The Striker (Gods of the Game Book 1)

I ended my call with Scarlett and tossed my phone in my gym bag right as Adil bounded over to me and Noah, whose locker was next to mine.

“There they are! My fellow Blackcastle baddies!” He clapped one hand on each of our shoulders. “Missed me?”

“Like a toddler misses a rash,” Noah muttered, but he didn’t shake off the midfielder’s greeting.

“So you did miss me.” Adil appeared unfazed by the goalie’s lackluster enthusiasm. “New season, boys. We’re back, and we’re going to crush those Holchester bastards! And everyone else,” he added as an afterthought.

“You got that right.” I bumped my fist against his in agreement, but my mind lingered on Scarlett. She sounded a little off during our call. Perhaps it was her nerves over the Yvette and showcase situation. She had complicated feelings about performing in public again, and the sudden promotion from understudy to lead couldn’t be easy.

I made a note to check in with her again once I was home.

I changed shirts while Adil regaled us with tales of his summer at home. The locker room crackled with the back-to-school energy of a new season, and laughter and teasing banter filled the air as the players caught up with each other for the first time in months.

“I can’t wait to see them on the pitch again.” Adil rubbed his hands. “Bocci better watch his fucking back.”

The mention of my old teammate filled my mouth with the taste of copper. It was the taste for competition. For redemption. For vengeance.

We almost swept the league last season, and this was our chance to vindicate ourselves. Since Vincent and I set aside our differences, there was nothing stopping us from taking the number one title come May.

Coach entered the locker room. “DuBois! Donovan!” he barked. He jerked his head toward his office. “Get in here.”

A chorus of taunting oohs swelled as Vincent and I stopped what we were doing and walked toward him, our expressions identically wary.

“In trouble already? That’s a record,” Samson joked. The Nigerian winger laughed when Vincent gave him a light shove on his way past.

“Next time you want to make a joke, make sure you can complete a forty-five-minute run without heaving like you’re in labor first,” he called over his shoulder.

The first day of preseason was always the toughest as players transitioned from a summer of food and holiday back to work.

Another chorus of oohs mingled with jeers as Samson shook his head. “Low blow, captain!” he yelled after us. “Low blow!”

I smirked, but my amusement quickly faded when we arrived at Coach’s office. He shut the door, and once again, déjà vu permeated my senses as Vincent and I settled into our seats.

Coach sank into his chair opposite us and steepled his fingers beneath his chin.

The clock ticked.

The air-conditioner hummed.

The muffled noises from the locker room emphasized the tension dripping around us.

Vincent and I shifted in our seats.

If Coach was employing some sort of psychological warfare tactic to make us uncomfortable as fuck, it was working.

After what felt like an eternity of interminable silence, his eagle eyes zeroed in on Vincent. “DuBois, your father alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Coach leaned forward. “If I ever find out you trumped up a family emergency to get out of something I assigned to you, I’ll have you running interval sprints until you develop a bloody intimate relationship with the nearest rubbish bin. Understand?”

Vincent swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

My snicker died halfway when Coach turned his attention to me.

“This is a new season. A fresh start,” he said. “I’ll chalk last season’s problems up to growing pains, but your petty antics end here and now. You may not have spent the summer together like I’d planned”—he cast another glare at Vincent, who slid a few inches down in his seat—“but that’s not an excuse for picking up where you left off. I expect you to behave like more than adults; I expect you to behave like champions. If that’s going to be a problem, you need to tell me right bloody now.” His eyes glinted with warning. “Is it going to be a problem?”

“No, sir,” we chorused.

“Donovan and I have come to an understanding,” Vincent added. “So you don’t have to worry about us.”

Coach’s thick brows beetled with skepticism. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” I picked up on Vincent’s thread. “We’ve learned from last season’s mistakes.”

“It won’t happen again,” Vincent said.

“We are fully prepared to work together to destroy—to beat Holchester. And everyone else,” I went on, echoing Adil’s earlier addendum.

Coach’s eyes tapered into suspicious slits. “Good,” he finally said. “I assume this understanding started with the Sport for Hope charity match?”

Our mouths formed identical O’s of surprise. He knew about my long-time involvement with the non-profit, but how did he know about Vincent?

“I read the local papers, and I have spies everywhere.” The curve of Coach’s mouth would’ve resembled a smile if he wasn’t allergic to smiling. “I heard about your brawl with Pessoa and the Greens too.” The curve vanished. “He’s a wanker, but don’t pull any of that shit during one of my matches, or⁠—”

Someone knocked on the door, interrupting what I was sure would’ve been another flinch-inducing threat.

Vincent and I exchanged glances. Who would dare interrupt one of Coach’s meetings?

Coach’s brows bent further until they formed a single line across his forehead. “Come in,” he snapped.

The door opened, and Greely, our assistant coach, popped his head in like he was afraid Coach would chew off his limbs if he allowed them past the threshold. “Sir, your daughter’s here. She’s waiting in the hall.”

“Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.” Greely left, and Coach glared at us again. He did that a lot. “I have other business to attend to, but I trust you won’t do anything to jeopardize this beautiful, budding friendship of yours.”

We shook our heads in unison even as my unease rattled in my veins.

I was going to take a wild guess and assume dating Vincent’s sister fell under Coach’s “anything” clause.

Vincent and I didn’t breathe until he dismissed us and left to meet his daughter. I guess he didn’t care about leaving us alone in his office—not that we were dumb enough to snoop through his stuff. We valued our lives.

“Christ. I felt like I was a student getting called into the headmaster’s office again,” Vincent muttered on our way out.

We’d given Coach plenty of lead time so we didn’t have to walk next to him. The man was inspiring but also, frankly, terrifying.

“You’re not the only one,” I muttered back. “I’m surprised he didn’t put us in detention and make us scrub the floors.”

“Don’t give him any ideas.”

I snorted.

When we re-entered the main locker room, it was empty. However, a flurry of whispers led us around the corner to the exit, where the rest of the team was huddled around the little window in the door.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Have you ever seen Coach’s daughter?” Adil turned, his eyes gleaming.“She’s here.”

“So?” Vincent yawned. “What’s the big deal?”

“I heard she’s joining the team staff,” Samson said. I didn’t know how, but he always found out about team-related breaking news first. “She’ll be interning with Jones.”

Jones was Blackcastle’s lead performance nutritionist.

“Big deal. We get new interns all the time. She’s not special just because she’s Coach’s daughter.” Vincent sounded unimpressed. “You all better get back to the locker room before Coach sees you, or he’ll make us do horseshoe runs again.”

A collective shudder rippled through the group, but that wasn’t a big enough threat to make them disperse.

“Dude. Samson forgot the most important part.” Adil walked over and placed his hands on Vincent’s shoulders with great solemnity. “Coach’s daughter is hot.”

That got his attention.

I shook my head as Vincent pushed his way toward the window, but curiosity got the better of me as well. None of us had ever seen Coach’s daughter. I knew she lived with his ex-wife and that she was his only child, but that was about it.

I didn’t care that she was hot, but I was curious about what Frank Armstrong’s daughter looked like.

I squeezed next to Vincent and peered out the window. Coach’s back faced us, obscuring most of her body. After a minute or so, he shifted, revealing long blond hair, hazel eyes, and a heart-shaped face.

My jaw dropped.

Beside me, Vincent went rigid, his breath expelling in a similar rush of shock.

Because it turned out we had seen Coach’s daughter before. Not only that, we’d drank and partied with her.

We turned to each other, our expressions identical masks of disbelief while Coach continued to talk to Brooklyn.

The first thing I did when I left training was call Scarlett again. She had no idea Brooklyn was Coach’s daughter, but she didn’t sound particularly upset about it.

“I knew she was hiding something,” she said. “It makes sense. She does want to go into nutrition, and if I were Frank Armstrong’s daughter, I wouldn’t run around telling people either. I barely acknowledge being Vincent’s sister.”

“For good reason,” I told her.

She laughed, but like our conversation earlier, it sounded a bit forced. However, when I offered to drop by her house or have Earl pick her up for a rendezvous at mine, she declined, saying she was tired from rehearsals and wanted to nap.

I didn’t push it. She sounded like herself again the next day, so I took her explanation at face value.

The grueling demands of the preseason soon dominated my attention, and the novelty of discovering Brooklyn’s relation to Coach quickly evaporated as we swept through the friendlies and the real season kicked off several weeks later.

We won our matches easily, but we hadn’t faced any heavy hitters yet. The real test would be our match against Holchester in two weeks.

Still, that didn’t mean we passed up the opportunity to celebrate beating Wentworth in our first official match of the season.

What I really wanted was to celebrate with Scarlett, whom I barely got to see these days. Between my club obligations and her adjusted rehearsal schedule, we spoke on the phone more often than we did in person. I was spoiled after a summer of having her mostly to myself, and I was desperate for alone time with her.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t say no to the first team outing of the season, which was how I found myself packed into the Angry Boar with the rest of the Blackcastle team.

“Captain buys the first round,” Adil announced after we placed our orders at the bar—beer for those who indulged, water or soda for those who didn’t. “It’s tradition.”

Vincent narrowed his eyes. “Since when?”

“Since now.”

“Interesting,” Vincent said. “You know, I seem to recall you never picked up a single tab last season…”

“Hey, I entertain with my wit and humor. You can’t put a price on that,” Adil said defensively. “Speaking of which, I have a team bonding idea, and it’s all thanks to Donovan.”

Every head swung toward me.

I shrugged, as confused as they were.

“I read the book you recommended.” Adil reached into his pocket and brandished a small paperback featuring a colorful cover of a half-naked redhead and two massive, scaly reptiles. “Triceratops and Threesomes. Hey, it was good!” he shouted over an outburst of laughter and jeers.

“Bruv, what are you reading?”

“Are those dinosaurs?”

“What kind of kinky shit are you into?”

“Donovan.” Samson crossed his arms, his mouth twitching. “Explain.”

I almost told them the truth until I remembered Scarlett was the one who’d introduced me to the title. I hadn’t read it, but I did not want to explain why Vincent’s sister was the one giving me erotic book recommendations.

“I saw it in a bookstore,” I lied. “It looked…interesting, so I shared it with Adil and Noah.”

“Don’t look at me,” Noah said when everyone swiveled to stare at him. “I was an unwilling recipient of the information.”

“You were in a bookstore? You mean, you can read?” Stevens, one of the other forwards, cracked.

I crumpled a napkin and tossed it at him. It hit him square in the face. “Bugger off, Stevens. You don’t even know how to do your own laundry.”

His face fell. “I told you it was the machine’s fault! That high-tech shit is bloody confusing.”

“Excuse me, but let’s get back to the topic at hand!” Adil raised his voice. “Anyway, as I was saying, I have a team bonding idea. We should create a Blackcastle book club where⁠—”

More jeers drowned out his voice.

“Where we read a different erotic book every month!” he shouted. “It’ll be fun!”

A book club? That was my idea! Granted, I’d been joking at the time, but still. Let it be known that I thought of it first.

However, the rest of the team was not onboard.

“Fun?”

“You have a strange idea of fun.”

“No bloody way!”

“You don’t have to join if you don’t want to,” Adil said with great dignity. “But it will be fun, and you’ll miss out on some great books. Now, who’s in?” He looked around.

Silence.

“Come on, guys,” he wheedled. “This is way more interesting than partying every weekend.”

“That’s because you don’t drink,” Stevens said.

“Exactly.” Adil’s smile wilted as the team remained silent. “Seriously? No one wants to join?”

Bloody hell. I was going to regret this later, but… “I’m in.”

I was the one who inadvertently got us into the mess. I might as well see it through.

His face brightened again, and he shot me a grateful look.

“Me too,” Vincent said, surprising the shit out of me. “I’m the captain. Team morale is part of my job.”

“Great!” Adil’s smile returned to full wattage. “I always knew you two had a good taste. Who else is interested?”

There was another beat of silence.

“I’ll observe.” Noah’s quiet rumble shocked me even more than Vincent’s participation. “But I’m not reading about dinosaur threesomes.”

“Fine.” Adil sounded delighted. “You can be our mascot and bring snacks.”

Noah’s scowl expressed how not delighted he was with the assignment. However, his participation, combined with my and Vincent’s approval, led the rest of the team to join in trickles and then a wave.

Soon, almost every person agreed to join the book club, though I could tell some didn’t think we were seriously going to read dino erotica every month.

We grabbed our drinks and crowded around various tables and booths. The atmosphere was the most relaxed I’d felt since I joined Blackcastle. Everyone was less on edge now that Vincent and I had called a truce, and our victory that afternoon added an extra lift to our spirits.

This was what I’d missed. I loved the sport, but I loved the camaraderie and brotherhood of being part of a team too.

It’s nice…until you fuck it up, a voice sang inside my head.

The revelation about my relationship with Scarlett was a guillotine waiting to fall. At this point, I was deep in denial and taking my interactions with Vincent day by day.

Who knows? Maybe we could keep our secret from him until Vincent and I were both retired and I invited him to our wedding. He couldn’t kill us at our own wedding, could he?

“You good?” Noah asked while half the team left to argue over what song to play next at the jukebox.

“Yeah.” I flashed a quick smile. “Just thinking about the Holchester match coming up.”

He didn’t look convinced.

The gruff goalie was the quietest, most subdued member of the team, but he was also the most observant. He had to be, considering he was raising an eleven-year-old on his own. That couldn’t be easy.

“I’m glad you and DuBois made up,” he said. “I guess Coach’s summer plan worked, even if you only had two weeks of training together.”

The beer turned sour at the back of my tongue.

“I guess so.” I avoided Noah’s eyes. “I was the one who messed up last season. I don’t want that to happen again.”

The jangle of bells above the door cut our conversation short, and a noticeable hush fell over the pub when several members of Holchester’s team walked in.

I stiffened, my fingers curling tight around my pint glass. Noah straightened as well while the other Blackcastle players glared at the newcomers like they were intruding on our turf—which, in my mind, they were.

The Angry Boar was open to the public, but London was our city (yes, I only moved here at the beginning of the year, but I already thought of it as home). Holchester was only here because they had a match against Arsenal earlier that day.

Tension brewed into a toxic storm. Even the other patrons were on high alert.

Mac and his triplet bouncers looked like they were ready to throw fists at the first sign of trouble, but that didn’t stop Bocci, Lyle, and the other Holchester players from approaching me.

“Look who it is.” Lyle’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Judas himself.”

Once, we’d been friends. I’d bailed him out of sticky situations, and he’d thrown a surprise birthday party for me at my favorite club in Holchester. It was wild to think that a standard team transfer could’ve ruined our relationship so thoroughly, but to him it wasn’t a standard transfer. I’d left mid-season to join their biggest rival without so much as a heads-up, and that was on me.

But it’d been almost a year, and I was tired of their taunts. They needed to get the bloody hell over it.

“I’m starting to think you fancy me, what with the special nickname and all,” I drawled without standing. They didn’t deserve that acknowledgment. “Did you seek me out at my favorite pub too? I’m flattered.”

His face reddened. “I don’t fancy traitors,” he snapped. “But it’s nice to see you getting so chummy with Blackcastle. You’ve truly turned, haven’t you?”

“They’re my team,” I snapped back, my pretense of fake congeniality gone. “And they’re not the ones who hung effigies of me in front of Holchester pubs.”

Non-sports fans would never understand it, but there was nothing like a Holchester football fan who felt like they’d been wronged.

“We can’t be held accountable for the public’s actions.” Bocci shrugged. “It’s not our fault they hate you so much.”

My jaw clenched. I should’ve been used to it, but after all this time, the sentiment still stung. I could try explaining it to people, but until they lived through it, no one quite understood what it was like to have a city that once adored you turn on you at the drop of a hat.

They felt betrayed by me, but I felt betrayed by them too. Their loyalty truly was transactional.

It made sense, but it hurt all the same.

“Get the fuck out of here.” Vincent came up behind Bocci, his face creased with a scowl. “You want to drink, drink, but leave my team the hell alone. Are you so petty you can’t get over a bloody transfer?”

“Oh, we don’t care about the transfer,” Bocci said. “It proved we didn’t need him because guess which one of our teams is the reigning league champion?” A nasty grin split his face. “Not yours.”

The tension thickened into a stifling weight.

Vincent’s face darkened, and even Noah let out a warning rumble beside me.

“Hold on to your glory while you can, because it won’t last long.” Vincent bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile. “I look forward to beating you at our next match.”

Bocci smirked. “You think you can beat us?”

“I don’t think. I know.” Vincent spat something in French.

Bocci was Italian, but whatever Vincent said was similar enough to his language that he understood it. He snarled out a response, but I stood and stepped in between them before Vincent did something stupid that would get us tossed out of the pub.

“Back off,” I warned. I itched to slam my fist into Bocci’s smug face, but I was trying real bloody hard to play by the rules this season. I wasn’t going to mess up my shot at a championship for anyone. “You know Mac’s rules.”

“How sweet. You’re defending your new best mate,” Lyle sneered. “Don’t come back to Holchester, Donovan. You’re not welcome. Even your own father doesn’t want you there anymore.”

My hands instinctively curled into fists. Anger chased after my strained calm and torched it into ashes.

I’d told Lyle about my relationship with my father when we were friends, and now he was using it to bait me?

Fuck. That.

“I can come back anytime I want, Artie,” I said, using his much-hated nickname. Arthur Lyle, or Artie for short. “Remember that wide-open shot you missed during our match against Chelsea? An amateur goalie could’ve knocked that ball right back at you. If I hadn’t covered your ass, we would’ve lost that match. Or how about the way you fumbled the first half of the season opener against Tottenham? There’s a reason you weren’t tapped to play for the national team, and you should be fucking glad I don’t want to go back to Holchester. If I did, you can kiss your playing time goodbye because guess what? You’re not. That. Bloody. Good.”

Lyle was good enough to play in the Premier League, but compared to other forwards at the same level, he was merely okay, and he knew it.

It was a sore subject for him, which explained why he reacted so quickly and thoughtlessly.

His face flushed scarlet, and he pushed me hard enough that I stumbled back into Vincent. “Fuck you, Donovan!”

A snarl ripped up my throat. I almost retaliated, but I held back when I saw the triplets bearing down on us.

Mac got to us before they did. “Out!” His grizzled beard trembled with outrage. “All of you!”

Shouts of protest erupted from both teams.

“C’mon, Mac!”

“They started it!”

“We didn’t touch them!”

“I don’t want to hear it!” he growled. “You know the rules. No fighting. I don’t care how rich or famous you are. You.” He pointed at Lyle. “Show your face in here again, and I’ll have the triplets knock your ass out the door. The rest of you, take it outside. I will not have you in here arguing and disturbing the rest of my customers. Argue with me, and I’ll ban you for life. Now get out!”

We snapped our mouths shut and skulked out the back exit since we didn’t want to attract attention from the hordes of tourists streaming past the front entrance.

One of the triplets slammed the door in our faces, leaving us in an alleyway next to the dumpster.

“Nice bloody job,” Bocci spat. “You got us kicked out before we even got a drink.”

“How is this our fault?” Adil’s normally good-natured face flashed with anger. “You were the ones who instigated things first!”

Fresh arguments exploded between the two sides again.

Meanwhile, I focused on Bocci and Lyle, who led the Holchester hate campaign against me.

“You can argue all you want now, but we’ll see who the real winner is during our match,” I said. “Reigning champions doesn’t mean you’ll stay champions.”

“Yeah?” Bocci’s dark eyes gleamed with malice. “How about we put some money on it? A race after our match. You and me. We won’t be bound by rules like we are on the pitch, and the winner of the match gets a five-second head start.”

The others’ arguments petered out.

Meanwhile, the wind died, throwing the alley into eerie silence. Summer heat and the suffocating reek of rubbish crawled into my lungs.

A race. I hadn’t raced since I beat Clive over the summer.

Bocci and I used to compete for fun when I lived in Holchester, but that was then. This was now.

Any competition we had going forward, whether it was on the pitch or in the streets, wouldn’t be for fun. We would go for the jugular.

“Why so quiet, Donovan?” Bocci taunted. “I thought you loved racing. Too scared you’ll lose to take me up on the offer?”

Adrenaline pounded in my ears. I wanted to wipe the smug smirk off his face as much as I wanted to win the league, but I’d promised Scarlett I was done.

I won’t race anymore. I promise.

My teammates’ curious stares drilled into my cheek. I hadn’t told them I’d retired from street racing, so I didn’t blame them for being confused.

“Look at him,” Lyle said. “He is scared. He’ll lose the match, and he’ll lose the race. There’s no shame admitting it, Donovan. You gotta know when to call it quits.”

The other Holchester players snickered.

Pride reared its ugly head, demanding action. A punch, a kick, an accepted challenge that’d shut them up and leave them eating dust in two weeks.

I wanted to feel the vibrations of the car and hear the triumphant roar of the engine as I sped past the finish line first.

Only the memory of Scarlett’s tears stopped me.

I can’t wake up every day wondering if that’s the day your luck runs out, and I’ll get a call saying you’re gone. I can’t lose you.

I swallowed the ball of rage in my throat.

My pride wasn’t worth breaking my promise to her.

“I’m not going to jeopardize my career to satisfy your insecurities,” I said coldly. “We don’t need a race to determine who’s better. We’ll find out on the pitch soon.” My smile could’ve frozen lava. “And Bocci? You’ve won one race against me ever, and that was because I let you win. I felt bad for you. That won’t happen again. So I wouldn’t be so quick to challenge others in something you’re clearly not adept at.”

I left him sputtering in the alley with the rest of the Holchester team.

My teammates followed me, their voices overlapping as they consoled me and talked amongst themselves.

Despite leaving with the last word, my heart continued to race from the confrontation. Blood roared in my ears as I tried to push the image of Bocci’s gloating smirk out of my head.

I did the right thing by not rising to his bait.

Now, I just had to make bloody sure I beat him in two weeks’ time.