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

by Alycia Taylor

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat. “Why?”

  “You just sound a little strange like you’re upset. What’s up?”

  “I just have to take care of a family matter this morning. My first appointment is at nine with a lady named Michaela. I hate to cancel on her because she’s got a big race coming up this weekend and she wanted to do some work on her calves…She’s a new client too…”

  “She’s a runner?” he asked.

  “A cycler,” I told him. “Anyways, is there anyone available who can take her for me? I can probably make it back by ten thirty or eleven if not…I could re-schedule her. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got your back. I’ll take care of her myself. Are you sure you’re okay though?”

  “I’m sure, thank you so much, Greg. My mother is having some medical problems…nothing major, but she needs me today.”

  “Then go and be with her. Family comes first, always, you know that. We’re a big family around here.” I knew that and I was grateful. I thanked him again and then I went in to see if my mother was up. I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only was she up, but she was making breakfast. From the few times I tasted what she’d actually tried to cook for me, I knew that she was a terrible cook. This was one of those things though where it was the thought that counted.

  “Well, look at all of this,” I said of the spread she was sitting out across the table. “It looked like she’d been up cooking for hours.”

  She gave me a nervous smile. It made my heart hurt to think about how scared she must be. I had to be strong and remember this was the best thing I could do for her. It was even harder when she was being so sweet.

  “I wanted to do something…motherly, for you.”

  “Pancakes and oatmeal are the best. Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You’re welcome. I wish I would have done more of this when you were a kid. We missed out on so much because of my problems.”

  “You know what? There’s no going back. I’m here, alive and if I do say so myself I turned out all right. Everyone makes mistakes, but unfortunately life doesn’t let us go back and correct them. We have to just keep moving forward. So let’s make a pact now, okay…no looking back.”

  She handed me a glass of orange juice and held hers up and said, “To brighter days for us both.”

  “Here, here,” I toasted her with a smile.

  After we ate I helped her pack her things and we headed out. The ride to the rehab was a quiet one, both of us wrapped up in our own thoughts and our own hopes and fears. I drove into the small lot next to the big residential house that had been turned into a rehab and I parked. At first we just sat there, neither of us was overly anxious to do this. Finally after about five minutes of staring at the place she said, “It looks nice.”

  “Yeah, I think this is going to be a good place for you. Are you ready?” She took one last deep breath and said, “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  Once inside we spent about forty five minutes meeting with the therapist and doing paperwork. I had to make my first payment and then I would send or bring in a check a week after that. I would have to hustle for clients to build my savings back up but I wasn’t going to stress over that right now. When it was time for me to go, Mom and I were both fighting the tears.

  I hugged her tight and said, “Things are going to be okay for here on out. I know you can do this. You’re a strong woman. You’re stronger than the stuff that keeps getting in your way. Believe that for me, okay?”

  “You know what, honey? For a change, I’m going to make sure that things are okay so you don’t have to worry so much. I wish I was as strong as the woman you have become. I know I have no right, but I am so proud of you I could bust.”

  I was in a melancholy mood on the drive home and after I got there. I thought about going to the gym, but it was after eleven already and I didn’t really see the point in going in to work. I trusted that Greg took good care of my client. I drove to my apartment instead. I parked in my usual spot and looked around as I got out of the car. Telling myself that this was getting ridiculous, I walked up to my apartment, checking behind the bushes that lined the sidewalk still and slipped the key in the door. What happened next seemed both like it was in an instant…and that it went on for days. As soon as I turned the key in the lock I felt the hand of a giant on the back of my neck. I was propelled forward and with that one hand, Mitch threw me across the room and into the wall. I hit the wall with my face and bounced off, landing on my back on the floor. He stepped inside and slammed the door behind him.

  I was stunned. I was not sure what was happening at that point. I started to lift my head and that was when his boot connected with my ribs and I heard him say, “You lying, fucking little bitch!”

  My brain processed what was happening at last. Mitch was here, and he was pissed. Obviously, Paul and Marie and Victor had been gone when he got to the gym. Good for them, I thought as I tried to roll away from his next blow. I was in pain and moving too slow to completely avoid it. I think I helped myself a little however because instead of connecting again with my ribs that were screaming out in pain, his boot connected with my lower back. Even on the carpet, the impact sent me skidding across the floor.

  I lay there trying to get my bearings. I knew that I needed to try and get up…I needed to run. He was seething with anger, now pacing in a circle around me, telling me what a “stupid bitch” and a “red-haired lying ho” that I was. I thought about denying I had called Paul, but that was just going to make it worse, I was sure. I lay there trying to breath and at the same time trying to curl into a tiny little ball so that I was a smaller target. The whole time, I was watching his feet. When they landed in front of me I knew it was my only chance. I reached out with both hands and grabbed his calves. I caught him off guard so he stumbled backwards and nearly fell. He was able to get his feet loose before he did, but he was at least a foot away from me now. I flipped onto my other side and got up on my hands and knees. I did a fast crawl towards the front door and I was almost there…when I felt Mitch’s hand wrapped up in my hair.

  He used it to drag me back across the room. I felt like it was coming loose at the roots. I finally found my voice and I began to scream.

  “Shut up!” he told me. I didn’t. If he was going to kill me, I was going to make enough noise so that he was at least caught as he left. “I said shut up!” I opened my mouth to scream again. He let go of my hair and drew back his fist. The sight of his hairy, meaty knuckles coming towards my face was the last thing I saw before my world suddenly went black.

  *****

  The first conscious thought I remember having is why the hell does it hurt so much to breathe? My lungs were burning like they did after I’d gone on a really long run but when I tried to suck in enough oxygen to keep them inflated I felt like a long, sharp knife was being shoved in between my ribs. My next thought was why my eyes were closed and why I was having such a hard time opening them. They felt heavy like they do when you’re sunbathing and you fall asleep in the sun…a little bit hot and swollen…I had to struggle to send the message from my brain to my eyes and for some reason, creating that simple thought made my head feel like it was going to explode.

  After several tries I finally wrenched one of them open. It felt like it had been glued shut and I had broken the seal. It would only open a slit and everything was blurry. But I could see enough to know that I was in my own apartment. I was looking up at everything. I could see the window and the pictures on the walls like I was lying flat on my back in the floor. Why the hell was I lying in the floor? I tried to lift my neck and my arms so that I could push myself up off the floor. I got my neck up a few inches. It was sore and the muscles were tight. I tried pushing against the floor with my arms and when I did, I felt something pop in my right one. I think I cried out…I’m not sure, but it hurt like hell. I tried to move the left arm next, but it was completely numb. What th
e hell? Was I in an accident? Did I fall? The simple act of trying to remember was causing my head to pound violently as if someone was slamming a hammer against my skull from the inside and I felt like whatever was keeping me from getting in a good, deep breath was sitting on my chest now, crushing it.

  I let my head drop back to the floor. Neither the motion of it nor the thud of the floor against the back of it, improved my situation. I lay there, taking in slow, shallow breaths and feeling myself getting light-headed. I started to close the only eye that would open, but something was nagging at me, telling me not to. I got the sudden, dreaded feeling that if I did close it, I’d never be able to open it again. I willed myself to relax. Although I had no idea what was happening right now, I was able to remember that when I was tired or anxious controlling my breaths helped control my emotions. While I did that, I tried to remember what day it was and what I had been doing before I decided to take a nap in the living room floor.

  I remembered picking Mom up from the police department. Was that today? We came back to the apartment and we talked. Fuck! My head hurts so bad, and my right arm…and what the hell is stabbing me in the side? I picked Mom up at the police department…why was she at the police department? Why the hell was I on the floor? I finally let my tired eye close again. I couldn’t hold it open any longer. When I did, it triggered something…a memory. Mitch was here…he was angry and he…Oh shit! Mitch fucked me up! Oh shit! I worked on pulling that eye back open again. Where the hell is my phone? Very slowly and carefully, but not without copious amounts of effort and pain, I turned my head to the right. I scanned the floor through my blurry lens but there was nothing there. I could see that the front door was closed and it looked like there was blood on the handle. Shit! I was going to have to turn the other way. I’m pretty sure when I came through the door I had my phone and my keys in my hand. Did I set them on the table? I looked up at it and although it was only four feet tall, it may as well have been as tall as the Empire State Building. There was no way I’d be able to reach up there. No fucking way. One of my arms still wouldn’t move at all and I’m pretty sure that the other one was broken.

  It probably took me a full five minutes to turn my head to the other side. The first thing I saw was the hole in the wall. I remembered now. My head had made a hole in the drywall as it slammed into it…after Mitch threw me across the room by the back of my neck. The good news was I could see my phone. The bad news…how the hell was I going to move the three feet that seemed to stretch out between me and it. I closed my eye again and summoned every last bit of strength I had in my body. Then I concentrated on my legs and with a loud grunt and maybe a little scream, I pushed against the floor, moving my body about four inches in the direction of the phone. I kept moving like that over and over again for what seemed like an eternity with each movement becoming more excruciating than the last. My head was not only pounding now…it was spinning. I was going to pass out again. Before that happened, I had to get to that phone and call for help.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I tried to lift my heavy eyelids as the strong smell of anti-bacterial cleaner burnt my nostrils. My mouth was so dry. It was the first time in my life that I actually understood what the term, “cotton mouth” meant. I tried to swallow, but my neck hurt. It was just as well, there wasn’t enough spit to coat the back of my throat and force down the knot I felt there. Something was beeping….was it my phone? I suddenly remembered that I’d been on the floor before. I was trying to get to my phone…I needed to call for help. I bent my knees, or at least I tried to and I tried to get my feet to meet the floor so I could get some leverage. The floor was soft now…that didn’t make any sense.

  I gave up on moving for a second and concentrated on pulling open my eyelids. It took a ridiculous amount of effort, but I finally got the right one open a slit. That beeping noise was beginning to become annoying. I had to get to my phone. My half open eye was being assaulted by the light. Why was the light so bright? My eye was watering and it wanted to close again. I refused to let it though…my heart was slamming against the inside of my chest. I needed help. I turned my head and that was when I realized I wasn’t at home any longer. I was in a big, glass room. I could see people in brightly colored clothes…uniforms, maybe? They were scurrying back and forth. God! My head was beginning to pound to the rhythm of that beeping noise. What the hell was that?

  The glass door on my gilded cage slid open and one of the people from outside…this one a plump lady in a bright pink outfit came in. She acted like she didn’t see me. Oh Jesus! Am I dead? I don’t think so. Everything hurts, even my fingertips. If I was dead, I wouldn’t be able to feel that pain, would I?

  The plump lady somehow put a stop to the beeping. She finally looked at me then and when she saw that one of my eyes was half open, she smiled. “Well, hello there. You decided to wake up, finally?” I opened my mouth to answer her but my lips were so dry. It felt like they had cracked from the lack of moisture…It’s okay, honey. Just relax,” the pink lady told me. “I’m going to get the doctor, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  The doctor? I must have made it to the hospital somehow. I didn’t even remember making it to the phone. I waited in silence and a lot of pain until at last the pink lady came back, this time with a well-dressed man with a white lab jacket over the top of his dress shirt and pants.

  “Hello there Miss Cooper, I’m Dr. Yancey.” I hoped that this man knew I couldn’t answer him. I felt like my mouth was hanging open, but still no sound was coming out of it. Maybe if I had something to drink…that would help. “Do you know where you’re at?”

  I struggled to answer him, finally producing something that sounded a lot more like an animal sound than it did, “hospital.” The doctor must speak animal, however because he said, “That’s right you’re in the hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?”

  I grunted out a “Yes.” I would have liked it to be followed with “unfortunately,” but that was asking too much. “Water?” I managed to ask.

  “You can have a sip,” he said, nodding towards the nurse. Suddenly there was a straw pressed against my sore lips. I somehow managed to get then around it and sucked in a mouthful. The nurse pulled it away quickly. I guess I was abusing my sipping privileges. I held the water in my parched mouth for as long as I could before letting the cool liquid slide down my throat. It felt better than sex. “Better?” he asked. Was it good for you?

  “Better,” I said. My words still didn’t sound right, even with a layer of moisture. My lips were sore, maybe they were swollen.

  “Do you remember what happened to you?”

  “I got the shit kicked out of me,” I said. It sounded like, “I ought the it icked out of me.” The doctor smiled, I can’t be sure if it was at my discomfort, my grammar or the simple fact that I got my ass kicked.

  “I’m going to examine you, okay? As I do, I will go over with you what injuries you have. If there is anything you don’t understand, or you need explained, let me know.” I said a strange sounding okay and he got started with the poking and prodding. When all was said and done he told me that I’d been in the hospital for almost twelve hours. I had two broken ribs, a punctured lung which was now sporting a tube to keep it inflated, a severe concussion, a few broken teeth…in back, thank God. My right arm was broken and my left had been dislocated when I came in. I had bruises and contusions from head to toe…but the good news is there were no signs of sexual assault.

  The only question I had was, “Is there anything that’s not broken or damaged?”

  He smiled again and said, “Well, your sense of humor seems to still be intact. I have one more unpleasant task to ask of you. The police have been waiting to speak to you.” I nodded…that was the biggest mistake I made all day.

  “Shit!”

  “I’m sorry. I know you must be in a lot of pain. We’ll give you something else for it as soon as you speak to the officers, okay?” I was smart enough not to nod again. I said, “Y
es,” but it sounded like “Ess.”

  The police officers were two older gentlemen. They seemed concerned about me, which was nice but when I told them it was one of them who had beat me up, they seemed skeptical, which pissed me off.

  “You’re saying that Detective Mitch Slocum did this to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you involved in a relationship with Detective Slocum?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, so this was a random assault?”

  “No.”

  “I’m confused,” the detective said. I could understand that, but I don’t think he understood that the effort I was having to put forth to talk to him was tantamount to climbing Mt. Everest at the moment. Full sentences were practically out of the question.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I will try to explain.” I started with Mitch’s attack of Paul in the gym. I did my best from there to describe the terror that he’d been dishing out on Paul, Marie, Victor and myself. When I finished talking the detectives looked at each other and one of them said, “Do you know where we can find Mr. Delport or his sister?”

  “No. I can give you his phone number, but I don’t know where he is now.”

  They took his number and asked me if I had any questions. I only had one: “Who called the ambulance?”

  The detective flipped through his pad and said, “Greg Madison.” I had no idea how Greg knew I needed an ambulance, but I was very grateful that he did. Everyone should have a boss like him. The detectives thanked me and said they would be in touch. They left and I finally got my pain shot in the IV. As I closed my good eye once again and let sleep take over my aching body I tried not to think about the fact that Mitch was still out there, somewhere.

  *****

  The next time I woke up Greg and Sam and Debbie were in the room. “Hey beautiful,” Sam said. “How are you feeling?”

  I tried to smile. If it looked as bad as it felt it’s a wonder I didn’t scare them. “I’m doing alright,” I lied. I felt like warm shit.