Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (21 page)

“He actually said that
word, though?”

Desi nods. “Repeatedly,”
she says. “Did you really think he was only into you because you’ve hopped on
the racing bandwagon?”

“It still all comes back
to the same question, though,” I tell her. “How can I believe you?”

“There’s nothing I can
say that’ll make you,” she says. “I guess what it comes down to is whether or
not you believe him. Maybe he hasn’t said the words, but can you honestly tell
me that you’re surprised to hear it? The last time he was in here, he was
talking about how he’s been looking to sell that old beater of his. Do you have
any idea how long and hard I tried to get him to give that stupid thing up? I
don’t even know why he still hangs onto it.”

My phone buzzes in my
pocket.

“Wait, he said he’s going
to get rid of the car?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “I was
just as surprised as you. He loves that thing for some ridiculous reason.”

I take my phone out of my
pocket and check the message. It’s from Eli. It reads, “Hey, I’m at the club. I
really think the three of us should talk. I want you to know you can trust me.”

“Looks like he’s here,” I
tell Desi.

I’m walking out of the
back room before she can say anything.

When I get back to the
club proper, it doesn’t take long to spot Eli. He’s leaned over the counter at
the bar, talking to the bartender.

I walk up behind Eli and
tap him on the shoulder. He turns around.

“Kate,” he says. “I know
this doesn’t look good, but if you want me to stop talking to-”

He stops as I throw my
arms around him. I give him a quick peck on the lips, asking, “Is it true that
you’re looking into selling the Galaxie?”

Wow, that’s a weird question
out of context.

He gives me a crooked
smile. “Already found a buyer.”

I give him another
squeeze and another kiss.

“Kate, I don’t want to be
with anyone else,” he says. “I don’t
care
about anyone else. I just want to be with you.”

“I am still pretty pissed
about one thing,” I tell him as I rest my head against his shoulder.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“You didn’t introduce
us,” I tell him, “Desi and me. I think the two of us would really get along.”

Chapter
Twenty

The Oval

Eli

“So, tell me more about
this track,” Kate says from the passenger’s seat of the flatbed.

“Well,” I say as I make
the turn into the parking lot of the track, “it’s old. The asphalt’s not too
degraded, but there are some rough patches.”

Jerry, the guy who owns
the place, keeps it closed to the public for the most part, but every once in a
while, I manage to talk him into letting me run around the thing for an hour or
two. After all the stress and tension of the last few weeks, Kate and I could
both use a break like this.

“But this is totally
legal?” she asks. “We’re not going to have to negotiate police road blocks
while we’re driving around or anything like that, right?”

“Yeah,” I tell her,
“Jerry owns the place. He’ll make us sign a liability release form before he’ll
let us onto the track, but it’s perfectly legal.”

“That’ll be a pleasant
change.”

I pull up next to Jerry’s
trailer—he calls it his office—and we get out of the flatbed.

Jerry comes out, carrying
a clipboard, saying, “You both know the rules, right?”

“Yeah,” I answer as Kate
nods. “Don’t screw up your track and if we get into a crash and die, we can’t
come back from the grave to sue you.”

“Good enough,” he says.
“Now if I can just get you both to sign here…”

He holds out the
clipboard. Kate signs first, then I do.

“Great,” he says and we
follow him over to the gate to the track, which he opens. “Have fun.”

Before heading back to
unload the Chevelle, Kate and I take a few steps onto the grounds to get a
better look at the track. There aren’t any potholes, exactly, but the pavement
is pockmarked at the very least.

“How bad is it going to
be?” she asks.

“You’ll need to go a bit
slower than you otherwise would,” I answer, “but as long as you stay toward the
inside of the track, you should be all right.”

“All right,” she says,
“but you’re doing the first ten laps.”

We get back to the
flatbed and unload the Chevelle as the sun reaches its peak in the sky. Getting
behind the wheel, I fire up the car, and once Kate’s in and has her harness all
cinched up, I slowly pull through the gate and onto the track beyond.

“Do you have a preference
on direction?” I ask.

“Not really,” she
answers, and without waiting for another second to pass, I hit the gas.

I take a right, the back
end of the Chevelle drifting out behind me, and Kate’s howling with cheers and
laughter as I slow for the first turn.

Ovals have never been my
thing, but it is nice to not have to worry about the fuzz stopping the show.
Besides, Kate’s clearly enjoying herself.

Before I’m even done with
my first lap, she’s shouting over the sound of the engine, “I’m ready if you
are!”

I smile.

I love this woman. One of
these days—probably after the recent strain on our relationship has had a
chance to fade a bit—I should probably mention that to her.

Coming to a stop, I put
the Chevelle in neutral and undo my harness. Kate and I get out and switch
places. I’m barely strapped in when she takes off.

We get up to about a
hundred before she comes to the first long turn, and she slows down a bit too
much.

“You can usually keep it
around one-twenty around these bends,” I tell her. “But just keep doing what
you’re doing and feel it out before you-”

Her foot comes down hard
on the gas and we’re back in the triple digits well before the end of the turn.

“I want to try nitrous,”
she declares as we reach the next straight.

“Your best bet is the
dentist’s office,” I tease.

She glances over at me
and then back at the track ahead. “You know, you’re a very handsome and
charming man, but we really need to work on the jokes,” she says. “It’s undoing
all the hard work your car is doing for you.”

“Give it at least a few
more laps,” I tell her. “Hold off until you’re used to the surface.”

“What’s it going to be
like when I hit it?”

“It’s going to be like
you’ve got a rocket engine in the trunk for the first couple of seconds,” I
tell her. “Those are going to be very important seconds, because that’s when
things with nitrous usually go wrong.”

Kate follows my advice
and runs a few more times around the ragged oval, finding the right speed,
getting used to the longer, more gradual curves.

Finally, when she starts
her tenth lap, I tell her, “All right, when we get to this next straight, get
the car stabilized along its trajectory and, if you’re ready, go ahead and hit
the nitrous.”

Kate bites the inside of
her cheek and nods. She takes the curve a bit more conservatively than she has
been, and once we’re back on a straight, she moves her thumb to settle over the
button. Her hand is shaking.

I say, “If you’re not
ready, you don’t have to-”

Then my head is being
forced backward against the headrest of my seat, and I’m watching the needle of
the speedometer make its rapid climb as the nitrous propels us.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Kate
is shouting, though her lips are pulled back in a huge grin.

She’s a bit hard on the
brake coming into the next turn, but she handles it.

We’re both laughing as
she starts to slow the car even further.

I look over at the
gorgeous woman in the seat next to me, and even with all the misunderstandings
and the silly mistakes we’ve made with each other, I wouldn’t rather be
anywhere else
with
anyone else.

“Is that Jerry?” Kate
asks.

I turn my head to look
back out the windshield. There’s a car sitting at the entrance of the track
with its lights on.

“I don’t know,” I tell
her. “I don’t think Jerry drives anymore, though.”

“Could I talk you into
letting me race them over a couple of laps before I hand this thing back to
you?” she asks.

Before I get a chance to
answer, the car—an SRT Viper—peels out and starts charging toward us.

“Kate, get off the
track,” I tell her.

“What?” she asks. “Why? I
can take this clown.”

She maintains her speed,
allowing the Viper to catch up, and it’s revving its engine as it pulls up
alongside us.

“I’m racing him,” Kate
says and the car jerks a little as she downshifts and hits the gas.

The Viper falls back at
first, but as we come into the next turn, it catches up easily enough.

“I don’t know who that
is,” I tell her. “I do know they’re not supposed to be here, though.”

“Aw, come on,” she says.
“Live a little.”

In the next moment,
though, the Viper’s on our inside, and they’re edging us toward the outside
wall.

Kate tries to speed up,
but the Viper keeps pace. She tries to slow down to let the Viper pass, but it
holds tight. Finally, when there are no more than a couple of feet between us
and the outside wall, she slams on the brakes.

The Viper cruises past,
but Kate loses control as the back end comes out and she’s jerking the wheel
wildly, just trying to stay away from the wall as we go into a full spin.

We finally come to a stop
on the dirt interior of the track, facing the opposite direction and we’re both
breathing heavily.

“Are you all right?” I
ask.

“I think so,” she says.
“They were trying to run us off the track! They were trying to make me crash!”

Somewhere behind us comes
the sound of tires losing a lot of rubber, and I look over to see the Viper
turning around.

“Kate, get out of here,”
I tell her. “We need to get out of here now.”

She spins the Chevelle
around, staying on the dirt as we try to make our escape. The other driver has
no interest in sticking around, though, and the Viper cruises past us on the
track and out through the gate.

*
*
       
*

I offer to call into
work. I even offer to take Kate to the shop with me, but she insists that she’s
fine.

Still, I don’t feel all
that great leaving her alone in her apartment when I don’t know who was driving
that other car or why they tried to run us into a wall.

Kate doesn’t want to deal
with her mom, so her parents’ house is out. I think Mick is off, but that’s still
a bit weird for all three of us. The only real option is to drop Kate off with
her friend Paz.

Things have been pretty
tense between the two of them since Paz sent me up to that room to be ambushed
by Kate’s mom. After what happened at the track, though, both Kate and I are
feeling a lot more forgiving right now.

On the way there, I’m
telling Kate that I’m going to find out who went after us and why, but she
tells me just to drop it. Pulling up to the curb in the flatbed, Kate and I
kiss before she gets out of the car.

She’s putting on a brave
face, but she’s clearly shaken. I know I am.

I tell her I’ll call her
when I get off work and she forces a smile, saying, “I look forward to it.”
Then she turns around and heads off toward her friend’s apartment.

While Kate was in the
passenger’s seat, I did my best to act calm. The last thing I want to do is
upset her more. As I’m driving to the shop, though, my blood starts simmering
in my veins.

There are two
possibilities: either someone was actually trying to make us crash or someone
was playing a stupid prank. It doesn’t really matter which it is, the fact
remains we very easily could have wrecked if Kate hadn’t slammed on the brakes
when she did.

I drop off the Chevelle
in the junkyard. When I get to the shop, I’m gritting my teeth and clenching my
fists. As livid as I am, though, I notice the piece of paper on the windshield
of the Galaxie immediately.

My buyer’s coming by
later this week to pick up the old car, but there are a few minor (and a few
major) repairs I want to make before I hand it off to him. Right now, though,
that’s about the furthest thing from my mind.

I take the note from
under one of the windshield wipers. It reads, “You’re gonna need more than
practice to beat me.”

One of the problems with running
a bare-bones auto shop is that, for a good part of the day, there’s nothing to
do but sit in the office. Right now, I am the shop’s best customer.

The note’s unsigned, but
I know it’s from Jax. He’s trying to get into my head before the final race in
two weeks, but that idiot just bit off more than he can chew.

The only problem is I
don’t know where to start looking for him. Up until the guy actually walked
into this shop, I thought he was just some overblown legend based off of
someone who used to race.

It’s not like he has an
ad in the phonebook.

I pull out my cell and
find Mick’s number. Although it’s a long shot, if anyone knows where I could
find Jax, it would be Mick.

“Hey, what’s up, man?”
Mick answers.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“I’m at the shop,” he
says.

“So am I,” I tell him.
“Are you in the office?”

“Yeah,” he says.

I hang up the phone and
walk into the office, finding Mick lounging in the waiting area, flipping
through channels.

“Did you see this?” I ask
and show the note to Mick.

“No,” he says. “What’s
that all about?”

“Jax tried to run Kate
and me into a concrete wall today,” I tell him. “I need to know where to find
him.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he
says, getting up from his seat. “Jax is not a good guy, Rans. Even if you
did
find him, he’s got a strapped crew
that goes everywhere with him. Just take it as a bad prank and let it go.”

“I don’t care if it was a
bad prank,” I tell Mick. “The guy or one of his people tried to run us into a
wall. Kate was in the car, Mick.”

“How’s it going to change
anything if you find him, though? I mean, what are you really going to do to
someone like that?”

“I just want to talk to
him,” I answer.

He shakes his head. “I’ve
seen way too many action movies not to know that means you want to beat the
piss out of him,” Mick says. “No sale.”

“You
do
know where I could find him, though?”

“I doubt it,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

Mick rubs the back of his
neck. “Look, I don’t even know if it’s true or not, but I heard that Jax owns a
restaurant here in town and he does a lot of his business from a private room
in the back.”

“What’s the name of the
restaurant?” I ask.