Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (11 page)

Chapter
Nine

The Girl
from
[who drove to]
the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Kate

It’s not the easiest
thing in the world to admit, but my parents were right about one thing:
something has been changing in me.

When I’m at work, I don’t
just quietly make my way from one place to another, dropping what I’m doing
whenever someone wants me to do them a favor anymore. I’m still a little ways
from full-on assertive, but it feels good to feel confident about myself for
once.

Over the last few days, I
haven’t seen too much of Eli. Every chance I get, I’ve been heading out to
Ghost Town to practice taking corners.

There’s a rattling sound
that’s developed since I went over the curb the last time, and I’m pretty sure
my power steering is starting to go. Good thing I have a mechanic for a
boyfriend.

I’ll give him a call in a
little while, but for now, I’ve got an hour before I have to get to work.

If anyone saw me out
here, I doubt they’d take me seriously. After all, I am a twenty-year-old candy
striper racing around a deserted part of town in a completely unmodified
economy car at nine o’clock in the morning.

I really couldn’t care
less.

There’s freedom in this.
It’s not a chaotic freedom, though. It’s incredibly structured. There is chaos
there, but with the right approach, it can be more or less negated.

I’m still in town at the
moment, so for now, I keep my speed within the limit. I’m the most courteous
driver on the road, and that just makes what’s coming that much sweeter.

When I finally reach the
edge of town, I keep my speed conservative until the car behind me turns off
and, before they’ve completed the turn, I’m passing fifty on the
thirty-mile-per-hour street.

A few seconds later, I’m
pushing seventy-five, Ghost Town growing ever larger as I’m driving. By the
time I get to Ghost Town proper, I’m keeping steady at ninety.

I’m just beginning to
ease off the throttle when an unexpected sound jolts me out of my senses.

It’s a siren.

“Oh no,” I mutter,
looking in the rearview mirror at the police cruiser directly behind me. “Oh
no, oh no,” I repeat. I got so caught up in the thrill, I forgot to watch for
cops.

There’s an instant there
where I’m looking down at my speedometer and then looking over what I can see
of Ghost Town. In that moment, I’m even checking for gaps in the fences for me
to get through.

I’m already doing ninety.
How long is he going to keep up with me after I start ducking in and out of
warehouses and parking lots?

That instant passes in,
well, an instant, though and I press down on the brake pedal, easing the car
all the way from ninety to zero. I put the car in park.

I’m expecting the usual
slow walk up, but as soon as the officer’s car is stopped behind me, he’s out
with his gun drawn, using his car door as a shield, shouting, “Turn the car off
and toss your keys out the window! Do it now!”

Oh my God.

“Do it now!” he shouts
again.

I roll down the window
and then turn the car off, throwing the keys out the window as instructed, just
hoping the officer behind me has decent self-control.

“Put your hands out the
window where I can see them!” the officer shouts. “Do not move!”

I put my hands out the
window, wondering if I should be opening the door and getting on my knees or
something, but the officer makes no further demands as he slowly walks along
the side of my car to just behind my door.

His gun is still on me.

I’m not generally the
type to cry in front of police, not that I would have had much opportunity to,
but looking into that black circle I can’t control it.

“What the hell do you
think you’re doing going ninety down my streets?” the officer asks.

“I’m not armed,” I tell
him. “I’m cooperating. Could you please lower the gun?”

The officer begins to
shake his head, but I see his eyes drop down to look at my hands. They’re
trembling. Tears are still streaming down my cheeks, no matter how hard I try
to stop them.

Stoicism isn’t an option.

“Keep your hands exactly
where they are,” he says. “I’m going to open this door and you’re going to get
out of the car slowly.”

“What about my seatbelt?”
I ask. It sounds like a stupid question, but there’s that gun. I do not want a
misunderstanding right now.

He sighs. “Slowly, with
one hand, unbuckle your seatbelt. Just remember, it’s going to take me a lot
less time to squeeze this trigger than it would take you to try to draw on me.”

“I’m unarmed,” I tell him
again. “I’m reaching over to undo my seatbelt.”

Very slowly, keeping my
hand in the officer’s line of sight as much as possible, I reach over and press
the button unlatching the seatbelt. I slowly return my hand to join the other.

“Keep your hands where
they are,” he says.

I do.

He opens the door, and I
stay as still as possible until he instructs me to step out of the car, “Nice
and slow.”

With my hands still up I
climb out of the car. As soon as both my feet are on the ground, the officer
has me turned around and pressed up against the side of my car.

“Do you have anything in
your pockets or on your person that I should know about? Weapons, drugs,
needles, anything that could potentially be a threat?”

“No,” I answer, trying to
breathe evenly. It’s barely a relief when the officer returns his gun to his
holster.

He’s patting me down,
telling me, “Spread your legs a little farther. Hands stretched out to the
side.”

I follow every
instruction as he finishes frisking me. That’s something I was hoping wouldn’t
ever be crossed off of my bucket list.

“Arms down, but keep them
where I can see them.” He grabs my shoulder and spins me back around to face
him.

I’m still shaking,
glancing back and forth between his gun and his eyes.

“What are you doing out
here doing fifty-five over the limit? And don’t tell me you just lost track of
your speed,” he demands.

I’m really trying to
answer, but I’m shaken up to the point I can’t think straight. By the time I
think I’ve got some sort of answer, it evaporates again.

The officer’s look
softens. “Do you know why we have speed limits?”

“To lower the odds of
people getting hurt,” I tell him.

He nods. “That’s right,”
he says. “So how is it you know that and you just decided to ignore it?”

“I was out here alone,” I
tell him, “or at least, I thought I was alone out here. I’m not saying I should
have done it, but I wasn’t trying to put anyone in any kind of risk.”

The officer crosses his
arms. “You were putting yourself at risk,” he says. “Why would you come out
here? Were you specifically coming here to race over my streets or what?”

With the gun back in his
holster, I’m a bit more comfortable, but not much.

“I just-” I stammer.

He sighs. “It’s all
right,” he says. “Take your time.”

I take a breath. “I guess
I just wanted to know what it felt like to be free,” I tell him. I’m laying it
on thick, but I really don’t want to go to jail and I’m pretty sure milking my
initial reaction is the only way that’s ever going to happen.

The officer winces a
little at my words, but he commands for me to, “Turn around.”

I do.

“Put your hands behind
your back,” he says.

I’m being arrested. I am actually
being arrested.

He slips the cuffs on me
tight enough I’m asking him if my hands are blue before I turn back around
again.

“They’re not that tight,”
he says without checking. With that, he leads me back to his car, opens his
back seat and tells me, “Watch your head,” as he puts me in the backseat of his
squad car and closes the door.

He doesn’t get right in
the driver’s seat, though. He goes back out into the street and collects my car
keys before coming back to his car.

He gets in the front and
we take off, leaving my car unlocked in the middle of Ghost Town. I just hope
none of Eli’s racing friends are into stealing cars.

My tears have dried, and
I’m looking out my window, my forehead pressed against the glass.

I’m actually going to
jail.

“What made you think that
cruising around at almost three times the posted limit is the only way you can
feel free?”

Suddenly the excuse seems
just silly.

“I don’t know,” I tell
him.

“What you were doing was
extremely dangerous,” the officer says. “I know it can be a rush going faster
than you’re supposed to, but if you’d have seen the things I’ve seen during my
career, you wouldn’t be quite so eager to put your foot down.”

“Yeah,” I answer blankly,
still looking out the window.

“I know you don’t want to
be lectured, but you could have killed yourself out there,” he says. “If you’d
gotten into a crash, even a non-lethal one, and I hadn’t been around to pick
you up, who knows how long you would have been there waiting to be rescued.”

“I know,” I tell him.

It’s more an intellectual
thing than it is anything I’m particularly tempted to act on, but I’ve seen
what can happen to people who get in car crashes, too. I know they don’t all
come out of it as well as Mick.

I know a lot of people
don’t come out of it at all.

Isn’t that kind of the
point of the whole thing, though? If there’s no risk, where’s the rush? Where’s
the reward?

“I don’t want to see you
get hurt,” he says.

“I know,” I tell him.

He looks in his rearview
mirror and adjusts it so I can see his eyes in the glass. He says, “So what are
you doing?”

“Sir,” I tell him, “I
honestly don’t have a good answer for you. I know what I did was stupid and
reckless, and I know it was against the law.”

“So,” he repeats, “what
are you doing?” He adds, “I take it you knew all this
before
I pulled you over and you still did it, anyway.”

Frankly, I’m already
starting to get a little sick of talking about it. I know the officer is only
doing his job. If anything, he’s going a bit out of his way to show concern.

Still, though, I’m
handcuffed in the back of his car and he’s taking me to jail. There’s not much
he could say that hasn’t already gone through my head.

“Are you from here in
town?” he asks.

“Yep,” I answer blankly.

“Cheer up,” he says. “You
made a mistake, now you’ve got to take responsibility for that mistake. Once
that’s over and done with, you’re free to make the changes you need to make to
ensure you don’t end up where you are right now again.” He waits a moment, I
can only assume to confirm I’ve had time to process what he’s telling me. “This
isn’t something that’ll ruin your life unless you go right back out there and
let it,” he says.

We finally pull up to the
jail and the officer pulls into a long garage.

He stops the car and gets
out, opening my door and saying, “Watch your head on the way out.”

I keep my head down and
he helps me out of the backseat. There’s no reason not to cooperate.

“We’re going to get you
processed in and then maybe you can take a look at bail,” the officer says.
“You know, see if you can get out of here today. You’ll still have to show up
for court and it’s probably going to cost a pretty penny, but this doesn’t have
to be the last thing you do today.”

He’s being really nice. I
recognize that. The fact of the matter is, though, that I work a job that
doesn’t pay me. What money I do have is handed down by the parents as
allowance, and I doubt my bail is going to be that low.

The officer takes me into
the back of the jail, and everything—floors, walls, ceiling, seating—is
concrete and metal.

We reach a long,
rectangular island with a counter along the edges and multiple officers
stationed at it, looking through computers and processing people in and out of
the jail.

The officer leaves me
there, but he unlocks and removes the handcuffs before he goes.

I’m rubbing my wrists as
another officer calls me over, saying, “Name?”

We go through all of my
personal information, right down to political and sexual preferences—though my
personal favorite is when they ask me if I have to register any part of my body
as a deadly weapon. I really, really don’t, but it’s a great question anyway.

While I’m waiting on a
slab of metal bolted into a slab of concrete, I try to think how I’m going to
get out of this without Mom or Dad ever finding out. I have a feeling I wouldn’t
have a car very much longer, and that’s a bit of a problem for me.