Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (16 page)

“Everything was fine
until I got that tickle in my throat,” I say. “I held it back as long as I
could, but after a while, I couldn’t help it. I had to cough.”

If I hadn’t coughed, I
wouldn’t have met Mick. Of course, if I hadn’t coughed, the guy probably
wouldn’t have slammed on the brakes, pulled over, gotten out, and pushed me up
against the side of the car with a knife to my throat, either.

I could have done without
that part.

“I thought I was going to
die right then and there,” I tell Mick.

“Nah,” he says. “I’d
already spotted the guy by the time the switchblade made its first appearance.”

It wasn’t a switchblade.
It was actually a rusted pocketknife, but Mick has a tendency to exaggerate
things.

“I remember just wanting
you to go away when you first walked up,” I chuckle. “I didn’t know if you were
there because you knew the guy and you were going to help him hide my body, or
if you just wanted him out of the way so you could take the car yourself.”

What
did
happen next was more of a surprise, though. I was just standing
there, my hands up while Roid Rage held that little shard of infection and
blood loss to my throat, when Mick moseyed on over and cleared his throat.

“How’s it going, fellas?”
Mick asked, though it didn’t seem like he was talking to me. “Looks like
there’s some kind of disagreement here and I thought I could help.”

Roid Rage told Mick to
“Piss off,” but he just stood there.

“You know,” Mick said to
the guy holding a knife to me, “I think you’ll find you’re not going to get a
lot of cutting action out of that blade. You’re not gonna hurt anyone with that
unless you stab them, I don’t think you’re going to have time to do that.”

The man pushed me against
the car harder with his non-knife hand and turned toward Mick, lifting his
two-inch blade a few inches in front of Mick’s eyes, saying something like, “Oh
yeah? Why’s that?”

 
The man was on the ground a second later,
doubled over and rolling around as he gasped for air. I remember in school,
kneeing a guy in the balls—even if it was the only way to avoid a beating—was
the kind of thing that would make a person lose friends.

Mick’s knee shooting up
between that asshat’s legs, though: that was a beautiful thing.

“It’s your car, but I’m
getting us out of here,” Mick told me as he picked up the pocketknife Roid Rage
had dropped on his way to the pavement.

Before I got into the
car, though, I made sure to give Roid Rage a good kick to the gut for trying to
steal what was then my home while I slept in it.

That’s how we met.

Mick took me from being a
stupid kid getting jacked on the side of the road and gave me a place to live
with an actual roof overhead. It’s for that reason he and I aren’t enemies
right now.

We chat a little bit more
about the early days before the curtain opens and a middle-aged doctor comes
into the room.

“So,” the doctor says,
“you’re Eli, huh?”

Here we go.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I’m
here about my friend, Mick, here, though.”

Dr. Chavez, Kate’s dad,
pulls up a rolling stool and grabs some latex gloves from a box on the
countertop. His hands are prodding Mick’s face when he continues, “Yeah, I’ve
heard about you,” Kate’s dad says.

“I bet,” I respond. It
comes off a bit hostile.

“So, is this what you
do?” he asks. “You find a girl that’s got everything going for her and you see
if you can’t just turn things around on her?”

“Not at all, sir,” I
answer. Why am I calling him “sir?”

“Listen, I’m sure you’re
a decent guy or whatever nonsense you’re going to unload on me to try to get me
to like you, but that’s my daughter,” he says. “Do you really think I’m just
going to lie down and let you take her off the course she’s been on her entire
life?”

“Ow!” Mick interjects as
Kate’s dad feels around my friend’s nose.

“Yep, it’s broken,” Dr.
Chavez announces. “So, what’s the big plan?” he asks me.

“Big plan?” I ask.

“This really hurts,” Mick
says, “can’t you give me something before you start-”

“Oh, don’t act like you
don’t have something in mind,” Kate’s dad says. “One of the things about
working in a place like this is that you really get to know a lot about people,
and I’ve met more people like you than I’d have liked.”

“You don’t know the first
thing about me,” I tell him, though I doubt it’ll change anything.

“Maybe not,” he says,
rolling over to one of the cupboards and pulling out some tape. “I know my
daughter, though.”

“Do you?” There’s no way
this guy’s going to like me. I may as well say what I think. “To me, it sounds
like you and Kate’s mom have been going out of your way to make sure she stays
miserable.”

Mick is crying out in
pain as Dr. Chavez grabs the bottom of Mick’s nose with the fingers of one hand
and the site of the fracture with the other. He gives Mick’s nose a short, but
hard tug, straightening it and before Mick can find his voice to scream in pain,
Dr. Chavez starts—I don’t know what else to call it—forcibly splinting Mick’s
nose.

Mick, who’d been doing
really well just lying there, has finally had enough.

“Ow, ow, damn it, ow!”
Mick shouts, knocking Dr. Chavez’s hands away from his face. “Okay, first off,
I don’t know why you’re taking out your anger on him on me. Second off, this
guy you’re sitting there badmouthing is at least as protective of Kate as you
are! Oh, and by the way, you’re a horrible doctor.”

“What are you talking
about?” Kate’s dad asks.

“I tried to make a move
on her,” Mick says. “Why do you think I’m in here?”

Kate’s dad looks up at
me.

“You did this?” he asks.
“Well, I’d assumed you did this, but you were trying to protect Kate?”

He doesn’t call her
Kathryn like her mom does. Huh.

“Yeah,” Mick answers for
me. “So before you start punishing the innocent, maybe you should climb off
that high horse and realize Eli’s on your side.”

“So what?” Kate’s dad
asks. “I’m supposed to think he’s suddenly a great guy because he beats up
people who look at her funny?”

“I didn’t beat him up
because he looked at her funny,” I tell him. “He tried to kiss her after she’d
made it very clear that she didn’t want him to.”

Mick’s looking at me with
wide eyes, shaking his head. I get the impression he’s worried that telling the
full story might encourage the doctor to inflict some more justice on him.

“Is that what she told
you?” Kate’s dad asks me.

“Yeah,” I answer.

He leans back against one
wall of the room. He asks Mick, “Is that what happened?”

Mick’s hands are shaking
and his face is a little paler than usual, but he says, “Yeah. I made a stupid
mistake.” A beat or two passes before Mick adds, “I’ve paid for it.”

I smile with half my
mouth.

“Well,” Dr. Chavez says,
leaning forward again, approaching Mick’s nose again, this time with a lot more
care and gentleness, “that certainly changes things, doesn’t it?”

Something about the way
he’s asking gives me the impression he’s not entirely serious, though I can’t
put my finger on why that is. I don’t answer.

“There you go,” Dr.
Chavez says to Mick. “You’ll need to keep it clean and try not to mess with it,
but that splint should help keep things in line until it has a chance to heal.”
He looks back up at me. “So, someone tried to take something that my daughter
wasn’t willing to give and that someone ended up in the hospital as a result,
eh?”

Kate’s mom is
intimidating, definitely, but I’m starting to get the feeling her dad is more
weird than anything.

“I guess you could say
that,” I tell him.

“Well,” he says, pulling
his gloves off, the latex snapping loudly, “I suppose maybe we should try this
again. Hi,” he says, holding out his now bare hand toward me, “I’m Hugo, Kate’s
dad. It’s nice to meet you, Eli.”

“Seriously?” Mick asks,
and I’m just praying my stupid friend doesn’t make a crack about the name.
“Your name is seriously Hugo Chavez?” Mick repeats.

“It’s a common name where
I come from,” Dr. Chavez says and then looks down at his hand before turning
his attention back at me. “You’re not going to leave me hanging, are you?”

I reach out and shake the
man’s hand. At first, I’m expecting him to use some of his doctor’s voodoo to
hit a pressure point and make my heart stop or something, but it’s a normal,
friendly shake.

“All right,” Dr. Hugo
Chavez says. “I’m on your side, but it’s not going to be easy convincing Kate’s
mother.”

I’m surprised and a bit
confused, but I can’t help but smile. Glancing over at Mick, I say, “Well, it
looks like I should probably start kicking your ass more often, wouldn’t you
agree?”

Mick doesn’t seem very
amused.

Chapter
Fifteen

Kate’s Night

Kate

Eli’s coming by the house
to pick me up, and I’m nervous. Mom’s not home, and I know Dad’s been saying
for the last week that he’s changed his mind about the situation, but I have a
hard time believing things are going to be smooth when Eli shows up.

Oddly enough, though,
when the knock falls on the front door, my dad makes sure he’s the one to
answer it.

I’m sitting in the dining
room, just out of sight of the front room and the door, but I can hear the
brief conversation very well.

“Hey there, Eli,” Dad
says. “Here to pick Kate up for the evening, huh?”

“Sure am,” Eli answers,
and I think I’ve landed in another dimension.

Dad may not agree with
Mom all the time, but you’d never know it. He never goes against anything she
says.

“Well come on in. She
should be about ready.”

It’s not like there have
ever been that many guys stopping by the house, but I’ve never heard any of my
dates spoken to with any kind of respect by either one of my parents. This just
got weird for me.

I get up from my seat and
look around for something to do to make it look like I’m getting ready. While
I’m at it, I look for an explanation for why I’m doing this.

Eli comes into the room a
second or two after I drop the charade, and he glances over at my dad. Dad’s
just standing there by Eli, his arms crossed and a big, goofy grin on his face.

“Dad, I’m going to go out
with Eli for a little while, is that all right?” I ask.

It’s been a while since I
asked because I always knew the answer to any question was almost certain to be
no. Still, I’m a little off-balance at the moment.

“Of course,” Dad says.
“You two kids have fun and be safe out there.”

That’s it.

No yelling, no
chastising, no forbidding of anything. For a second, I have to stop and ask
myself when my dad stopped caring, but that doesn’t look like what this is.

I don’t know what this
is.

“You got it,” Eli says,
very much coming off the well-mannered gentleman I never dated in high school.

I walk up to Eli and we
turn to leave.

“You’re not going to give
the guy a hug at least?”

I spin around to face my
father. “What?”

“I’m not saying I want
the two of you trading gum in my kitchen or anything, but you don’t have to be
afraid to hug your boyfriend in front of me,” he answers.

I look at Eli and I look
back at my dad.

Now on the spot, I give
Eli a quick, awkward hug and we start heading toward the door.

“Don’t worry, bud,” Dad
calls after us. “I’ll work on her mom.”

The door is hardly closed
behind us before I’m asking, “Okay, what was that?”

“I’m not entirely sure,”
Eli says. “Your dad and I kind of hit it off when I had to take Mick to the
hospital last week, but I didn’t know he’d landed that far away from the
fence.”

“He loves you,” I tell
him.

Eli shrugs. “Hey, it
could be worse,” he says. “He could always go back to hating me.”

I don’t know why that
sounds like the better option.

We get into Eli’s
Galaxie, fresh out of the shop with whatever broke most recently on it
assumedly fixed, and we get in.

Tonight’s plans are
simple: dinner and an illegal drag race or ten. It’s really going to depend on
how long it takes the cops to break it up, I guess. By the time we’re pulling
up to the restaurant, though, I’d kind of rather just go home.

Eli asks me if I’m all right
as we get out of the car.

“Fine,” I tell him. “I
guess I’m just a little weirded out by my dad and all that.”

“Got ya,” he says and
then goes on like that’s the end of the story.

If I knew how to
articulate what I’m feeling, I’d probably say something else on the topic, but
I’m still working on that at the moment.

We’re seated and Eli’s
looking over the menu while I sit here and look at my water. This shouldn’t
feel so strange. Nothing’s changed between Eli and me. The only difference at
all from what I can tell is that my dad’s no longer spouting Mom’s propaganda.

Still, as I look at him
on the other side of the table, looking over his stupid menu, I can’t help but
feel this frustration growing inside of me. For now, though, I do what I can to
not let it show.

The waitress comes back
to take our orders. Eli orders something I’m not paying attention well enough
to hear and then the waitress turns to me, only I don’t know what I want to
get.

How can I decide? I
haven’t even had a look at the menu.

“Would you mind giving me
another minute?” I ask.

“Sure thing,” the
waitress says, smiling.

She walks off, and I’m
leaning over the table, saying, “You know, I’m really not feeling all that
well. I think I might just need you to take me home. Is that all right?”

“Yeah,” Eli says, setting
down his water glass. “I’ll find the waitress and let her know to cancel the
order and we’ll get out of here. You gonna be okay?”

“I will be all right,” I
answer. “I think I just need to lie down for a while.”

I do feel sick, but it’s
more existential ennui than it is any physical ailment.

Eli gets up to find the
waitress, and I gather my things. As I didn’t really bring anything into the
restaurant, gathering my things adds up to moving my purse a little closer to
my body and positioning my legs so I can get out of this booth with a single
move.

When Eli returns, I’m
already out of my seat, and we walk back out of the restaurant, eliciting
confused looks from a few of the waitresses as they half-heartedly tell us to
“come again.”

“Is there anything I can
do for you?” Eli asks as we’re walking to the car.

He really is a caring
guy, Eli.

“I’m sick,” I snap at
him. “People get sick, it happens. Can you just take me home?”

Okay, that was a little
more than I meant to say.

“I’m sorry,” he says as
he opens my car door and holds it for me until I get in.

He closes the door, and
while he’s walking around to his side, I’m muttering, “Oh, I’m sorry, Kate. I’m
sorry things are going so well for you and you can’t be happy, Kate. I’m sorry
you can’t realize that I’m just the nicest guy in the world, Kate.”

I manage to get through
the last one before he opens his door.

He gets in and starts the
car.

“What is with this stupid
thing, anyway?” I ask.

“Why?” he returns. “Did
you hear something? Did something come off of it?”

I sigh. I don’t know why
I’m being so short with him. I’m just so angry right now.

“It’s a piece of crap,” I
tell him. “How many times have you had to fix this thing since we met? What,
like five? Ten? How many do I not even know about?”

“Whoa,” he says. “I get
that you’re not feeling well, but you don’t have to take it out on me.”

“Maybe I want to take it
out on you,” I snap back.

“Yeah,” he mutters, just
loud enough that I can hear him over this stupid car’s stupid engine, “every time
a door closes, a window opens somewhere nearby for me to jump out of to my
horrible death.”

It’s close enough to how
I’m feeling that I just let the comment slide.

We’re back at my house.
It feels like we only left five minutes ago. I guess that’s not too far off the
mark, though.

“Do you want me to help
you inside?” he asks.

I look toward the
driveway. Dad’s car is still here. Mom’s isn’t.

“No,” I tell him. “I just
need to lie down. Thanks.”

I open my door and get
out without anything further said or done between us. As I’m walking to the
door, it’s unclear whether Eli’s waiting to see that I get in the house all
right or if his car just broke down again. Personally, I don’t really care at
the moment.

Whatever’s bothering me
isn’t his fault, but that knowledge only frustrates me more. Things get even
worse when I walk into the house and Dad starts asking me why I’m home so
early. I just turn and head up the stairs without a word.

This isn’t the kind of
end to the evening I was hoping for before Eli came by to pick me up, but after
Dad started swooning, I lost my appetite for everything but solitude.

It’s not Eli’s fault. I
don’t know whose fault it is.

I feel bad about talking
to him the way I did, and for my behavior as well, but my hand never goes for my
phone to call and apologize. Right now, I think I’d just rather be alone.

What’s changed, though?

Eli hasn’t been doing
anything differently as far as I can tell, and yet every time he would open his
stupid mouth, those stupid words would come out, and finally, I just couldn’t
take it anymore.

Maybe Mom’s been right
all along. I haven’t mentioned this to her or Dad, and I think Eli just thinks
I have an odd schedule, but I’ve been missing class and work. Everything Mom
tried to convince me was going to happen is already happening.

It’s ironic that it took
my dad changing his mind about Eli for me to realize it.

I can’t say Eli’s
entirely to blame. I’m the one that’s been shirking my responsibilities, but
he’s the one that’s always talking about how people should do what makes them
happy instead of wasting all their time on something that’s never going to be
worth it.

Okay, so he’s never said
it quite like that, but that’s basically the idea, right?

That kind of thinking was
all well and good when I was a teenager, but I’m an adult now. If I don’t get
prepared for my life, how am I supposed to be ready when it comes time to start
living it?

I can’t believe I let Eli
set me back this far.

My mouth is getting a bit
dry, so I leave my room and sneak downstairs for a soda, hoping to avoid my dad
on my way. I’m not so lucky.

“Hey, you came back and
headed up to your room so quick I didn’t know if you were all right. I was
actually just about to come up and check on you. What happened?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I
tell him. “I just came downstairs for a Pepsi.”

“Something’s obviously
bothering you,” he says. “Are things not going so well with Eli?”

I scoff. “Why? What made
you change your mind about him anyway? A week or two ago and you were right
there letting the slander fly right along with Mom. Now, you’re like Mr. Rogers
or something.”

“I do have a fantastic
collection of sweaters,” he says. I’m not in the mood for joking. “Sweetheart,
I just realized I’d been unfair to him. Once I got a chance to talk to him a
little, we hit it off pretty well.”

“When did you have a
chance to talk to him?”

Dad lifts his head like
he’s getting ready to nod, saying, “He didn’t tell you we talked, did he?”

“He said you two talked
when he was taking Mick to the hospital for a checkup or something, but you
were nothing but vitriol about the whole idea of him and me. What changed?” I
ask.

“I just realized that
he’s eager to protect you much the same way I am,” Dad says. “When you’re a dad
with a daughter, you want to make sure whoever she ends up with is going to
look after her, take care of her-”

“Eager to protect me?”

Dad’s eyes flash wide for
an instant, and he’s putting his hand on my shoulder now, saying, “I don’t
generally condone violence, but you’ve got to admit that young man had it
coming.”

“You’re talking about
Mick?” I ask. “How did you…” I trail off as it all comes together.

I’d seen the bandage on
Mick’s nose and there was the fact that he didn’t want to talk about that so
much as he wanted to apologize to me profusely, all the while asking if it was
all right for him to apologize.

I’m not stupid. Even
though Mick wouldn’t say anything, I figured what happened to his nose had to
have been Eli’s work.

Still, thinking that and
knowing that are very different things.

“So Eli did break Mick’s
nose?” I ask myself just as much as I’m asking Dad.

He nods.

“If he’d just beat
someone up, I’d be even more against him than I was,” he starts, “but the man
was, if you’ll excuse the expression, defending your honor. How can I not be on
board with that?”

I’m such an idiot.

I’ve been so short with
Eli. Tonight, I probably would have been better off if I’d stapled my lips
closed before he showed up to pick me up for our date.

I glance at the clock on
the wall. Eli didn’t know where the drag was going to be earlier. He told me
when we made the date that he doesn’t usually find out anything but the meet
spot with any kind of advanced notice—he may have phrased it differently—but by
now, he’s probably already there.