The Thing About My Rival (The Boston Commoners #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

HUGO

There’s no stench in the world like that of a bunch of sweaty jockstraps, and that’s exactly what this locker room smells like. It also smells like Loserville.

“Well, your first season in Major League Soccer wasn’t exactly a, erm, roaring success,” Miller, one of the four new owners of the Boston Commoners tells the team.

The players shift uncomfortably on their benches, looking as dejected as a bunch of kids who’ve been told they’re not getting their allowance this week, and stare back at me, Miller, and his three co-owners.

“And we all watched the rocky start to this season.” Miller needs to work on his pep talks. “But we’ve been delighted to see things pick up with some wins and draws these last couple months, which is why we were delighted to have the chance to buy the club.” He nods toward the other owners.

“We appreciate that it’s hard for any team to make the jump to playing with the big boys after decades in a lower league,” Miller goes on. “But it’s time to get you fully on track to the glory we all want. And to that end, we’ve brought with us this great man, the crème de la crème of English soccer, who’s going to turn things around completely.” He gestures toward me with a confident smile.

The players shuffle their feet, glancing at each other as if they’ve heard it all before.

“And we get that it must feel disruptive for the club to change hands three-quarters of the way through the season,” he tells them. “And for a group of new owners to swoop in and show up with a new head coach with just two months to the playoffs. But please know we all want the same thing you guys want. To win.”

He pauses, as if expecting some sign of winning spirit from the squad.

Nothing.

“Anyway,” Miller continues, “I’m going to hand you over to your new leader, who I’m certain needs no introduction. But I’m going to give him one anyway.”

The billionaire property developer known as the Boston Condo King pulls a piece of paper from his inside pocket. “Hugo Powers was spotted as a schoolboy by Manchester United and went on to be the highest scoring midfielder in their history. At seventeen years and sixty-three days old, he became the youngest player ever selected for the England team. He played in three World Cups?—”

“It would have been four”—I can’t stop myself from chipping in—“if it hadn’t been for that Achilles issue right before Russia.” At least I woke up some of the players, who’re now actually looking at us.

“Yeah, that was bad luck,” Miller says, then returns to his notes. “And he famously set up the goal that took England through to the World Cup quarterfinals just two years ago.”

Two of the players give that list of my entire life’s achievements a half-hearted clap.

“Basically, the sport is all this man has ever known.” Miller is off-script now. “He lives it, breathes it. This is Mr. Soccer. Or maybe we should start saying ‘football’ now that we have an Englishman in charge.”

Ramon, one of the few players here with actual promise, scratches the back of his head and mutters something to the guy next to him, who snickers.

I recognize Ramon from God knows how many appalling match videos I’ve forced myself to watch in the extremely brief three weeks since the Fab Four—the name the sports press has given the new owners—started talking to me about this job.

Miller goes on. “If it hadn’t been for a fateful knee injury just over a year ago, I’m sure Hugo would still be setting the turf alight across the world, even at the ripe old age of thirty-four. But the pitch’s loss is our gain. So, gentlemen, please give a big Boston Commoners welcome to Coach Powers.”

Miller says it as if he’s introducing Beyoncé at Madison Square Garden, but the response he gets couldn’t even be described as tepid. Even with all of them clapping, they’re making no more noise than when just two of them did.

Okay, you bunch of lazy wankers, here we go.

I rub my hands together.

I need to gee these fuckers up, resuscitate them from their scoring coma, light a fire in their bellies, and get them ready to win some shit during the remainder of this season. Not just for their sake, but for mine too .

“Thank you, Miller, for your kind words. And for giving me this amazing opportunity.” It’s actually the only opportunity anyone’s offered me, but we don’t need to discuss that.

“Thanks to all the members of the new ownership consortium, I mean.” I nod toward Miller and the other three men who make up this bizarre combo of people. There’s Hollywood heartthrob Chase Cooper, billionaire investorLeo Johanssen from the Lions’ Lair TV show, and Prince Oliver.

Yup, an actual fucking British royal.

I met him a couple years ago when he brought a sick kid from a charity he works for to one of my matches. After the game I got the team to quickly sign a ball and the royal security guards let me give it to the boy. Prince Oliver sent me a note a couple days later saying the little lad was still talking about it. So that was nice.

Anyway, I bet these four guys never thought they’d see themselves standing together in the shabby, stinky locker room of last season’s losingest team in the league.

To be fair, neither did I.

But here we all are.

Them, because they love football—which I will never call soccer—and have enough money to buy a team just for funsies. And me, because I can’t sit around on my arse feeling sorry for myself any longer.

No amount of going to the gym on my own makes up for not training every day with a team. And Miller is right—the game is all I’ve ever known. I can’t exist without it. In fact, there were a few months last year where I’m not sure I actually did exist. So here I am. They might be a crap team, but they’re a team. And the only one that will have me .

“I couldn’t be more excited to be here,” I tell them.

“Yeah, you turned down Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, and Argentina to coach us, right?” Ramon nudges the guy next to him and a titter runs around the room.

Fuck these guys. I’ve had to take shit like that from the British press ever since the knee injury that benched me for life, and I’m not taking it from this pile of losers.

“Sure. Yeah. You can all have a laugh at my expense. Go on.” I rest my hands on my hips and look around the room. Every man not staring at the floor gets a hard glare right in the eyeballs for a second before I move on to the next.

“Please, be my guest.” I gesture for them to take the floor. “Let’s get all the wisecracks about drinking, partying, shagging, and punching reporters out of the way now.” I beckon them to bring it on. “Let’s purge it from your systems. I’ll wait.”

I fold my arms and stare at them as the room falls completely silent.

The four owners shuffle a little, Prince Oliver letting out an awkward cough. I don’t know why he’s so uncomfortable—he should be used to being part of a dysfunctional family.

Ramon mutters something in the general direction of his big toe.

I think I made out what he said. But the whole room needs to hear it.

“What was that?” I ask.

I’d had no intention of setting off on a confrontational footing, but if they think they can yank my dick because I’ve spent more than a decade on the front pages of the tabloids for things other than football, they’ve got another thing coming. I might have had to suck up that treatment from the media, but I do not have to accept it in what is now my locker room.

“Ramon?” His surprised face jerks up to look at me. “Yeah, I know your name. You’re quite the talent. That pass in the first game of last season to Bakari…” I jerk my thumb to another player, who now looks equally stunned I know his name. “It was fucking beautiful. And your goal last month against Toronto? Beckham would have been proud of that.”

Ramon sits a little taller. No faces are staring at the floor anymore.

“Now tell everyone what you just said.”

“Sorry, Coach,” he mumbles, barely moving his lips.

“And once more for the room.”

“Sorry, Coach,” he says louder.

“Thank you. Now if you’ve all got that bullshit out of your systems, perhaps we can get on with things. Because you need to start winning. And, like it or not, I’m your only hope.”

And they’re mine.

Yes, they need me. But I might need them more.

Ramon was right, though. Despite all my years at the very top of the game, not a single European or South American club would touch me for a coaching role. Too much of a liability, they all said. The press claimed I’d either yelled at or pissed off in some other way anyone who might have taken me on now my playing days are over. Either that or I’d shagged their daughter. And they probably weren’t far wrong.

Also, punching that reporter at the press conference where we announced my career-ending injury didn’t do me any favors. In my defense, he did follow me off the stage and shove his mic in my face while shouting questions about my private life rather than my knee. Also in my defense, he was an arsehole who’d been asking me the same fuckwit questions for years.

I glance at the Fab Four. They couldn’t be more different characters. Miller in his sharp suit and tie; Chase Cooper in a sparkling white polo shirt and dark jeans; Leo Johanssen, entrepreneur extraordinaire, sporting a gray T-shirt and black leather jacket that’s completely unnecessary in Boston’s late August heat; and Prince Oliver, wearing a hoodie and artfully ripped, faded jeans.

Oliver and I had a brief chat before this locker room gathering. He said his nephew still keeps the football I gave him in pride of place on a stand in his room. And we bonded over the fact he’s pretty much the only person to get a harder time from the British press than me. So hopefully that bodes well.

These four men have taken a big chance giving me this job. Sure, The Boston Commoners don’t have much to lose—last season was their first in the big league and they didn’t win a game—so frankly, I can’t exactly make things worse.

And maybe they only bought the team for fun, like a billionaire’s version of foosball. But I know they’re all passionate fans of the game. And one thing I’ve learned about rich people since becoming one of them is that winning means more than money.

If all I cared about was the cash, I’d spend the rest of my life sitting on my arse, drinking beer and watching TV. Thanks to being hooked up with financial advisers way wiser than me right at the start of my career, I don’t need to work another day for the rest of my life.

But I do need to win. There’s no bigger high in life. So I’m here for that. And also because I want my reputation back.

No one thought I’d ever get a coaching job. But here I am.

No one thinks I can drag this trash can team to the top of the league. So let’s show them.

When I die, I don’t want the headline to be “Hugo Powers, known more for his off-the-pitch antics than his football, died today in a pool of his own beer vomit surrounded by half-naked women and food delivery boxes.”

I want it to be “World Cup champion coach, Hugo Powers, respected for his supreme talent on the pitch and inspirational leadership off it, dropped dead while screaming ‘fucking brilliant’ just as his team scored a winning goal.”

If I’m going to turn things around so people talk about my skill rather than who I last slept with, the first step on the very bottom of that tall ladder is to whip this team into shape.

“You can think whatever you like about me,” I tell them. “But you know what I am?”

A guy in the corner mutters something, but a teammate scowls at him and shakes his head. Maybe I’m already starting to get through.

“I’m a fucking winner, that’s what I am. And I’m going to train the unholy shit out of you all until I turn you into winners too.”

A few more faces are looking at me now and all of the Fab Four are smiling. Well, only half of Leo’s mouth is smiling, but that’s like two smiles from anyone else.

“Do you want to win more games in what’s left of this season than you did in the rest of it and make the playoffs?” The prospect of that is a bit far-fetched, but it is mathematically possible. I’ve run the statistics every which way so many times I had a nightmare about a giant number three chasing me down a dark alley where two, four and zero were waiting to beat the crap out of me.

There are nods and a couple of mumbled yeses.

“I said, do you want to make the playoffs?”

A few more of them join in with the yeses.

“You can definitely do better than that. One more try. Do you want to make the fucking playoff?—”

“Hi, guys.” A woman with a blond ponytail tied high on her head, wearing a sky-blue Commoners T-shirt and orange track pants with three white stripes down the side of each perfectly shaped leg, bursts into the room.

She drops a kit bag inside the door and heads straight for the Fab Four, leaving a hint of a lemony-orangey aroma as she passes.

Nice arse.

“I was looking for you in the office upstairs, but everyone said you were down here. You must be Miller,” she says. He shakes her offered hand despite the look on his face that says he has no clue who she is.

“And Chase.” She makes her way along the line. “Nice to meet you, Leo.” They all politely shake, looking at each other like everyone else must know what’s going on.

She holds out her hand to Prince Oliver, then stops. “Oh. Er. Sorry. I haven’t been briefed on protocol. Not sure if I should curtsy or something.”

“Fuck no,” the prince says. “Just shake my hand and call me Oliver.”

“Great.” She offers him her hand. “Thanks, Oliver.”

Something about her is familiar, but I can’t quite place it .

She turns to face the team.“I’m Drew Wilcox,” she tells them. “Your new head coach.”

What?

My head snaps to the owners, who all take a step forward at the same time, with varying degrees of what-the-fuck?-ness on their faces.

Miller is the first to open his mouth.

But before any words can emerge from it, this Wilcox chick swings around and points an accusing finger at me. “And my first question is—what the hell is Hugo Powers doing here?”