Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) Read online

  SHIFTING GEARS

  The Complete Series

  By Alycia Taylor

  Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

  Get Future New Releases In This Series For 99 Cents

  Click Here to Like My Facebook Page

  Get An Email When My Next Book Comes Out By Clicking Here

  Get your free copies of 3 books and a 4th never released novel when you sign up for the authors VIP mailing list.

  Click here to get your free books

  Chapter One

  Painting Candy Canes

  Kate

  The emergency room is uncharacteristically slow at St. Mary of Egypt Medical Center. It’s not a regular part of my job, helping out in the ER, but I am coming to the end of my shift and, for once, it might just be slow enough for me to run out the clock here.

  I’m having an innocent conversation with my friend Paz when a patient walks by, his upper lip pulling into a sneer as he passes.

  “You see the way he looked at me, like he thinks he’s better than me?” Paz asks, just loud enough for the patient to hear.

  “Paz,” I say, “you’re doing the crazy lady routine again.”

  There are many and varied reasons my twenty-eight-year-old friend has the highest resting blood pressure of anyone on staff, but looking at her the wrong way will set her off faster than nearly anything.

  As the man’s standing there, though, his eyes big, his mouth open, I notice something.

  “Oh, I know you did not just make that face at me again,” Paz says, this time to the patient.

  “Paz?” I mutter, barely audible even to myself.

  “You just think you can stand there and smirk while I’m doing a thankless job for no money and I’m just going to take it, huh?” she accuses the patient.

  “Paz?” I say a little louder than before.

  “Yeah, you’d better turn around and get back in your room,” she mutters.

  “Paz!” I yell, the size of my voice startling even me.

  She snaps her head around toward me. “Oh, chica, you wanna remember who you’re talking to,” she snaps at me.

  When she starts with the Spanish, that’s when you know you’re in trouble.

  I got her to admit once that she doesn’t speak the language; she knows a few words and likes to think it gives her “street-cred.” Those are her words. It's her way of telling me if I don’t back up, I’m getting hit.

  Paz isn’t the standard smiles-and-platitudes kind of nurse. She’s not the burnt-out nurse who’s been doing this forever and is understandably a little jaded. She’s more the “Why would she ever want to get a job dealing with people?” type.

  Paz is hostile all on her very own.

  Fortunately, though, she’s a friend of mine.

  “Look at his chart,” I tell her. “I think he’s got Bell’s Palsy.”

  Being the daughter of a mom who’s chief of surgery at one hospital and a dad who is a resident at the only other hospital in town, I’ve picked up a few things over the years. Right or wrong, this might just be the insignificant slight that puts me on Paz’s list.

  Paz’s list is not a metaphor. She has a notebook containing the names of the people she thinks have wronged her over the years, and those names don’t get crossed off until she’s exacted some disproportionate response.

  “That true?” she barks after the patient.

  Through the doorway, I can hear the man’s timid voice as he answers, “Yes.”

  Without any ceremony—or apology—Paz turns toward me saying, “You’re getting pretty good at that, kid.” Then, as if nothing had happened, our conversation resumes. “So back to what I was saying: I told Marco if he wasn’t going to stop spending all his time with that puta, I was going to break it off.”

  I’m trying to conceal a grin. “How relieved was he?” I ask.

  She raises an eyebrow, saying, “He stopped smiling when he found out I didn’t mean the relationship.”

  “We’re talking about his mother, right?” I ask. “She’s the puta?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Whatever,” she says. “So then, he tells me that I need to go to counseling or something because I’ve got ‘anger problems.’ Can you believe that? Paz means peace. How am I going to have anger problems?”

  She’s not great on self-awareness.

  I looked it up once. The name Paz does indeed mean peace. That said, calling a baby girl Chastity all but guarantees she’s going to strip at some point during her lifetime. I’m pretty sure that’s the type of thing we’re looking at here.

  The thing I love about Paz is that it doesn’t bother her one little bit if I’m quiet. She’s more than happy to talk for the both of us. I think it’s about my only requirement for friendship anymore. Between work and school, it’s not like I’ve got time to be picky.

  I’m a candy striper, although I could have sworn the job had a different title when they let me start volunteering here. I got into it because the parents wouldn’t pay for the college they wanted me to go to in the first place if I didn’t.

  I wish I could say that my job is some amazing, fulfilling experience, the likes of which I can hardly even fathom. The truth is that I’m a glorified—and unpaid—hospital maid.

  Every once in a while, I get put in the gift shop, but that’s about the only time I ever see a smile in this place.

  There’s a commotion at the far end of the ER and without a word, Paz rushes over to see what’s causing the disturbance. A couple of doctors and nurses wheel a man into the ER on a stretcher.

  I’d love to follow Paz over there and help out, but I’d just get in the way. Candy stripers are ideal for autoclaving—not as exciting as it sounds—but whatever’s going on, it’s over my head.

  Still, I do find myself gradually making my way over in that direction, though I make sure to leave plenty of room between the patient and me. I’ve been yelled at by doctors before. It’s not fun.

  “I'm all right,” the bloodied man on the stretcher says, covering his nose with his hand. “Seriously, I’ve got that peroxide stuff or whatever at home. Seriously.”

  As I’m leaning against the counter of the nurse’s station, just trying to blend in, a man comes over to me, saying, “Call me crazy, but just taking a look at him, I’d say that’s a bad idea.”

  I glance over, asking, “Do you know him?”

  “Yeah,” the man says. “Right before he decided to take a detour into an oak tree, we were on our way to a thing. He’s going to be okay, right?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” I tell him.

  “Hey, Mick, this lady out here says you don’t have a chance, jackass,” the man calls to his friend.

  “Shut up, Rans,” he says. “I’m fine. Will you tell these doctors to get off of me?”

  “You know,” I tell Rans—whatever kind of name that is, “if he’d just stop struggling, they wouldn’t be trying to strap him to the bed.”

  Rans smiles at me and turns back to his friend. “What?” he calls, “So you’re just going to lie there and take it? If you’ve got a problem with it, put up a fight. What’s wrong with you?”

  It’s not easy, but I manage to conceal my amusement. “You see, that’s kinda the opposite of what I was telling you,” I say to Rans. “By the way: Rans?”

  “Short for Ransom,” he says.

  Ransom. That’s the stupidest nickname I’ve ever heard, and I've come across a lot of them, preferred nicknames being one of the lines on our intake form.

  “You can call me Eli, though,” he says and then starts cackling as Mick gets an arm free and star
ts swinging it wildly.

  “He’s going to hurt himself,” I tell Eli.

  He snickers. “Good thing he’s in a hospital, then.” I’m not sure if the guy wants to see his friend injure himself more than he already has or if Eli’s just got an unusually harsh sense of humor. Either way, the next words out of his mouth are, “You’re doing great there, bud. Don’t take any garbage from these people. You’re a free man!”

  Either this is just some big practical joke that both these guys are in on, or Eli’s friend is a bit of an idiot. I’m not to make judgments about people, but the man on the stretcher, who must have agreed to come to the hospital in the first place, shouts something to the effect of, “I’m an American citizen! You can’t do this to me!” The next thing I know, Dr. Perlman is calling for full body restraints.

  “This’ll go a lot easier if your friend calms down,” I tell Eli.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen, though,” Eli says. “The guy’s scared stupid of hospitals. The only way I even got him to agree to let me bring him was to take him in here myself and promise to talk to him.”

  “Do you think this is what he had in mind?”

  Eli grins. “You know, now that you mention it, we may not have gotten that far in the conversation.”

  I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to bring some sense of calm back to the room, but the view is funny. The man on the stretcher can’t be too injured, or he wouldn’t be throwing punches while the doctors are just trying to get him moved to the hospital bed.

  At least, that’s my justification for laughing along. It’s certainly not the fact that Eli’s tall, athletic, and has the kind of rich brown eyes that make me quiver a little on the inside.

  I’m just waiting for Paz to start going off on the guy. Eli’s friend may have the adrenaline, but Paz has the violent streak.

  “Mick?” Eli calls. “How are you doing, buddy?”

  “Did you see my car? How screwed is my car?” Eli’s friend—Mick, apparently—says.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” he answers.

  Mick stops struggling as much. He’s not calm or rational by any means, but at least he’s stopped throwing elbows.

  “That was actually rather nice-” I start.

  “I’m pretty sure the thing’s in so many pieces they’ll never know who owned it,” Eli interrupts me to rile up his friend. “Yeah, you’re out about fifty thou, but at least you won’t be spending too long in prison after the doctors here transfer you over to the state.”

  Before Mick can react, my palm is coming into contact with my forehead and I’m letting out a sigh.

  “Would somebody shut that guy up?” one of the doctors barks from inside the room.

  I turn to Eli. “You should probably ease back a little bit or they’re going to kick you out of the hospital,” I tell him.

  “What about Mick?” Eli asks. “He’s in there going for kidney shots.”

  “Oh, they’ll just dose him with a sedative. To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure why they haven’t done that already.”

  “That should be pretty fun to watch.”

  “Rans, I need you to talk to me, man!” Mick wheezes.

  “You’re doing great in there,” Eli says. “Just remember to keep your hands up. You don’t want to get caught exposing your chin.” I’m somewhere near telling Eli he should probably cool it now when he turns to me, saying, “So, what brings you here?”

  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 so
rt 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.