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

by Alycia Taylor

  “We went out when we were teenagers, but we never really worked as a relationship,” he answers. “We were always a lot better at being friends.”

  “Why are you being so honest?”

  “Would you rather I lied to you?”

  I sigh. “No,” I tell him. “Isn’t that the sort of thing people usually lie about when they’re in a committed relationship, though?”

  “That’s the kind of thing people lie about if they want to ruin a committed relationship,” Eli retorts. “Kate, there’s honestly nothing going on between me and Desi.”

  Desi’s a stupid name for a stupid person and I hope I never see her stupid face or I’m going to have to punch her in her stupid nose.

  “I’ve always loved that name,” I tell him. “You’ll understand if I’m a little hesitant about that, though.”

  Eli sighs. “I know it sounds like a bad thing, but there’s really nothing left between her and I,” he says. “Besides, it’s not like we’re back in each other’s lives in some huge way. We ran into each other when I was out with Mick and the guys.”

  This isn’t how we’re going to get the relationship back on track. Either I’ve got to stop being jealous, or he’s got to stop seeing his “friend.” Either option seems like a lot of work without any guarantee of results.

  Is it worth it? I guess there’s only one way to figure that out.

  “I could probably go for some dinner,” I tell him. “Did you have something in mind?”

  “Whatever you want,” he says. “This is your party. We can go wherever you want.”

  I don’t know what to do in a situation like this. I’ve spent the last few days thinking it was over between Eli and me, and while that may have been premature, the feeling isn’t quite gone yet.

  “We’ve got to figure out a way to communicate better,” I tell him. “Whatever we’re doing now isn’t going to cut it.”

  “I’m with you,” he says. “Actually, that’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. So, do you want to go out and celebrate?”

  Why would he tell me he’d been chatting with an ex-girlfriend unless nothing happened? That doesn’t seem like a bright plan if something was going on with them.

  At the same time, he could have just been giving me a little bit of uncomfortable truth so I’d be less likely to think there’s another shoe waiting to drop.

  He sounds happy, though, like he’s excited to take me out to celebrate. Maybe something’s going on, maybe not. All I know right now is that I’m never going to know if things can work out with us if I’m not willing to try.

  “All right,” I tell him. “Would you mind if we take my car, though?”

  “That’s fine,” he says. “The Galaxie’s in the shop, anyway.”

  If we do end up staying together, I think we’re going to have to have a talk about that car of his at some point.

  * * *

  When I get to Eli’s place—an apartment I still haven’t seen the inside of—he’s waiting for me by the curb. As I’m pulling up, a big smile comes over his face.

  I take the key out of the ignition and get out of the car, saying, “I know we’re taking my car, but would you mind driving? After all the moving I’ve been doing today, I could use the break.”

  “I wish we’d connected before you moved,” he says. “I could have helped.”

  Yeah, I’m trying not to think about that right now.

  “Sure, though,” he continues. “I’ll drive.”

  I toss him the keys and get in the passenger’s seat.

  Eli gets in and we’re on our way, though we haven’t settled on where we’re going yet. After about fifteen minutes of driving past restaurants, I finally say, “Just pick something. I’m really not in the mood to make any decisions right now.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I tell him, letting him hear the frustration in my voice.

  “Okay,” he says. “Do you want to get something to go or do you want to dine in?”

  “Why haven’t I seen your apartment?” I ask. “You’ve been in my house a few times, and my parents live there.”

  “We can grab something and take it back to my place if you want,” he says. “Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of my time there, so I guess I hadn’t realized I hadn’t invited you in yet.”

  “Let’s do that,” I tell him.

  Here we are, on our way to celebrate my new apartment, and I’m insisting that we eat at Eli’s. The evening could have had a better start.

  After driving for a few more minutes, he asks if I’m up for Italian.

  “As long as it’s not Olive Garden,” I tell him. “If I wanted lazy, flavorless pasta, I’d ask my mom to cook.”

  He chuckles as we drive past Olive Garden.

  “You know,” I tell him finally, “I’m really not all that hungry. Do you have anything to drink at your place?”

  “I think so,” he says. “I should have some stuff left over from the last time Mick crashed on the couch. We can always hit a liquor store on the way back.”

  “Hit?” I ask.

  Eli glances over at me with a smirk. “Go to,” he says. “I didn’t mean we should rob the place.”

  “Ah,” I respond.

  “Apart from traffic violations and some light money laundering, I’m actually a pretty law-abiding kind of guy,” he says.

  “Oh, well that’s a relief,” I tell him.

  He looks over at me, and I know he’s trying to figure out whether I’m serious or not. For whatever reason, I start laughing.

  Eli’s snickering in a particularly nervous way, but that only makes the situation more hilarious to me.

  “What?” he asks as I’m wiping a tear from my eye.

  I’m trying to stifle my remaining laughter, but it’s difficult. “Life’s just funny sometimes,” I tell him.

  We stop by a liquor store, and over Eli’s many protests I grab a nice, big bottle of tequila.

  I have been drunk exactly once in my life, and that was just because Paz would give me the stink eye every time she ordered a drink and I passed. Still, I think we’re going to need something if we’re going to get through the new awkwardness and find a way to get back to where we were before that night in the restaurant.

  When we pull up in front of Eli’s place, I’m cradling the bottle of tequila like an infant with a very different kind of bottle. The funny thing is that the longer I hold it, the less I want to drink.

  What Eli and I need right now is a way to relieve some tension, but I don’t think alcohol’s going to be the way to do it. The obvious next choice for tension relief is sex, but I’m not quite there.

  Eli walks me up to his door, and he unlocks it. Opening the door, he leaves the light off until we’re both inside and the door is closed behind us.

  I’m half-expecting a surprise party or something before he flips on the lights, and another reason for his discretion becomes apparent.

  “Where did you get all this?”

  Along with the things I expected—the huge television, the occasional tool or car part tucked away nearly out of sight—there is a lot that I didn’t. There are fine art prints on all the walls and all of his furniture is either modern and expensive, or very old…and very expensive.

  “Races, mostly,” he says. “A lot of people will insist on a pink slip when their opponent can’t pay their losses, but I hate to take someone’s ride if they didn’t put it up in the first place. So, when I can, I offer them the chance to trade. New people don’t usually have too much, but if you can get someone who’s been racing for a while into a position like that, you can end up with some pretty crazy stuff.”

  “My parents actually have this exact print,” I tell Eli, gazing over a surrealist piece featuring a sun shaped like a cracker “setting” into an ocean of what I’ve always thought looked like fondue cheese.

  “It’s not a print,” he says. “That’s the original. I actually took that instead of the guy’s
car about a year back. I didn’t even know it wasn’t a print, much less worth anything until I took it in to a pawn shop and saw the guy’s expression when I asked how much I could get for it.”

  “If you didn’t think it was worth anything, why’d you take it?”

  Eli shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t feel right about separating a noob from his car so quick.”

  “And this one,” I say, gazing at a sculpture of a headless man playing basketball. “This is exquisite.”

  Eli’s chuckling behind me, and I realize the man in the sculpture isn’t playing basketball, he’s attempting to throw his own severed head.

  “If I’d known you were into art, I would have brought you here a long time ago,” he says.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  He takes a deep breath. I mirror the action.

  This is where it begins: the conversation that’s either going to make or break the relationship.

  “I feel like we’ve been hiding from each other,” I tell him.

  “What do you mean?”

  I turn around to look at him. “There are parts of your life I know nothing about,” I tell him, “and I know there are things I haven’t told you, either.”

  “It takes time to get to know a person,” he says. “I think we’re doing all right, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I don’t think our problems are anyone’s fault. I think you and I come from different backgrounds, and it’s only natural that we’d hit some speed bumps,” he says. “What matters, though, is whether this relationship is something we want to pursue or not.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s what matters.”

  “What’s on your mind?” he asks. “You obviously have something you want to say.”

  My eyes move over Eli’s entertainment center.

  Other people may focus on the fact that Eli’s got seven different gaming consoles, but I’m more concerned about the fact that he’s got his outrageously large flat-screen setting on top of what certainly looks like an authentic Baker Georgian-style Serpentine Front Chest.

  The parents tried to take up antiquing a few years ago. It was very educational, but it didn’t last long.

  “You know that chest of drawers is worth more than the television, right?” I ask.

  “Really?” he asks. “I mean, I know that—I had the thing appraised—but you got me all ready for a serious discussion and—”

  “I know, I know,” I interrupt. “Look, my life is changing. I’d be either stupid or cruel to think that’s not largely because of you, but things are hard right now. I’m living on my own for the first time ever and I’m going to have to quit my job as a volunteer at the hospital, otherwise I’m never going to have enough money to make it work, and I do not want to go back and live with the parents again.”

  “I think I might actually have something for you if you’re interested,” he says.

  I smile and shake my head. “I really don’t know enough about cars to work on them,” I tell him. “I mean, I’ve been reading up on combustion engines and the history of the automobile to try to psych myself up—anyway,” I say interrupting myself.

  “It’s not that,” he says. “There’s a race coming up—mostly new people. I only know about it because Mick keeps his ear to the ground about that sort of thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” he starts, “I’ve told you how Mick’s better with the theory of racing than he is at actually racing, right?”

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  “Well, he found out a while ago that if he goes up against people who are still on their first or second races, they won’t know he’s an old-timer,” Eli says. “Once people find out you’ve been doing this a while, they’re less likely to bet big. Mick, in his infinite lack of benevolence, likes to be the lesson new people around here have to learn.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you never go up against someone who’s both interested in racing you and has been doing it for a while,” Eli answers. “When you’re new, you feel ready to take on anyone, but after a few big losses, you start to be a lot more selective about who you choose to go up against.”

  “Whom,” I correct. Apparently being away from my mother has caused me to pick up at least one of her more annoying quirks.

  Eli raises an eyebrow at me, but we’re both smiling. “Anyway,” he says, “I told Mick to hold off on poaching because I didn’t know if you might want to try to get into it. We can talk about that later, though, if you want.”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m going to have to think about that. I mean, it’s not like my Accord is going to be able to hold up against too much out there.”

  “Obviously, you’d want to take the Chevelle,” he says.

  At first it comes off like an accusation, but his expression is blank. If it’s a joke or an insult, he’s gotten a much better poker face than the last time I saw him.

  “You’d do that?” I ask. “That thing’s your baby, though.”

  “It’s a car,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t let just anyone take the thing out, but ever since we first got together, you’ve only ever really asked me for one thing: to teach you to race.”

  “Is that really the foundation of our relationship?” I ask myself just as much as Eli.

  “No,” he says. “The foundation of our relationship is that we’re both incredibly attractive and delightful to be around. I just thought this might be a fun way to make a little money. If you’re not into it, that’s totally cool, though.”

  “I feel like we’ve gotten a bit off topic, here,” I tell Eli.

  “All right,” he says.

  “I’m not going to be one of those women who decides we need to learn everything about each other in a night, but I really do think we’re going to need to open up to each other a lot more if we’ve got any chance of making it as a couple,” I tell him.

  “I know,” he agrees. He opens his mouth to say more, but he closes it. Eli takes the bottle I’d forgotten I’ve been carrying around with me this whole time and he opens it. He takes a quick swig and hands it back to me uncapped while he coughs and sputters from the taste of the liquor.

  If he needs a drink before he feels like he can tell me something, I’m not going to get in the way of him telling it. My guard is up, and I’m ready for whatever he throws at me. Only, what follows isn’t a confession.

  “I haven’t exactly had the most respectable life up ‘til now,” Eli says. “You know about the racing and how the money goes through the shop, but there’s a lot of stuff—stuff from before you and I knew each other—that might be good for you to know.”

  “Like what?”

  He takes the bottle from me again and has another drink.

  “Let’s just say, I would have killed to have had overprotective parents when I was a kid,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to start a competition to find out who had worse parents. It’s just—you know, I left home so young. I don’t know. I haven’t been consciously trying to hide anything from you, I guess I’m just trying to say that I see your point and I agree with you.”

  “You know, if you could manage saying those last nine or ten words more often, we wouldn’t have any problems,” I tease.

  He smirks. “I guess I’ve been so concerned about how you feel about who I am now that I didn’t want to risk screwing things up by telling you the way things used to be,” he says.

  Red flag, but we’ll see where it goes.

  “All right,” I tell Eli. “Tell me something you haven’t told me before.”

  He scratches the back of his neck. “Well,” he starts, “would it surprise you to find out that Ransom isn’t a nickname?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s my middle name,” he says. “My full name is Elias Ransom Faust.”

  That’s not the sort of thing I was expecti
ng. “Your parents actually named you Ransom?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “From what I understand, my parents were talking divorce when mom found out she was pregnant. After a couple of paternity tests proved that my dad was, indeed, my dad, they sat down and had a conversation. Basically, the conclusion was that if they got divorced, one of them would end up with custody and would use the kid—me—as a weapon against the other. They agreed that night that they’d stay together until I was eighteen and out on my own.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Until I was about six,” I tell her. “To be fair, though, seeing the two of them at the time, I was even surprised they’d made it that long. The idea was that if there was some way they could constantly remind each other what would happen if they couldn’t stay together—that one parent would hold me until some ridiculous set of demands was met—they’d be that much more likely to work out whatever problem they were having at the time and stay together. So, they decided to call a leverage baby a leverage baby and they gave me the middle name ‘Ransom.’ Then, of course, my dad left my mom and took me with him.”

  “What happened to your mom?”

  This isn’t the exact topic that I was expecting, but he’s communicating. It’s something we can build on.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Dad told me she died a few years after he took me. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I remember enough about her that I don’t want to see her any more than I saw my dad.”

  “What do you mean he ‘took’ you?” I ask. “Didn’t he and your mom work something out?”

  “Apparently, my middle name didn’t make my dad a better person,” he says. “He didn’t bother telling me the truth until I was about fifteen and, well, by that point, I was already waiting for a reason to cut my losses and get the hell out of there.”

  “So the name ended up just being ironic?”

  He smirks. “I guess so,” he says. “After that, I took my dad’s car—which was easy enough as the thing already didn’t need a key to start it.”

  “That’s why you won’t let go of that car,” I observe. “It’s the only thing you have from your old life.”

  “I don’t know if it’s the only thing I have,” Eli says. “I did make sure to bring a few posters along, but yeah. I don’t know, talking about it makes me think it’s pretty stupid to hold onto something like that. Every time I look at the damn thing, I think about my parents. I don’t know. I guess I’d just rather pretend that I got something good out of my childhood and that’s about the only thing I can point out as evidence for something like that.”