Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (9 page)

“Don’t lose your focus
again, Eli,” I mutter to myself inaudibly.

My thumb is on the button
for the nitrous, but the Cobalt’s tires are screaming up ahead of me as the car
slides out of control. She manages to straighten it out, but I cruise past her
with only the M3 still a viable threat a few lengths behind me.

The next turn is a right
and I police my speed going into the turn, this time hitting the apex right
where I need to and far down the way is a pair of red lights. That must be the
finish line.

The M3 hits its nitrous
as it evens out after the curve, but I’ve got a solid lead. I fly through the
red lights of the intersection and before I even take my foot off the gas, I can
feel the vibration in my pocket.

Slowing down to only
thirty above the speed limit, I pull the phone out of my pocket.

There’s a text message
waiting for me, reading, “The envelope is in the glove box of your truck.”

There’s nobody at the
finish line, but apparently, someone was watching.

It’s not something I’d
usually recommend, but I go back to the start line, only everyone, including
Kate, is gone.

“Shit!” I bark at my
windshield.

The only place I can
think she might have gone is back to the flatbed. That’s where I need to go
next anyway, so I flip around, tires screeching behind me as I drive the few
blocks back to the truck.

Kate is sitting on the
back, her legs dangling off the end of it.

She jumps down and moves
off to the side when she sees me, and she’s waving me on frantically.

I pull the Chevelle onto
the back of the flatbed and I quickly get the cover over it. If the cops know
we’re here and see the truck with the car on the back, the jig is up.

Kate and I run to the
doors of the flatbed and we get in.

“Check the glove box,” I
tell her.

“They said the police are
on their way, something about screwing with traffic lights or something?” she
asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’ll
fill you in later. For now, we just need to get the hell out of Dodge.”

I’ve driven the flatbed
many times over the years, but one thing it’s not is cut out for racing
anything. All we can do is take back roads to the shop and hope nobody spots us
on the way.

“Whoa,” Kate says,
pulling an envelope out of the glove box. “It looks like there’s $2,000 in
here.”

“$2,000?” I ask. “That
doesn’t even cover my entry fee.”

She shrugs. “I guess you
have to keep winning then,” she says, putting the money back in the envelope
and putting it back in the glove compartment.

“So you won?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m
sorry you couldn’t see that part of it.”

“I saw quite a bit,
actually,” she says. “Even after you guys turned, where I was, I could still
see you guys going past distant intersections. Wasn’t that spaceship car thing
beating you for a while?”

“It’s a Ford GT,” I tell
her, “and yeah. I almost lost that race to all three of them.”

I’m really starting to
get sick of hearing sirens. Fortunately for Kate and me, though, it sounds like
they’re a ways away from us.

It takes about an hour to
get back to the shop using the backroads, but we don’t come across any cops on
the way. When we get to the junkyard, I hop out and unlock the gate before
backing the flatbed all the way through the maze of broken-down cars and parts
to the Chevelle’s spot.

I remove the cover once
more and pull the Chevelle back off of the truck and into its spot. I cover it
again.

Kate and I meet at the
back of the flatbed and, with the words, “For the winner,” she throws her arms
around my neck and kisses me on the cheek, saying, “So, you’re buying dinner
tonight, right?”

*
*
       
*

Kate and I go to dinner
in my Galaxie. Her eyes are wide as I recount the race to her.

We talk for a while, and
she asks me questions when she doesn’t understand something, but she catches on
really fast. In fact, I think she’s getting this stuff easier than I did.

When it finally comes
time to take her back home, the race doesn’t even feel real. There was nothing
to wait for at the start, and by the time I crossed the finish line, everything
was all packed up except the four cars finishing out the run.

It was like a dream, but
that two grand looked pretty real.

We pull up in front of
Kate’s house and, just as soon as I get the car stopped, it dies.

“You’ve really got to
look into finding something else to drive around town,” Kate says.

I’m nodding along with
her. Not that I have any definite plans to get rid of the thing.

“Can I walk you to your
door, or do you have another ‘family thing’ going on tonight?” I ask.

She seems to have a lot
of those.

“You can walk me to the
door,” she says, “but I don’t think you should come in.”

“That’s fine. Are we
still on for tomorrow?”

“Of course. You won the
race.”

“If I’d lost it?”

“Well, I would be very
sad for you,” Kate smirks.

We get out of the car and
I take her hand as we meet at the end of the walkway.

Kate’s whispering, “We
need to be quiet. My parents aren’t exactly thrilled about you.”

“They haven’t met me,” I
tell her. “I’m a very charming young man.”

“You are that,” she says.
“I doubt that’s going to work so well on Mom and Dad, though. They can be a
little uptight.”

“All right,” I tell her
and we walk up to the door.

We kiss on the stoop like
a bad romantic comedy; only it’s pretty great being on this side of it. I’m
giving her one more kiss before I head back to the car when the front door
opens.

“What are you doing?” a
very angry woman asks.

Kate and I separate.

“Mom, this is-” Kate
starts.

“I know who he is,”
Kate’s mom says. “He’s the young man you’ve been sneaking out to go see at
night.”

I have no idea what to do
in this situation, so I just stand there trying to keep my mouth from falling
open.

“Mom, just calm down,”
Kate says. “This is Eli, and he’s a really nice guy.”

“Oh, he’s a nice guy, is
he?” Kate’s mom asks. “Well, never mind then. Hi, I’m Jill, Kate’s mom, it’s so
nice to meet you, Eli, now will you kindly get off my porch and realize that my
daughter is not for people like you.”

“Mom!”

“I’ll tell you what,”
Kate’s mom says. “Since you’re ‘such a nice guy,’ I’m going to give you ten
seconds to be somewhere else before I call the police.”

“You’re overreacting,”
Kate says, but her mom’s already got her cellphone out.

“I was just dropping her
off,” I tell Kate’s mom. “I was on my way out, anyway.”

“Good,” Kate’s mom says.
“Now see if you can be on your way out in the next seven seconds.”

“Go,” Kate says. “I’ll
talk to you tomorrow.”

I look at Kate’s mom
who’s looking at her watch, and I look back at Kate. Is there any other option?
“All right,” I say and stupidly lean forward to kiss her goodnight.

“Are you that stupid?”
Kate’s mom asks.

I’m gritting my teeth,
but I force a smile before I turn and head back toward my car.

I had figured that Kate
was hiding me from her parents, but I had no idea they were this bad. Sure, if
she knew I was taking her daughter on illegal street races and being chased by
the police, she’d probably be justified, but she doesn’t.

I’m just a guy who likes
her daughter.

I get to my door in time
to see Kate’s mom dialing.

“You’ve got to be kidding
me,” I murmur to myself and get in the Galaxie.

I turn the ignition, but
the car doesn’t even pretend that it’s going to start.

Looking back toward the
porch, Kate’s mom is now talking into the phone.

“Come on,” I say, trying
the ignition again. Nothing.

The alternator probably
went out, so the battery can’t charge. If I had an hour, some tools, and a new
alternator, it wouldn’t be a huge deal, but Kate’s mom has already hung up the
phone.

I get out of the car and
take one last look as Kate shoulder-bumps her mom on the way inside.

The Galaxie’s street
legal, it’s just broken down. The cops will know who I am and they’ll probably
drop by sometime to ask me a few questions, but it’s not the end of the world.

I can get the car
tomorrow. It’s probably best to wait until her parents are at work, though.

After I’ve made it a few
blocks from the house without being stopped by the police, I pull out my
cellphone and dial up Mick.

“Dude, I don’t want to
talk about it,” he says.

Apparently, he lost his
race.

“I’m not calling about that,”
I tell him. “You wouldn’t believe what just happened.”

Chapter
Seven

Distraction

Kate

“Ooh, I cannot
wait
for you to meet Keith,” Paz coos,
shoveling a forkful of spongy hospital cafeteria pasta into her mouth.

“So it’s Keith now, huh?”
I ask. “What happened to Marcus?”

Paz shakes her head. “He
was no good. He came over to my house wearing jeans and a t-shirt when we were
supposed to go to the opera. Can you believe that?”

“Since when do you like
the opera?”

“It’s something I was
planning on getting into,” Paz says.

I smile and nod. “So it’s
something Marcus was into, only you were expecting him to show up dressed to
the nines. Then, when he didn’t, all of your girlish fantasies about being
escorted to the Grand Ball were torn to pieces, is that about right?”

She purses her lips and
glares at me.

Maybe I’m in a bit of a
mood. Things have been a bit tense around the house lately.

Mom called the cops that
night. They showed up and told her that they weren’t going to spend any
manpower trying to find someone whose only crime was dropping her daughter off
after a date.

That’s when mom called
the station and requested to speak with “Officer McGough’s superior.”

I caught the conversation
through my open window. Mom doesn’t have a volume control option when she’s mad
about something.

Things have been okay at
work mostly because I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid my mother.

“Something like that,”
Paz says, still glowering as she puts another forkful of the same bland,
nothing pasta that I had the bad luck to get today. Her face brightens up a
moment later though. “Keith is the perfect gentleman, though. Plus, he’s smart
enough to tell me I’m pretty all the time, so I think I might have-”

“Oh, please don’t say it
for the ten billionth time,” I groan.

It’s not going to matter.
She’s going to say it anyway.

“I might have found the
dick I’m gonna want to hang onto for the rest of my life,” Paz says and bursts
into laughter.

Ten billion may be an
exaggeration, but I honestly don’t know how she still finds that phrase so
hilarious. She has said it about each of the forty-seven “boyfriends” she’s had
since I met her.

The problem is that once
she starts laughing, it’s so over the top that it’s impossible to not start
laughing with her. There are people three tables away who couldn’t possibly
have heard what she said, but they’re hunched forward, faces red, laughing.

I’m laughing, too.
There’s nothing I can do about that.

It takes a minute for
everyone in the immediate vicinity to stop laughing—there are a lot of false stops.
Finally though, as Paz and I are each wiping away our own tears, she says, “How
about that guy you’ve been seeing? How come I never hear anything about him?
The two of you still a thing?”

“A thing, yeah,” I tell
her. “We haven’t really had the conversation, but I’m hopeful.”

Paz is out of her chair
and into the one sitting next to me in no more than three seconds. It’s an
especially impressive feat as we’re sitting toward the middle of a long table,
facing each other.

I’m giggling at her as
she tries to catch her breath and speak at the same time.

“Dish,” she says. “Have
you done it yet? Is he any good or is he like Lamar who didn’t really have
adequate tools for the job?”

“You know that stuff
makes me uncomfortable.”

“You don’t seem to mind
when I go on about it,” she retorts.

I scoff. “Would it matter
if I did? I’m used to you, okay? I’ve never been that open with stuff like
this.”

Paz’s breath is bated.
She says, “
I know.
So, are you going
to make a change and embrace the new you or what?”

“We’re just wired
differently,” I tell her. “You like to talk about this stuff. I like to keep it
more private. Neither one’s a bad thing, we’re just different. That’s all.”

Now, will Paz see reason?

“I am not moving from
this spot until you give me something,” she says.

I shrug and grab my tray.
“All right. I’ll see you-”

She puts her hand on my
shoulder and pushes down. “How about you give me something that’ll make me
smile? I work hard around here for very little money and I get tired. From time
to time, it’s nice to hear something nice, something that’ll make the world
seem a little bit better because I know my chica’s getting her pipes cleaned!”
she bursts into laughter again.

I don’t know why she
thinks this is going to work. It’s because of stuff like this that I don’t tell
her anything.

Actually, now that I
think about it, it’s because of stuff like this that I don’t tell my parents
anything, either. They’re not so much with the laughing, though. It’s more the
concerned looks and the low voices. It’s the quiet sternness that makes me feel
like I’ve just killed the twin sister that I don’t have.

Paz is still laughing, so
I go to get up again. She pushes me back down in my seat—
still
laughing, mind you.

“This is why nobody likes
you,” I tell her.

“What are you talking
about? Everybody loves me, isn’t that right everybody?” she asks loudly.

There’s some scattered
agreement, but not a lot.

Paz clears her throat and
turns around in her seat, keeping her hand on my shoulder for good measure. “I
said
everybody loves me. Isn’t that
right everybody?”

Through what I can only
imagine is some form of Stockholm syndrome, nearly everyone in the cafeteria
voices their approval.

“This is how
dictatorships start,” I tell Paz.

“This dictatorship’s been
in place since long before you got here,” she answers. “Now, give me something
or I’m gonna be late to check on Mr. Durbin’s blood sugar. He’s very diabetic.
I really hope nothing happens to him while I’m sitting here waiting for you
to-”

“
Fine
,” I answer. “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you
sometimes.”

“Because you’re too
scared to be my enemy,” she says. “You’re not the only one. It’s part of my
charm. So?”

I lean toward her,
whispering in her ear like a child, I say, “We did in the back of his car.”

With a sound that’s remarkably
similar to what cats sound like when they’re in heat, Paz gives me a firm pat
on the shoulder and then removes her hand.

“Now was that so hard?”
she asks. “How was it? Was it good?”

“I gave you something,” I
tell her. “I think we’re done here.”

I’m waiting for Paz’s
retort, but it doesn’t come. I look up to find my mother standing over me.

“Are you still on lunch,
Volunteer Chavez?” my mom, or Dr. Chavez at the moment, asks.

“I’m still within my
time, Dr. Chavez,” I answer.

“I think it sets a bad
example for other volunteers when they see their fellows shirking their
responsibilities to gab with their friends over lunch; wouldn’t you agree?”

Paz is still silent.
That’s how intimidating my mother is to just about everyone.

“I take my duties very
seriously, Dr. Chavez,” I respond. “I will make sure that I’m back working by
or before the time my lunch break is over. Would you care to join us?”

That last part is just to
get her to go away.

It works.

On the outside, I’m the
respectful, though assertive, employee. On the inside, though, I am boiling
rage and little else.

“Your mom creeps me out,”
Paz says when Dr. Chavez is sufficiently out of earshot.

“It’s part of her charm,”
I mutter, spearing a few of the rotini noodles on my plate.

*
*
       
*

For once, I’d like to be
able to hear Eli while we’re driving, so we take my car. The fact Eli’s is in
the shop again only makes him more agreeable.

I’m supposed to be in
class right now, but after the week I’ve had dealing with my parents,
especially my mother, I could use a night off.

We just drive around for
a while, but I’m finding it difficult to break the silence.

“How was work?” Eli asks.

He’s trying; I just don’t
have a lot to give right now.

“It was fine,” I tell
him.

“Save any lives?”

“I’m not really involved
with that,” I answer.

He’s quiet for a beat.
“What’s wrong?”

When we first met up, I
was so excited about cutting class. I felt like all those kids in the parking
lot of my high school, or at least how I imagined they felt as I’d walk past
them on the way to class.

For a while, I thought
everything was wonderful.

Now, though, every minute
that passes, I’m adding another one-hundred and fifty to the sum in my head.
That’s about how many words Mrs. Draper speaks a minute. That’s how much
lecture I’m missing every single minute.

“It’s nothing,” I tell
him. “Things are just a little off-balance at home.”

“Got ya,” he says,
leaning back in his chair.

He’s about to say
something else, but I jump in, saying, “You showed me Grog Hill. Would you like
to see where I go when I need to clear my head?”

It’s already dark, so
sunset’s not an option, but still, overlooking the city in the warmth and
comfort of my very own car sounds like my only other option than to drop Eli
back off at his shop and see if I can catch the last bit of tonight’s class.

I’m committed to breaking
out of this stupid rut, so there’s really only one way to go.

“Sure,” he says. “Where
is it?”

“It’s a cul-de-sac in the
middle of nowhere,” I tell him. “They were going to put in a new subdivision,
but after the recession, they lost their investors. It’s not too far from Ghost
Town, actually.”

“All right,” he agrees
and so we go.

I’m still having trouble
finding words until we’re about a block away from the cul-de-sac. “There’s
really nothing intrinsically special about it, other than they just left it
there out here past town with nothing around it,” I tell Eli. “They’d only
started digging the first foundation before the whole thing fell.”

I know this because my
parents were among the initial investors.

Parking the car, I lean
my seat back a little.

“Have you ever thought
about moving out of your parents’ house?” he asks.

“I wish it were that
simple,” I tell him. “They’ve got me by the purse strings.”

“What’s to stop you from
getting a job that’ll pay?”

I glance over at him.
“Your job doesn’t pay you,” I observe.

“Yeah, that’s because the
shop I work at is actually a way for me to launder my ill-gotten winnings,” he
laughs. “You’re actually doing stuff aboveboard. You should be able to bring
something home.”

“Does it bother you that
I work as a volunteer at the hospital?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not
at all. I just see how miserable you are having to deal with your parents, and
I don’t see how that’s going to change all that much until you’re able to get your
own job and find your own place, you know?”

I was a little worried
this conversation would turn into an offer for me to move in with him, but
fortunately, he doesn’t bring it up. It’s not that I don’t like him; it’s just
way too early in our unofficial relationship to even start thinking along those
lines.

 
“Yeah,” I answer. “The problem is that if I do
that, they’ll stop paying for school, so I’ll either have to drop out or go
into enormous debt just to finish out my education.”

“Do you really want to be
a doctor?”

I don’t answer.

“I don’t know,” he says.
“It’s just weird for me to see you so timid.”

“Believe it or not,” I
tell him, “that’s my default position.”

“Then why’s it so
different when you’re around me?”

“Maybe it’s that I feel
like I don’t have to pretend around you,” I tell him. “If I were to tell you
I’m missing a class right now, what would you say?”

He shrugs. “I’d probably
say that I’m glad you chose to spend your time with me.”

“That’s the difference,”
I tell him. “You appreciate me for who I am, not for something you want me to
be.”

Whoa, I think we just
fell through a trap door and ended up right in the middle of “the
conversation.”

Eli asks, “What’s wrong
with that?”

“Nothing,” I answer,
grabbing his hand and holding it.

“Then why does it seem
like you think there is?”

“It’s not how I was
raised,” I tell him. God, that sounds icky coming out of my mouth.