Gwen glanced at Sam, who was nodding her head emphatically, and back to Drew. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

They walked silently next to each other until they made it to the beginning of the trail through the woods.

“You didn’t run this morning.” Gwen blurted, looking for something to say. They used to talk for hours without ever running out of topics, but being with him on that trail after everything that had happened was making her a nervous wreck.

Drew grimaced. “I, uh, slept in. I sort of had a rough night.”

Gwen turned her head to take him in for the first time that morning. She had been avoiding looking directly at him, but she could see the dark circles under his reddened eyes. She could tell he had run his fingers through his hair more than once, and his t-shirt was wrinkled.

“Drink too much?”

“I might have had a little Jack.”

“Just a little?”

“It was a small bottle.”

They fell easily into bantering, and Gwen could almost pretend years had not gone by. “Want to take that trail?” She pointed to the left. “There is a great spot to sit by the lake.”

“That sounds perfect.” Drew took a chance and reached over to take her hand in his.

She stiffened for a moment before linking her fingers with his and falling into step next to him. The silence that followed was not as awkward as it had been before.

A few minutes later, they stopped by a fallen log that extended over a small stream off the lake.

Gwen shimmied over to dangle her legs over the trickling water, giving him room to sit next to her.

Drew knew he was going to have to start the difficult conversation. There was no way she would do it after the way he had treated her. “Gwen, we need to talk about what happened before. We need to get everything out, but first, I need to apologize. I’m sorry for being mean to you. I shouldn’t have said the things I did or treated you that way. I was hurt, but that’s no excuse.”

“Thanks for saying that.” She paused. “We were both hurting and still have some open wounds.”

The corner of his mouth turned up just a tad. “We need to get all the questions and hard feelings out. I need to know why you blew me off. Why didn’t you answer any of my emails or calls or text messages after I left? I tried and tried to contact you all summer, and you never responded.”

Gwen drew in a breath and dropped his hand, turning to stare at him. “You never contacted me, Drew. Not once. I left home right after you did and left my phone there. I didn’t want anything they had given me. I emailed you and told you I didn’t have a phone anymore. You didn’t answer. I emailed you several times and after the first one, they all came back undeliverable. You blocked my email address.”

Drew grabbed her hands even though he knew she probably didn’t want to hold his. He needed the connection. “I never blocked you. I sent you dozens of emails.”

Gwen shook her head. “No. That’s not possible.”

Drew blew out a breath. “I hate to blame everything on our fathers, but could they have had access to our accounts? I don’t use that one anymore. I needed a clean break from everything after losing…”

Gwen tightened her grip on his hands. “I don’t use that one anymore either. It had too many…memories.”

“Do you remember your password?”

Gwen frowned. “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

“I’m going to call Dean.” He fished his phone from his pocket, opened his contacts and hit Dean’s name, putting him on speaker.

“Yo.”

“Hey, man. I’m here with Gwen.”

“Good. Why are you calling me?”

Drew rolled his eyes. “I need you to look at an old email account of mine and see if you can figure out if someone was accessing it and if there are any blocked email addresses or anything weird.”

“Okay. Why? What am I looking for?” Dean opened his computer and pulled up a browser.

“Seems like someone didn’t want Gwen and me to communicate and made sure none of our emails got to each other.”

Gwen listened to their conversation. “He can look at mine too. I never got any of Drew’s emails. Could someone have deleted them before I saw them?”

“It’s possible. It’s also been a long time so there might not be anything to find. I’ll do my best.” Dean entered in their email addresses and passwords and got to work. “Call you guys later.”

Drew pulled her closer. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I should never have left without you. I should have insisted you go with me or waited for you to be ready.”

Gwen’s eyes filled with tears. “I wish I had gone with you. I wish I could go back and choose differently.”

“We can’t change what happened.”

“I was so angry with you for so long, but I couldn’t hate you.”

Drew grabbed her hand and linked their fingers. “You tried to hate me?”

Gwen nodded. “You hated me.”

Drew wanted to hold her, but didn’t know if she would be receptive. “I tried to convince myself that I hated you.”

“What are we going to do about our fathers?” Gwen knew her father would not be dismissed the way he was. He would come after her and Drew again. Richard Mason took revenge very seriously.

“We’ll figure it out. When I was home this summer for Landon’s funeral, they were still plotting you and Carter getting together. Your father spoke about it like it was a done deal and that you were completely in agreement.”

She shook her head as she twisted to look at him. “No way. I would never agree to that or anything else my parents wanted.” She gazed down at the water, unable to face him. “He wanted to pimp me out to his friends. He actually thought he could make me sleep with his associates. What kind of a father would do that to his daughter? What kind of a monster is he?”

“Hey.” He pulled her chin up with his fingers. “He’s an evil sick asshole. That’s not on you. Don’t feel ashamed of anything he’s done or is responsible for.”

“You didn’t hear the vile things he was saying.”

“Gwen, I heard every word. None of that will ever happen. I’ll keep you safe.”

“You don’t like me, remember? You didn’t come here to see me.”

Drew winced. He had said some rotten things to her. “You’re right. I don’t like you.”