Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (2 page)

I furrow my brow. Is he
trying to hit on me?

“I work here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I
mean, what do you do here?”

“I’m a…” I start, but
cannot for the life of me remember my actual job title. My shoulders drop and
with a long rush of air, I say, “candy striper.”

“Sounds fantastic,” he
says, more interested in the doctor heading toward Mick’s room with a syringe
already prepared, needle uncovered. A few seconds later, a security guard
bursts through the ER doors and it doesn’t take him any time to find where the
problem is.

It’s looking like the
diversion is about over with, right until the doctor approaches Mick, syringe
in hand. If I had a video camera and a month off to review the tape, I still
wouldn’t know how Mick manages to not only prevent the doctor from sticking
him, but actually causes the doctor to accidentally stab himself with the
needle.

The doctor drops to the
floor, and I’m not sure I should be laughing right now, but I am. To ease my
conscience, I lean over the counter of the nurse’s station, grab the phone and
page more security to the ER.

“Aw,” Eli complains, “it
was just starting to get fun.”

“His name’s Mick, right?”
I ask.

“Yeah.”

I know I’m risking
catching a flailing arm to the face, but I leave my spot and approach the
bedlam.

“Mick?” I ask. “Mick, I’m
going to need you to listen to me.”

He hasn’t stopped trying
to get the doctors away from him—even though they’ve elected to give him some
space—but at least he’s looking at me now.

“Mick, I know you’re
scared,” I tell him. “I know you don’t like hospitals, but we’re here to help
you, okay? You were in a major car
crash,
and we need to make sure there’s not internal bleeding.”

Mick stops flailing. His
face goes white.

I’ve got him.

“That’s better,” I tell
him. “Now, the doctors are going to have a look at you, and I want you to
cooperate.”

“They’re trying to kill
me!” he screeches dramatically and starts fighting again as the doctors take a
step toward the stretcher.

“Mick, I’m worried that
if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to go septic,” I tell him.
“Not only is that potentially
lethal, but it’s
also one of the more painful conditions-”

“Just give me the shot!”
he yells.

I look at Dr.
Eisley as the doctors and nurses lift him
onto
his
very own
stretcher, the needle still
sticking out of his hand.

“It’s going to take a
second to get another one ready,” I tell him. “Just stay still and this will
all go a lot smoother.”

He relaxes a little, but
still jerks away every time a doctor tries to get a closer look at him.

Having seen Mick’s
Achilles’ heel, I don’t bother with
an extended
plea. I
just
say the words, “Massive
blood loss,” and he goes from pale to passed-out on the stretcher.

I take a look at his
SATs. He’s
okay
.

Mick does look pretty
beat up, but from what I can tell, most of the wounds are superficial. I am
relatively
sure
, though, that if he’d
kept up what he was doing, he
actually
would have ended up doing something worse than giving Dr. Eisley an unscheduled
nap.

I go back to where I was
standing and lean back against the counter.

“As much fun as it was
seeing the guy try to take on half a dozen healthcare workers—and it really,
really was—I’ve gotta say, that whole thing you did there making him pass out
by scaring him was kinda hot,” Eli says.

“You’re a bit of a
strange person, aren’t you?” I ask.

“You never told me your
name.”

“Oh you don’t want my
name. I’m just a candy striper. I’m not really involved in the medical stuff.”

He shakes his head, one
corner of his lips pulling up into a half-smile. “I’m not asking because I want
to tell you that he’s allergic to penicillin or anything. I’m asking because I
want to know.”

For a minute there,
caught up in the moment, I forgot how shy I am. It’s silly, but now that the
attention is on me, I clam.

“You’re not going to tell
me your name, are you?” he asks.

I’m blushing; I know it.
My face feels hot and that little voice in the back of my head is telling me to
get the hell out of here.

“Well, Kate,” he says,
“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“What?” I ask.

He pats the left side of
his chest with his open hand. At first, I think it’s some sort of weird mating
thing I never learned, but then it occurs to me.

“Right,” I say, “the name
tag.”

“Yeah, it’s a little
harder to be coy about your name when you’ve got it pinned on your shirt,” he
says. “So, how long is he going to be out?”

“Not too long. He’ll be
groggy for a little while after he wakes up, but hopefully the doctors have had
a chance to at least see what’s going on before then.”

“It’s probably going to
be a while, though, before he’ll be up for talking again?” Eli asks.

What he’s saying almost
sounds like real concern. That’s why I don’t trust it.

“Why?” I ask.

“I was just wondering if
the hospital had a decent cafeteria,” he says.

I chortle and answer,
“Yeah, it’s pretty decent as long as you stay away from the food.”

“Sounds about right. You
hungry?”

All right, I may be
terrible at picking up on signals, but that sounds like he’s asking me out to
dinner. Granted, it’d be dinner in the building where I’m currently working and
it’s hardly a romantic setting, but still.

“I don’t think that’d be
very appropriate,” I tell him.

He lifts an eyebrow.
“Being hungry?”

“No,” I tell him,
“getting something to eat with you.”

“Ah,” Eli says. “That’s
fine then.”

I glance down along the
nurse’s station, my eyes settling on one of the many clocks in the room.

“It was nice to meet
you,” I tell Eli, and before he has a chance to respond, I walk away. My
shift’s over, but even if it wasn’t, I’d probably have found some other excuse.

I’m not the kind of woman
people like Eli want. I’m far too quiet, much too reserved.

Guys like him, they go
for the more gregarious type, the ones who wear the low-cut tops and have
tattoos of butterflies eating mountain lions. He’d just think I was boring.
Guys like him, the best I could hope to get out of it would be a one-night
stand without a chance of seeing him after it.

That’s not really my idea
of a good time.

Still, as I’m clocking
out, I feel pretty good about myself. I know the whole thing’s just a ploy to
get in my pants, but Eli
is
a very
attractive man. The thought of being wrapped in those strong arms is difficult
to put out of my mind.

“Hey, Chavez, before you
clock out, I’m going to need you to do a bit of tidying up in room 217,” Dr.
Chavez’s voice comes from behind me.

Yeah, that’s not a
coincidence. She’s my mom.

“I’m already clocked
out,” I tell her. “If you want, I can-”

“That’d be great,” mom,
Dr. Chavez, says, and walks away without another word.

I guess my night’s not
quite over yet.

Chapter
Two

Shopping Around

Eli

Mick’s been in the
hospital for about a week now. It’s not that he’s really that messed up, it’s
just that he’s not capable of cooperating with anyone in a hospital.

They’ll kick him out
eventually, but not until the threat of being sued is overshadowed by having to
deal with him. I give it another day, two at the most.

Right now, I’m finishing
up with a brake replacement. After I get these lug nuts on, I’m out of here for
the night and then it’s a quick trip to the hospital to visit my idiot friend
before I can go enjoy my evening.

I’m getting the last
wheel in place when my boss Maye comes over, asking if I’m about done.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “This
is the last bit and then I’m outta here. Need anything else before I go?”

“Nah,” Maye says. “How’s
he doing?”

“I’m going to visit him
after I’m off,” I answer. “You don’t want to come see the dirt bag, do you?”

“Visit him in a
hospital?” she asks with a titter. “Are you out of your mind?”

This isn’t the first time
Mick’s gone off the road.

I kind of feel
responsible. After all, I was the one that told him he could take that Monte
Carlo. I never expected the guy to hit his nitrous about a hundred feet into
the drag, though, and on a residential street...

The boy’s got some
learning to do.

“Hey, did that carburetor
ever come in for the Galaxie?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I
don’t know why you don’t just leave that thing on the side of the road
someplace, maybe along the side of a cliff. It has to be the most unreliable
car I’ve ever come across, and you know that’s saying something.”

“It’s a sentimental
thing.”

She’s nodding, but not
doing a very good job of hiding her amusement. “Sentimentality, huh?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I
get really sentimental about all the money I’ve dumped into it, and I’ll be
damned if that doesn’t make me want to drop a little more.”

She laughs, and I quickly
get the last tire on the last car of the day; I am finally done.

“Hey,” Maye calls after
I’ve clocked out and I’m heading out the door. “Tell your friend that if he’s
not back here by tomorrow, I’m going to ship his job to Freedonia.”

“Freedonia?” I ask. “That
doesn’t sound like a real thing.”

“Doesn’t need to be,” she
says and smiles. “You know he’ll believe any old thing you tell him when he’s
around doctors.”

“I’ll make sure to tell
him,” I answer and make my way to the bus stop.

Maye wasn’t wrong about
the Galaxie. It’s not my only car, but let’s just say it’s the only one I can
drive around at the moment.

I give Mick a lot of
crap, but he’s the one that got me into all this: the cars, the shop, the
racing…especially the racing.

Maye lets me store my
bread and butter at the shop—a ’70 Chevelle SS 454 with more money under the
hood than my parents paid for their last house. In return, I work at the shop
free of charge.

The creative accounting
was what you might call a promotion. A guy like me, with the kind of money I
have at any given moment, is what you might call a red flag.

In exchange for this
“promotion,” Maye always has me cut her in when I’m racing. The cut’s a little
steep at fifty-fifty, but I’d rather lose half my money now than lose it all
later. Still, it’s good to be discreet when possible and the Chevelle is
definitely not that.

The bus comes and I get
to the hospital just before visiting hours are finished. Inside the room, I’ll
probably act like I hadn’t planned it that way.

I love Mick like a
brother, I really do, but the guy’s insane fear of doctors and hospitals can
get to be a little much after a while.

When I walk into the
room, though, Mick is all smiles.

“What’s up, Eli?” he
asks.

“Hey, we’re back to a
first name basis,” I say. “The drugs they’re giving you must be primo.”

“I think I’m actually
starting to like hospitals, you know?”

I shake my head. “Did you
sneak something in on top of it?”

“No, man,” he says. “It’s
this hospital chick. I never got the sexy nurse thing, but this volunteer,
she’s been checking me out.”

It’s endearing, but I
still laugh.

“Yeah, I can tell by
looking at you all the women in the building must be lining up,” I tell him.

“No, I’m serious. I’ll
just be sitting here, trying to think of a way to access a map of the hospital
so I can get the hell out of here without being caught, you know, and this
chick just opens the door to my room, looks in at me, smiles, says hello, and
then turns and walks back out the door. It’s happened eight times since I’ve
been here.”

“Hey, if it’s helping you
get through all this without knocking out another doctor-” I start.

“I didn’t knock the guy
out,” he interrupts. “He knocked himself out with that vial of death he was
trying to pump into me.”

“So,” I sneer, “tell me
about your hospital chick.”

“You remember that one,
the candy striper whatever that told me all that crap and made me pass out?”

“Yeah?” I laugh.

I think I see what’s
going on here.

“It’s her, man,” he says.
“She’s way into me—I think she felt sorry for what she did, making me pass out
and all, and then it was like a Florida Nightingale thing.”

“Mick, could you do me a
favor?”

He turns his head a
little. “What?”

“Could you remind me why
we’re friends?”

“What are you talking
about?” he asks. “I’m delightful.”

“Florida is a state,” I
tell him. “
Florence
Nightingale was a
nurse.
You
are a moron.”

He shrugs as much as a
man in full body restraints can shrug.

“So when are they letting
you out of here?”

“I don’t know, man,” he
says. “They say I keep ‘reinjuring’ myself when they go to check on the leg, so
they’re going to have to keep it immobile or whatever for a while.”

“You do realize they
probably would have let you out of here like an hour after I brought you in if
you hadn’t freaked out like you always do, right?” I ask.

He shakes his head.
“Dude, could you stop asking me that question? You’ve asked me that every time
I’ve talked to you and you never seem to have anywhere else to go, so that’s a
lot.”

“You’re here
because
you don’t want to be here,” I
prod. “I’m sorry, that’s funny to me.”

He scowls at me. “You
weren’t helping,” he says. “Anyway, aren’t people supposed to be nicer to you
when you’re in the hospital?”

“I’m just planting
seeds,” I tell him.

“Carlos was here a little
while ago,” Mick says, changing the subject.

“He lose another old
Bentley?”

Mick shakes his head.
“No, man. Well, yeah, he lost the Bentley, but apparently that guy Jax is
putting together a tournament.”

I’m already shaking my
head. “The guy’s a psychopath,” I tell Mick.

“People always say that,
but how many people do you think are really psychopaths?”

As much as I want to hear
more about the “tournament” some overblown underground kingpin probably isn’t
putting together, Mick has left me with an opportunity.

“I bet
they’d
know,” I tell him.

I know that it’s mean,
but I get up from my chair, walk over to the bed, and press the nurse’s call
button.

A very weary voice
answers, “Yes?”

“Excuse me, I was
wondering” I start.

“Dude,” Mick says, “don’t
call them in here. I don’t want them in here.”

“Yes?” the nurse asks.

“I’m sorry, the question
must have slipped my mind,” I say and put down the call box.

Mick’s breathing like he
just got done running from the cops up a hill in the middle of summer. Me, I’m
hunched forward, trying to keep my eyes open wide enough to see the look on his
face while I laugh my ass off at him.

I’m still cracking up
when the door opens, though I stop immediately after it does.

Kate, the candy striper
with the pixie cut from the ER pokes her head in and says, “Hey, Mick. How
are—oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. I should have expected someone,
though, with all the laughing. You two must be really good friends.”

She’s speaking fast, her
hands are fidgeting, and her face is red. Mick was right, she’s interested in
someone. I’m just not convinced yet that it’s him.

“Friends,” Mick scoffs.
“This guy’s doing like KGB mind games on me and she thinks-”

 
“It’s Kate, right?” I ask, standing up and
walking over to her, my hand extended to shake hers.

She takes it. “You
remembered,” she says. “
You’re
the
one with the ridiculous name.”

“Eli?” I ask. “I get that
it’s kind of old-fashioned, but-”

“No,” she says. She
pushes her lips together like she’s trying to stop herself from saying more.

Her palm is sweaty as she
looks down and realizes we’re still shaking hands. I let go.

“Right,” I say. “I know
what you meant. If it helps at all, I didn’t pick the name.”

“Could I get another
Xanax?” Mick asks.

“Yeah,” I say, turning
toward him, my eyes wide, “I’ll call the nurse and have her bring something in
for you.”

There’s more white
exposed above his irises than beneath them.

Kate’s still standing
half-inside, half-outside the room. I hadn’t noticed both of her eyes the other
day. Her right eye is a deep blue; her left is a piercing green.

It’s strange that I
hadn’t noticed something so striking.

“Are those…” I start,
intending to ask her if she’s wearing two differently colored contacts, but
realize how stupid that would be.

She gets the idea anyway.
“They’re not contacts,” she says. “I have heterochromia iridis.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry
to hear that.”

“You’ve heard of it?” she
asks.

“If I had, I’m pretty
sure I wouldn’t even know it. What’d you say it was?” I ask.

“It literally just means differently
colored irises. It’s not some big, bad disease. It’s just the way my eyes are
colored is all,” she says.

“Ah,” I say.

And there’s the awkward
silence I was hoping to avoid.

“Well,” she says, “I just
wanted to come in and see how Mick was doing. I’m off in a few minutes, so…”
she trails off.

I take a look at my
friend and decide I may have been a bit rough on him. “You know, Kate,” I say,
“my friend Mick here, as you’ve probably picked up by now, has a bit of trouble
with doctors and nurses and hospitals and IVs and medicine and hospital beds
and-”

“Get to your point,” Mick
commands.

“I don’t know, it seems
the two of you have a rapport. I was just wondering if you might be able to pop
in every once in a while when they’re going to be doing a test or something,
you know, just kind of give him someone to talk to; is that inappropriate of me
to ask?”

Okay, so maybe my
intentions aren’t completely pure.

“Oh,” she says and looks
over at Mick and then back at me. “Uh, well, I guess I could-”

“Excuse me,” that same
joyless voice I’d heard over the nurse’s call box comes from behind Kate, who
turns around, opening the door a little wider.

Kate moves out of the way
as a short, stout woman with a red face and redder hair comes through the door.
“Mr. Rafferty, how are you feeling tonight?” the nurse asks, looking past me
into the room.

That’s not Mick’s last
name.

Somewhere further in the
room, probably behind that blue curtain, comes the voice of an older man,
saying, “I’m feeling a bit anxious.”

I didn’t know there was
anyone else in the room. I’d never heard the man speak and that curtain is
always closed. I thought they were just leaving a bed open for the odd
mid-shift nap.

The nurse disappears
behind the curtain and when I turn around, Kate’s already gone.

“You saw that, right?”
Mick asks, snorting laughter and seeming very proud of himself.

“What,” I ask quietly,
“the fact that we’ve been
talking shop
with some guy in the next bed?”

“Oh, Mr. Rafferty’s cool,
aren’t you, Mr. Rafferty?” Mick asks loudly.

“Big ups!” the old man’s
voice creaks from the other side of the curtain.

“Yeah, Mr. Rafferty’s
cool,” Mick says. “I’m talking about the volunteer chick. She’s way into me,
right?”