Her Striker by Charlene Raquel
Chapter Two
Drew’s jaw was clenched so tightly that it was a wonder it didn’t break. It would serve him right if it did.
He hated the crowds. He hated the attention, and he really hated being at Stonewall University. Most of all, he hated who he had to become.
After all this time and everything he’d done to escape, his fucking father won. He was falling in line and taking his place at his family’s university. All Maxwells had graduated from Stonewall University from as far back as the 1700s when the damn school was created. And he was going to be the next one in line.
It should have been his little brother. Landon was the one who wanted this life. He was the one who wanted to follow the family tradition of dominating the political world. Landon had been on his way to fulfilling that dream until he was killed last month. The campus police had ruled his death a tragic accident of a college freshman celebrating the end of his first year of school with too much alcohol and drugs.
It was all bullshit. Drew swallowed the bile as it threatened to rise. His brother never drank too much and would absolutely never take drugs. Landon was too much of a model student and son to ever overindulge. He was always too concerned with appearances to look bad. A photo could follow someone through life and ruin a career. Landon never had more than two drinks. It was a rule he never broke. Even at a very young age, Landon knew how to act, particularly in public.
So here Drew was at Stonewall University, determined to find out what really happened to Landon. Their father, Oliver, wouldn’t talk about Landon’s death and refused to allow anyone to even mention his name. Somehow, their father had managed to keep Landon’s death quiet and not have it splashed all over the media. There was nothing Oliver Maxwell couldn’t do.
“Hey! Maxwell! You joining us today?” Coach Hughes motioned to the field where the rest of the team had already been stretching.
Damn, he thought. He had been so far in his own head that he had missed the beginning of practice. Not a good way to start off. Drew bent to pull off his warm-up pants and lace up his cleats.
“You better get your ass on the field, Maxwell.” Coach Hughes bellowed. “You aren’t a super star here, and I won’t tolerate any bullshit.”
Drew locked his jaw so he wouldn’t tell the coach to go fuck himself. He stood up, trying to ignore the assistant coach, but the man stepped in front of him and into his personal space.
“Nothing to say, Maxwell?”
Drew had perfected his bored expression over the years. He had to in order to survive his father’s rants and tirades.
“Is there a problem, Hughes?”
Coach Hughes glared at Drew, backing away quickly as soon as he saw the head coach walk up.
Coach Nelson held out his hand to Drew. “Welcome to the team, Andrew. I can’t wait to see what you can do on the field.”
Drew shook the coach’s hand with doubt shadowing his face. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Don’t worry about Hughes. He has no real power here. You’ll learn that there are some things at this university that you just have to tolerate.”
Drew’s eyebrows were in his hairline, wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.
His eyes pulled over to the tennis courts involuntarily. He watched as Gwen hit the shit out of the ball, sending it zooming at the tall girl across from her, who chopped wildly, missing it. She always did have a hot temper, and he just stoked it.
Shaking his head, he jogged onto the field, blocking out everything but soccer.
~*~*~
“Your head wasn’t in the game today, Gwen.” Coach Kathy clasped her on the shoulder. “You need to focus.”
Gwen tried not to glare at Clarissa, who had purposely hit the balls out of the court and at Gwen’s head when she wasn’t looking. It was going to be a horrible year.
“Okay, Coach.” Gwen wasn’t going to argue. She would just have to figure out how to deal with her current situation.
Coach Kathy leaned closer. “I’m going to make sure she stays away from you. We wanted to see how she would react as a member of the team.”
Gwen couldn’t hold back the giggle that burst forth. She never expected to hear that come out of the coach’s mouth. “She’s not exactly a team player.”
“Let me worry about that.” Coach Kathy glanced over at the large crowd at the soccer practice field. “That’s quite the spectacle.”
Gwen tried to force herself not to look over. “I’ll see you later, Coach.”
“I’m going to see what all the fuss is about.” Coach Kathy hurried over to stand near the goal.
When the crowd began to cheer, Gwen lost her battle to ignore him and turned to see Drew circling the end of the field with his fists raised in the air. She waited for the triple fist pump with his right hand. He used to do that after every goal. Drew didn’t disappoint. At least one thing was the same.
Gwen made her way over to her black Volkswagen Jetta. The paint was faded, there was a dent in the passenger side door, and it had more than a hundred thousand miles on it. She loved it. It was the first big purchase she had made all on her own, and she was proud of it.
It was so different from the bright red Audi S5 convertible her parents had bought her in high school. She had left that car and most of her belongings at her parents’ house when she made her escape from their tyranny and control.
She worked hard for her scholarship and paid for everything else she needed at college herself. Gwen didn’t want anything from her mother or father, least of all their money. Her parents had threatened to disown her and never allow her to return there if she walked away from them. They hadn’t realized that she had no intention of ever setting foot in their house again.
Money had been a replacement for love when she was growing up and material objects were only given for dutiful behavior. Everything had been about appearances and alliances. Her family didn’t have friends, they had strategic associations.
Her mother and father had dictated everything― clothes, hairstyle, activities, and even friends. The only person she had growing up that was her own was Drew, and her parents had only tolerated that friendship. Drew was the middle son to the powerful senator, and definitely not the favored one. He was the rebel and not good enough for their daughter. Her parents had pressed her to pursue Drew’s older brother, Carter, who was already out of college and following in his father’s footsteps. Her parents even went so far as to invite Carter over to visit whenever possible.
The senator had encouraged the alliance between Gwen and Carter even though Carter was nearly a decade older. Gwen had a difficult time tolerating the pompous ass.
Drew had been her only rebellion. She had followed along, doing what she had been told her whole life until the day Drew left home. He had asked her to go with him, but she had been too frightened.
It was the worst day of her life and her biggest regret. Little did she know that a week later, she had done exactly what Drew had done, but without his support and completely alone.
Her father, Richard, had pulled her from her bed early that morning, demanding that she spend the weekend with one of his associates and to make sure he was well taken care of. She had been shocked, horrified, and then absolutely crushed to realize that her father, the man who was supposed to love her unconditionally and only have her best interests in mind, didn’t care about her at all. He saw her only as a tool to elevate his success.
He had screamed at her that she had ruined her chances with Carter and her father had to resort to giving her to someone less influential. It had made her sick to think her father would do something like that. She knew she had to run away and never look back.
She had thrown a few clothes into her worn backpack and left that very day. Her high school tennis coach had pulled in a few favors and helped her get a tennis scholarship and she had worked her butt off ever since.
Gwen hadn’t spoken to her father since that day, but she had broken down and called her mother a few times, but that had stopped when she realized her mother had been feeding her father information.
Now, she was all alone in the world, and she was okay with that.
“Hey, Gwen! Wait up!”
Gwen turned to watch her roommate, Samantha, jogging toward her car. She grinned at Sam as she approached with her green army backpack slung over her shoulder and her auburn hair swinging around her shoulders.
Sam jutted her hip out with an attitude. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
Gwen winced. She had been daydreaming and had no idea what had been going on around her. “Sorry. I was…”
“Lost in thought?” Sam provided. “You wouldn’t have been thinking about a certain soccer super star that you used to have a mad crush on, were you?”
“We dated a long time ago. I never had a mad crush on him.”
“Oh, whatever.” Sam’s grin was completely smug. “So, you admit you were thinking about him?”
“He’s a complete jerk now.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the crowd. “He’s not the guy I knew growing up.”
Sam scrutinized her best friend. “Did something happen? Did you talk to him?”
Gwen knew she would have to tell Sam what happened before she heard a much worse version that was sure to be spreading through campus like a virus. “I didn’t get a chance to say anything. He made it quite clear that he didn’t want anything to do with me.” She dropped her eyes to the ground. “He told me to get the pathetically hopeful look off my face and that he didn’t come to see me. It was in front of a bunch of people.”
Sam reached out and rubbed Gwen’s arm. “I’m sorry that happened. I know you had been looking forward to seeing him after all these years.”
“I was kidding myself. He was so hurt and angry with me for not going with him when he left. I had tried so many times that summer after high school to contact him, but he never returned a call or email. He had made a clean break from his family and our parents’ social circle just like he said he would.” Gwen would not cry. She held it together all afternoon. She could do it a while longer.
“He doesn’t know that you broke away from your parents?”
“I don’t think he cares one way or the other.” Gwen dropped her bag on the ground next to her car.
Sam crinkled her forehead. “Are you going to try to talk to him?”
Gwen covered her face with her hands. “No, Sam. It was pretty awful. I’ll never forget the look of contempt on his face. He’s never been that way with me before. He had looked just like his father and older brother. Drew’s perfected the horrible condescending distain that they are famous for.”
Another cheer roared on the soccer field.
Sam shifted her focus. “You have to admit he’s a damn good player.”
“And knows it.” Gwen couldn’t keep her eyes away from the field. “I can’t believe he’s here. He swore he would never step foot at Stonewall.”
“Yeah, particularly after his brother died.”
Gwen frowned. “It’s weird how no one is talking about it.” She grabbed her bag and unlocked the car doors.
Sam walked around to the passenger side. “It’s really weird and a little creepy. This university is gossip central, and no one has mentioned anything about it since it happened.”
Gwen took one last look at the soccer field before getting into her car and driving off.
~*~*~
Drew jarred awake in his bed when a heavy weight settled on his chest. His bedroom in his off-campus apartment was completely dark except for a crack of brightness from the outside floodlight at the back of the building. There shouldn’t have been any light at all since he had closed the blackout curtains completely before going to sleep for the night.
A cloth was stuffed into his mouth while he tried to buck and kick, to no avail. Several gloved hands flipped him over onto his stomach as his arms were yanked behind his back and secured. Drew’s legs were tied at his ankles and no amount of thrashing could get him loose.
He figured at least four men were trying to keep him contained, but he couldn’t tell since someone had shoved a thick, heavy cloth over his head.
Suddenly, his head felt fuzzy, and his body was becoming slack. Drew’s movement ceased as he faded into oblivion. The rag had to have been drugged.
