Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (5 page)

I smile.

One of the lovely things
about being involved in a somewhat less-than-legal deal with my boss is that I
get some great perks: clean money, a place to make repairs or upgrades, and a
nice spot to hide a car that police will chase on sight.

We head around back to
the junkyard.

Maye owns the junkyard,
but she doesn’t run it. The shop keeps her too busy for that. I’ve never talked
to the guy who actually does run it, but where I’m going isn’t near his office.

“Are you all right?” Kate
asks.

“Yeah,” I answer, though
my mouth is a little dry. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t
hear you rip on Mick back there and you’ve been quiet. I figured something
pretty serious must be going on.”

“No,” I say forcing a
laugh. “I was just trying to get out of there so we could be on our way.”

It’s a flimsy
explanation, but she doesn’t pursue the question further.

“So,” she says, “you keep
your car in a junkyard?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “It’s
not exactly street legal, so most of the time, we have to load it onto the back
of Maye’s flatbed tow truck and then cover it so the cops don’t know what’s
under it.”

“They know your car,
huh?”

I shrug. “It happens. In
about half an hour, they’re going to think they’ve got it where they want it,
too. They’ve been trying to pin me down for a while now.”

“You’ve never been
caught?”

“I’ve gotten pulled over
in the Galaxie,” I tell her, “but I’m usually long gone in the Chevelle before
the 5-0 shows up.”

“So you’ve been to jail,
then?”

“No,” I tell her. “Not
for racing, anyway. I got into a lot of trouble when I was a kid.”

We’re in the junkyard
about five minutes before she finally asks, “So, where’s the car?”

“We’re almost there,” I
tell her.

We come around a stack of
compacted cars and there, in a little alcove and covered, is the Chevelle.

“There it is,” I tell
her.

“Wow,” she says blandly.

“It’ll probably be more
impressive once the cover’s off of it.”

Going around the car, I
untuck the car cover from under the frame and slowly lift it off the car.

“Wow,” she says again,
only this time, there’s animation in her voice.

“I call it a 454 because
that’s the engine that was in it when I got it,” I tell her. “I’ve upgraded
since then.”

“How many horses under the
hood?” she asks and crosses her arms over her chest. I think she’s having a
little fun with the car talk.

Still,
I’m
impressed enough with the answer
that I still give it to her. “About twelve-hundred, last I had it tested.”

“That sounds like a lot,”
she says. “Is that a lot?”

“Have you heard of a
Bugatti Veyron?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she returns.

“It comes with about a
thousand,” I tell her.

What I don’t tell her is
all of the incredibly expensive mods I had to get on the Chevelle to be able to
say that.

“So this is faster than a
Veyron?”

“It accelerates faster,
anyway,” I tell her. “I’ve never topped it out on the road. It’s pretty heavy,
so it takes a couple hundred more to get it going.”

“So,” she says, “when do
I get to drive it?”

Judging by her glare, I
get the impression my laughter is out of context.

“Oh,” I say, “you’re
serious?”

“I did tell you that I’m
interested in seeing what it’s like to be a street racer. In order to find out
if I’m any good, don’t I have to be behind the wheel of a car?”

“Let’s start with
something that’s not going to kill you just to see you die,” I tell her. “This
car’s a little hostile until you get to know it.”

Her shoulders slump a
little, but I really am just looking out for her safety. Besides, once cop sees
this car, the lights go on, and if either of us wants to get out of there
without shiny metal bracelets, I’ll have to need to pull every trick in the
book.

I’m not trying to be
mean; she’s just not ready for something like that. Hell, I barely am.

“Okay,” she says, “so
what are we doing today then?”

“I told you,” I smile.
“Today, we’re going to learn how to run from the cops.”

“Whoa, whoa. I knew there
was a possibility of that, but you didn’t tell me that was actually a goal of
yours.”

“Actually, I like staying
as far away from cops as possible,” I tell her. “If you’re going to get into
this, though, you’re going to need to know how to lose a very active tail.”

She swallows.

“Okay,” she says, her
voice almost too soft to hear.

“If you’re not up for
it,” I tell her, “we can do something else.”

She narrows her eyes at
me, and I’m trying not to smirk. Giving people just the right kind of push is
one of my many hidden talents.

“Get in the car,” she
says. “It’s on.”

Without waiting for me,
she walks around to the passenger’s door. I don’t tell her I just had her
bucket seat put in earlier today. Usually, it’s in the shop to save weight.

She gets in and closes
the door after her. I can see her through the front window trying to figure out
the racing harness, and I can’t wait to see how she’s going to react when we
start going.

I open the driver’s side
door and get in. While I’m getting my harness on, I’m telling her, “Now, this
is going to be a little bit louder than the Galaxie. I’ve got some earplugs
taped to where the glove box used to be.”

“You gutted this thing,”
she says. “Why?”

“It’s to save weight,” I
tell her.

“So it’s an inertia
thing, then? If it’s heavier, it’ll take more power to get it moving and
keeping it moving?”

“Exactly.”

“What else did you do to
it?”

“How much time do you
have?”

I notice she hasn’t
reached for the earplugs yet. That’s likely to change in about two seconds.

Sliding the key into the
ignition, I say, “Are you ready?”

“Wait,” she says, “if the
car’s going to be so loud you think I need earplugs, how am I going to hear
what you’re saying? This is supposed to be a lesson, right?”

“I’ll slow it down when I
need to tell you something,” I answer. “You know, assuming the po-po aren’t
coming up my tailpipe. Mostly, I just want you to have a point of reference, so
you’ll know what I’m talking about when it’s time for you to get behind the
wheel.”

I turn the key and the
engine, which took almost a year of winning race after race to afford, roars to
life.

Kate’s reaching for the
earplugs.

“We’re not going to use
the flatbed today,” I tell her. “We’re just going to go. That’s going to make
this a lot more dangerous because if anyone sees me pulling out or pulling in
here, there’s a good chance they find the car and with the shop next door,
there’s a good chance they’d find me. We’re going to need to start out fast.
Once we get some distance between us and the junkyard, I can slow it down and
we can start.”

She nods and then puts
the earplugs in her ears.

“Did you get your harness
on all right?” I ask, looking over at her, trying not to spend too much time
just looking at her breasts. “Hold on. Right in the middle, right above your
heart,” I tell her. It comes off better than breasts would have. “You’ve got
that flipped around.”

She fixes the buckle and
looks down, checking for anything else. I already know there’s not, so I ease
off the clutch.

We go slowly through the
junkyard. Right now, the car is loud, but once I give it any kind of gas, it’s
going to be waking up roadkill for about half a mile in every direction.

I picked a day when the
junkyard was closed, but it’s always possible Davis, the guy who runs the
junkyard, is around here somewhere. As far as I know, the only instruction Maye
ever gave him on the topic was simply to stay away from that part of the yard.

“All right,” I yell.
“We’re about to come out into the open; are you ready?”

Kate wraps her fingers
around the front of her harness and nods.

My foot comes down on the
gas pedal just as we’re hitting tarmac and the tires spin before biting.

Kate is either screaming
or squealing next to me, but I can’t ease off until I’m well out of the area.
Maye would kill me if I got caught in this thing so close to her shop.

As soon as I’m on the
road and pointed in the right direction, I hit my gas and the speedometer’s
showing one hundred mph before we get to the end of the long block.

Right now, I’m on a road
heading away from town, but in about three miles, there’s going to be a long
curve to the left that will take me back to civilization.

I really am going to show
and tell Kate everything she wants—and needs—to know about what’s about to
happen. At the same time, though, I’d be lying if this wasn’t intended to give
her a decent scare.

Easing off the
accelerator, I slow us down for the bend ahead. It’s gradual enough, and I made
damn sure the Chevelle has more responsive steering than the Galaxie, but
looking down, the needle is sitting right at one-fifty.

I tap the brakes and
double-clutch down to third gear as we drop beneath the one-hundred mark.

“A lot of people get into
this without knowing what they’re getting themselves into,” I yell, hoping she
can hear me over the engine and through her earplugs. “That’s not going to
happen with you.”

“What do you mean?” she
shouts back.

“Once a cop’s seen your car
on the street, he’s going to remember it,” I answer. “You may get one race,
maybe even two or three before you roll by a light bar, but nobody does this
without getting chased every once in a while. The more you do it, the more cops
are going to know your car.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to make some
new friends in town,” I answer.

“In
town
?” she protests.

We’re reaching the end of
the long curve and, as the road straightens in front of us, my foot is back on
the gas.

I wait until we’re
passing one-seventy-five on the speedometer before I glance at Kate out of the
corner of my eye. Her knuckles are white, and her mouth is open wide as she
lets out a little scream every time I correct course.

That’s probably enough.

I start slowing down, and
I’m going over my prepared “don’t feel bad, it’s really not for everyone,”
speech when I hear something else.

“What are you doing?”
she’s shouting. “Go faster!”

I glance down at the
speedometer. The needle’s still on the right side of one-hundred.

It looks like I might
have stumbled across the real deal here. I’ve had some pretty hardened guys
chicken out way before we got this far.

One of the things that
Mick made me promise before he started unloading all of his knowledge on the
subject was that if I ever taught someone anything about racing, I’d start with
something like this.

For me, it was a run to
the state line and back averaging over one-hundred-fifty in Mick’s old Mustang.
That may sound like a gentler introduction, but Mick’s never been that good
with a wheel. He can press the pedals just fine, but every time he’d even make
an adjustment, he’d nearly lose control. It was kind of a relief when he sold
it.

Kate’s getting it easy.

There are some things
I’ll want to say that are going to require me to slow down a little before we
come all the way back around to town, but for now, I decide to indulge her.

As I apply more pressure
onto the gas pedal, Kate’s her hands are in the air as she’s howling, “Woo!”
I’m just trying to keep a straight face as we hit one-eighty.

When this girl comes out
of her shell, she really comes out of her shell.

The turn’s coming up in
about a mile, though, so I start slowing down again.

We make the turn doing
about forty and I keep it slow for a minute.

“All right,” I tell her.
“The first thing you need to do when you see lights behind you is not panic.
You panic and you’re going to make a mistake. It’d be better to just pull over
at that point.”

“How do I not panic?” she
asks. “What’s the trick?”

“It’s just something
you’ve got to get used to,” I tell her. “Are you ready for some company?”

She nods.

When we come around the
corner and see the building with eight or nine patrol cars in the lot, though,
her fingers curl back around her harness. I hadn’t told her we’d be driving
past the highway patrol’s station.

“Here we go,” I tell her
and I stomp on the gas.