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

  “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 mea
n, 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?”

  “Yeah, man,” I say, doing my best to slather on the sarcasm. “I bet she goes home nights just thinking about you and the adorable way you lose your head every time someone comes near you with a stethoscope.”

  “Say what you want, man,” he says, nodding. “That girl wants me.”

  “What if I say that she’s not into you?” I ask. “What if I say she’s into me?”

  “You?” he laughs. “Come on, Rans. I like you, but you’re not exactly a woman’s wet dream.”

  “Do you mind?” the bitter nurse on the other side of the curtain barks.

  “Okay, care to make it interesting?” I ask Mick in a softer voice.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking the cost of your hospital bill,” I tell him. “After a week and all the trouble that you’ve put these people through, that’s going to be some pretty good money.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” I tell him. “You make your move, I’ll make mine. First one with a phone number wins.” I turn my head toward the curtain and say, “No matter who wins, she never hears about this and we’ll cut both of you in for ten percent each. Sound good?”

  “Easiest money I’ll ever make,” Mr. Rafferty says.

  I’m expecting the nurse to put up more of a fight, but she responds, “I’ve seen his bill, honey. I never heard a thing.”

  I turn back to Mick. Now that the pressure is sufficiently on, I’m counting the money in my head. It’s not the noblest thing, but betting is what pays the bills. Racing is just the fun part.

  “So you’re saying if I can get her phone number, you’re going to pay my hospital bill?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “We’re definitely into five figures by now. If you’re going to need to take some time off racing to recover, I mean, how are you going to pay that bill?”

  “But if you get her phone number first, I’m going to have to pay twice as much,” he finishes. “I know what you’re gonna do, though. You’re going to walk out of this room, tell her some crap about being worried about me, and ask if she can give you a call to let you know that I’m all right. No deal.”

  “No, no,” I shake my head. “No tricks. Make your move, I’ll make mine. If she doesn’t give either of us her phone number, then Mr. Rafferty and Nurse…”

  I wait a second.

  “Pratchett,” the nurse answers.

  “Really?” I ask. “Your name is Nurse Pratchett?”

  “Is something funny?” Nurse Pratchett growls.

  I turn back to Mick. “If neither of us gets the number, they can tell her about the bet. It’s a win, win.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “except the guy that loses.”

 
I make sure he sees me looking up at the clock and I get out of my chair. “Well man, it’s been great talking to you, but it looks like visiting hours are over, so I’m gonna-”

  “You really think she’s going to give you her number, don’t you?” he asks.

  “I have no idea,” I tell him. “I’m just betting that she’s not going to give it to you, and I’m looking forward to seeing the aftermath.”

  Kate said she was off in a few minutes. If I can get out of this room before she has time to get to her car, I’m sure I can catch up with her.

  “Well, man,” I say. “May the best man win, etcetera, etcetera. I’ve got to go see about dumping a new carburetor in the Galaxie. I’ll talk to you later, man.”

  “Wait,” he says, and I stop, already halfway out the door.

  I turn around. “Yeah?” I ask, really wanting to meet up with Kate tonight. Otherwise, I’m going to have to camp out here with the wounded animal or else I may never see her in time to win the bet.

  “Could you do me a favor and just tell Maye that I might be out a few more days, but I’ll be back at work just as soon as my lawyer gets me out of here?”

  “Oh, right,” I chuckle. “She wanted me to tell you that if you’re not there by tomorrow morning, she’s outsourcing your job to Freedonia.”

  He starts laughing. “Tell Maye to keep her Marx Brothers routine to herself. I’ll be out of here when I get out of here.”

  “Knew she made it up, huh?”

  “Nope,” he says. “It’s from a Marx Brothers bit. If you’re going to catch her, Romeo, you should probably get a move on.”

  This is why I have so much fun messing with Mick. He’ll draw you in with conversation, say some things that are probably below what you’d hope his IQ would allow, and then, out of nowhere, he flicks you off his shoulder.

  I walk out of Mick’s room and head toward the elevators. She could already be gone, but it’s worth a shot.

  I press the button to call the elevator. The blue digital display above shows 1. I’m on the third floor.

  By the time the elevator gets up here, I could be at the bottom of the stairs.