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

by Alycia Taylor

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Race

  Eli

  It’s almost midnight, and I’m pacing over the oil-stained concrete of the shop. Kate’s leaning against the door of her car while Mick spins his keychain around his finger on the other side of the shop.

  The call was supposed to come in before now.

  The Chevelle’s already loaded onto the back of the flatbed. Everything’s ready to go. We just don’t know where.

  “You don’t think he’d-” Kate starts, but stops herself.

  “What?” I ask, finally stopping long enough to stand in one place.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “You don’t think Jax would just not give you the information and then say that you forfeited, would he?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past that guy,” Mick says.

  The thought had crossed my mind. “There’s not much we can do about that if he does. All we can do is wait and hope for the best.”

  It’s so quiet in here, the sound of my shoes on the concrete as I resume my pacing is almost painfully loud. Of course, with sweaty palms, dry throat, and the taste of pennies in my mouth, it’s also possible my adrenaline’s just in overdrive.

  My phone buzzes and it’s in my hand and out of my pocket before the second ring.

  “Ransom,” I answer.

  “Entrance to Ghost Town,” the woman’s voice says. “You have ten minutes. Don’t bother with the truck. You won’t make it in time.”

  I hang up the phone.

  “We need to get the Chevelle off the truck right now,” I bark. “They’re doing it in Ghost Town. We only have ten minutes to get there.”

  Kate and Mick spring into action. The two of them focus on getting the ramps unfastened and in position while I uncover the car.

  I get in and back the car down the ramp. There’s no time to open the window, so I crack my door, saying, “Get in.”

  The passenger’s seat is sitting in one corner of the shop, but there’s no other option if I’m going to have any friendly faces waiting for me at the finish line.

  Kate quickly gets in on the passenger’s side, but Mick says, “Just go. I’ll meet you at the finish line.”

  I close my door and reverse out of the shop before flipping the car around with a J-turn.

  The “entrance” isn’t anything official. It’s actually just a particularly large graffito reading, “Welcome to Ghost Town,” written across the side of a building.

  What makes me nervous is that Ghost Town is hardly a secret. It’s where I took Kate on her first chase, and it’s where she got pulled over and arrested. Even before that, though, too many people started going through there, and always for something that comes with a jail term attached to it.

  I don’t know if it takes ten minutes to find the crowd, but there’s at least one car parked in the road—all the others are pulled off to the side.

  “I’m going to have to let you out and then roll up,” I tell Kate. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take the other cars to get here, but I doubt we’re going to wait long.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Also, I should probably tell you…” she trails off.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. We can talk about it after you win.”

  “Anything I should be worried about?”

  “No,” she says as I come to a stop about twenty feet behind the ’05 Nissan 350Z Twin Turbo on the road ahead. “Just focus on the moment and have fun,” she says, then gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before climbing out of the car.

  I pull up to the line.

  Glancing over, the guy in the Nissan isn’t Jax.

  I take a look at my gauges. Fuel’s a bit low, but unless this race turns into a marathon, I should be all right. I topped off my nitrous this morning.

  Headlights appear a little ways behind me and I’m looking in my mirror to make sure it’s not a cop. It’s not, but that’s hardly a relief.

  The car pulling up next to me is a clearly modded-up Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG.

  She’s not Jax, either.

  When Jax does finally pull up after another minute, though, I kind of wish I’d elected to leave town.

  The bastard’s pulling up in a Pagani Zonda. Even if he never added so much as a removable cup holder, the guy’s sitting in almost two million dollars’ worth of car. As he releases his nitrous purge, I think it’s safe to say the thing’s not stock.

  My phone rings in my pocket, but I let it go to voicemail. Whoever’s calling, they can wait. Of course, when my phone rings again and Jax honks his horn, I change my mind.

  “Ransom,” I answer.

  “The race will end where it begins,” the woman’s voice says. “You will follow the course. Each checkpoint is being monitored. Any missed checkpoint will disqualify you.”

  “How’s it marked this time?” I ask, but she’s already hung up.

  Oh well, worth a shot.

  A new man in a dark suit walks out into the middle of the road. He points to Jax and immediately raises and drops his hands.

  I probably don’t lose more than half a second or so with the unexpected start, but it’s enough time for Jax to get off the line and out in front of the pack.

  The Nissan hits his nitrous almost immediately, and almost catches up to Jax. When the Zonda takes a hard left, though, the Nissan cruises right through the intersection, apparently disqualifying him from the race.

  We’re only about ten seconds in.

  I slow for the turn Jax made, but I’m not seeing any signs. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rules applied to everyone but Jax.

  It’s not until I’m almost on top of the turn that I see the yellow arrow painted on top of the yellow crosswalk sign. I manage to make the turn, but I lose a lot of speed in the process.

  Jax’s headlights are at least a block ahead, and I’m just hoping this race is a long one; otherwise, it’s already over.

  I gain a little bit of ground, but the next corner throws me as the red arrow is painted over a stop sign.

  Jax isn’t taking any chances.

  I come around the next corner, only I don’t see Jax’s taillights. I was going to use him to tell where to turn, but he’s already made his next one. I’m looking for any signs at all when I spot the dark blue arrow on the pavement pointing right before the next intersection.

  Jax is keeping a sizeable lead, but I manage to whittle it down a little on this next straight. I’m not looking at my speed, but we’ve got to be doing well over a hundred.

  Jax takes the next turn, the light weight of his car meaning he doesn’t have to slow down nearly as much as I do, and any distance I managed to make up is lost again.

  As I make the turn, he’s a full block ahead of me now. My thumb is hovering over the nitrous, but it’s too soon. Without being able to see the signs, I’m going to have to wait until the next checkpoint is the finish line.

  The woman in the AMG apparently comes to a different conclusion, though, as she speeds past me.

  I’m half-expecting her to cruise past the next turn just like the Nissan did on the first one, but she stays right on Jax’s tail as she takes the corner.

  I come around a few seconds later to find the AMG in a cloud of smoke, facing the wrong way. Her tires spin as she flips her car around, but I’m already past her, Jax’s taillights now less than a block ahead.

  He takes his turn a bit too wide, allowing me to close the gap even more as I come around the corner, myself.

  We’re nearing the entrance to Ghost Town, though there’s no way to tell if the next turn is going to take us in that direction, and I’ve got my foot down hard.

  I’m only about thirty feet behind Jax when his brake lights come on. He drifts over to the left side of the road in preparation for his turn, but I stay on the inside.

  He turns too wide yet again, and I’m neck-and-neck with him through the corner.

  The finish line is two blocks straight ahead, and I hit my nitrous.

>   For the first time in the race, I have the lead, but I can hear the chirp of Jax’s tires behind me as he comes down on his own nitrous. He doesn’t swerve as he comes up behind me.

  The front of his car comes under the rear of mine, giving me enough of a bump that I have to really work the wheel to keep from spinning out as Jax comes up the side of me.

  As we cross the line, I honestly don’t know who made it first.

  I ease off the throttle and take a few deep breaths.

  Ahead of me, Jax spins around and heads back toward the start/finish line. Once I’ve lowered my speed enough, I follow suit.

  By the time I’m parked and out of my car, Jax is barking orders into his phone.

  “I don’t care if they both cut for the border with a police escort. You find them and bring me my cars!” he shouts and throws his phone hard at the ground. “And you!” he says, coming toward me. “Let’s not make a big thing out of this. I have other fish to gut and fry tonight.”

  The two-dozen or so people crowded around go into a frenzied uproar, some claiming Jax won, others claiming I held onto the lead across the line.

  After ten seconds of deafening argument, Jax holds up both his hands, silencing the crowd.

  We don’t have time for this. We’ve got to get out of here.

  If he won, he won. I’m not going to be a crybaby about it. But that seems like the sort of thing we can figure out when we’re not all standing around at the scene of the race, waiting to get busted.

  A hand grips my wrist and I turn around to find Kate standing there.

  “You won,” she says. “It was only the difference of about a foot, but you won.”

  “Hey, Jax,” I say, “it sounds to me like you just lost your Zonda.”

  Jax closes the distance between us in less than a second, and he’s standing with his face only about an inch or two from mine.

  “You’ll understand if I don’t take your girlfriend’s word for it,” he says. “Ty!” he calls out.

  A moment later, that same bodyguard who had his gun against my head recently walks up. Jax backs out of my face and turns toward his lackey. “Who won it?”

  Without hesitation, the sycophant cries, “You did!”

  The crowd is a mix of cheers and jeers, and I’m looking over my shoulder for one last look at my beautiful car.

  “Eli?” Kate says.

  “Hold on just a second,” I tell her.

  “You remember how I wanted to tell you something before the race?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  “Hey!” a sharp woman’s voice comes from behind me.

  We all turn around to look.

  My attention was so directed toward Jax and his goon that I didn’t even see Kate’s mom standing behind me.

  “Yeah,” Kate says. “I kind of had my mom on standby for tonight.”

  I look from Kate to her mom and then back at Kate. “How?”

  “Mick snuck her into the office a couple hours ago,” Kate says. “She was going to follow us out to wherever the race was going to be, but after you got that phone call-”

  “Mick stayed behind,” I say, finishing the sentence.

  “Yeah,” Kate says.

  While we’ve been talking, Kate’s mom has pushed her way past me and all the way to Jax. I grab Kate’s hand and we follow.

  “What do you want?” Jax asks Kate’s mom.

  “I want to live in a world where idiots don’t cheat their way to victory,” she says and pulls out her phone. She turns toward the crowd, calling, “I’ve got the end of the race right here!”

  “What is she doing?” I ask Kate.

  “She’s saving your car.”

  “Lady, the race has been called,” Jax says. “The only thing that remains is for that punk to give me what’s mine.”

  My mouth is open and I’m ready to jump in, but Kate’s mom beats me to it.

  “I understand some people are so incredibly insecure, they need to win everything or they get scared that everyone’s going to find out how insignificant their genitalia is,” Kate’s mom snaps. “But that’s not you, right?”

  “You better watch your mouth,” Jax says, and I step between him and Kate’s mom.

  “What are you scared of?” I ask him. “If you won, the video’s going to show it.”

  “This is not a democracy, and it certainly isn’t A/V club,” Jax says. “Now give me my keys and the pink slip to my Chevelle before I have my man here give you a few new holes.”

  Kate’s mom doesn’t say anything more, she simply holds up her phone and presses play on the video.

  It runs for a few seconds before Jax and I come around that last corner. In the background, someone’s saying, “It’s going to be close,” and in quick response, the shot pans over to the finish line.

  Jax knocks the phone out of Kate’s mom’s hand, but not before both he and I see my car cross the line first.

  I move to block Jax completely from getting to Kate’s mom, but he doesn’t make a move. For what seems like almost a minute, he just stands there gritting his teeth.

  Jax nudges his nearest goon and while the latter is pushing his way through the crowd, Jax continues to stand there, staring me down.

  I don’t move. For a decent amount of time, I don’t even blink.

  The lackey comes back through the crowd after a minute. He’s carrying a duffel bag.

  Jax snatches the bag out of the man’s hands and I’m not sure if I’m about to get paid or shot.

  “You have three days to leave town,” he says. “After that, I see your face again, I’m going to put in a skylight in it.”

  He more pushes me with the bag than hands it to me and he turns around, gets back in his Zonda, and leaves.

  “Weren’t you supposed to get his car if you won?” Kate asks.

  “I don’t know about you,” I tell her, “but I don’t really feel like going after him about that.”

  I turn around to face Kate’s mother.

  “So, you won yourself a little bit of money, have you?” she asks.

  “Looks that way,” I tell her. “Why did you come? You and I never really had the best rapport.”

  Kate’s mom motions toward her daughter. “This one wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to give the man she loves a second chance,” she says.

  “That’s great,” I say, “but why tonight, though? Why the race?”

  “Uh, Eli?” Kate jumps in.

  I look around and nobody except for Jax and his people have even moved from their place. Now all I have to do is make it through the crowd of over twenty people, each and every one of whom knows exactly what’s in the bag in my arms.

  I mutter, “Maybe we should talk about this later.”

  Epilogue

  Kate

  It’s been two years since Eli won his quarter-million, but it hardly feels like any time has passed at all.

  I’d managed to convince my mom to come down to the race after we got into a phone argument over whether or not racing was a matter of skill or stupidity. We argued about almost anything back then.

  It wasn’t until I called my dad and talked him into badgering her about how great Eli is that she finally relented.

  That particular honeymoon didn’t last too long, though.

  It wasn’t Eli’s fault. Really, it wasn’t. I was the one who first approached him about racing.

  I don’t know if my dad told her or what, but after we had to leave town, Eli gave up racing to start working on an engineering degree, while I took his place on the road. I don’t mean to brag, but it turns out I’m pretty good.

  For the first year or so, Eli let me take his Chevelle, but once I had enough money, I gave up the muscle for my dream car: a dark purple Porsche 911 Turbo S. Eli helped me pick out the mods.

  It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the Chevelle, but after racing it around the people of our new hometown of Carlsberg for a few months, I got sick of all the extra weight. Also,
it’s kind of nice racing something I don’t have to hide in a junkyard.

  Right now, I’m pulling up to the stoplight, holding up my pink slip up so the guy in the Koenigsegg Agera RS next to me will hold up his.

  I love it when people bring their untouched supercars out of the garage. They never expect a modded car to come out and wipe the floor with them.

  Usually, I would never even consider putting my pristine purple Porsche on the block, but this race is going to be special. I’m going to give Eli that Agera as a present for our wedding next month.

  He finally wore me down.

  The $250,000 Eli got off of Jax has been great, but the fact Eli didn’t exactly win it legally means we can never spend too much of it at any given time. Still, it has come in handy for buying aftermarket parts for Pandora—yeah, I named my car.

  Pandora’s rarely the fastest car in the race, but between my natural love of going really, really fast and Eli’s patient instruction, it’s a rare event that I don’t come in first.

  The Agera revs its engine as the light for the cross street turns yellow, and I grip the wheel, my eyes on the light a quarter mile down the road: our finish line.

  It may seem like a bad idea to pit a 911 against an Agera, especially when slips are on the line, but I’ve got a good feeling about today.

  Our light turns green and we take off.

  The Agera gets a slightly better start off the line, but I creep up beside it before very long.

  I make up some more time on the gear change, and I start to pull ahead.

  Leaving town was probably harder on Mick than it was on Eli or me, but he’s more than made up for it with his frequent and usually unannounced visits. When the “I dos” are done, we’re going to have to start talking boundaries.

  What I’ve found most interesting over the last couple of years is that Desi and I have slowly become something almost akin to friends. We hardly ever see each other, but when we do it’s actually a lot of fun.

  The one thing I wish I hadn’t agreed to in this race was the no nitrous rule. I’m still edging him out, but the line’s coming up pretty quick and the Agera’s right on top of me.