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

by Alycia Taylor

  “I’m going inside to get a water,” I told him. “You need anything?”

  “Nope, I’m good.” He got out and put his card in the pump and I headed into the store. I found the water I was looking for and took it to the counter. I was about to set it down when I saw the stuff my nightmares were made of outside the window. Mitch was here. At first my brain didn’t really process it because he wasn’t supposed to be here. I could only see him from behind, but I was sure it was him and that was when I realized that he had something in his hands and he was just about to swing it on Paul who had his back to him. I dropped the water bottle to the floor and ran out screaming Paul’s name. I think I even shoved an older lady out of my way. I didn’t care. I had to get to him. He turned at the sound of my voice, just in time for the tire iron to connect with the side of his face. Paul flew back about a foot and landed on his back on the ground.

  I screamed again. My phone was in the car so I started screaming for someone to call the cops. I wanted to go help him but I knew it would be pointless. Mitch would just turn that tire iron in his hands on me. I found out the hard way that he wasn’t gender-specific when it came to handing out his beatings. People around me got on their phones right away but I had to stand there and watch in horror as Mitch walked over to where Paul had gone down and he raised the crowbar again. I saw Paul reach up as he did and try to grab it out of his hands. He didn’t get ahold of it, but his motions seemed to block some of the force of the blow. It still caught him on the chin and when Mitch jerked it back out of his hands I saw Paul’s palms were all bloody. I was horrified and I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.

  Paul rolled away and started to get to his feet. Mitch brought the metal bar down and caught him on his left side. He hit with such force and right against Paul’s ribs that I was sure Paul wouldn’t be able to walk away without at least one of them being broken. When the bar connected, Paul fell back to the ground and I could tell he was trying to catch his breath. There were people everywhere…just watching. Why didn’t someone do something? I couldn’t stand it any longer and I started going towards them. An older man in a business suit grabbed me and said, “The police are on their way. Don’t go over there, honey. You’ll get hurt too.”

  “I can’t stand it. Why were the police taking so long?” As the man held me back, I saw Paul stumbling up to his feet again, reaching out to grab one of the pumps to steady himself. Mitch pulled back the bar again to get ready to swing and this time Paul got ahold of it. I watched as he wrenched it from his hands. I could see his chest moving rapidly and I was suddenly afraid that he was going to use that iron bar to finally, once and for all put an end to Mitch. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have loved watching it but I was so worried for Paul.

  He proved me wrong by tossing the tire iron aside and going at Mitch with his fists. He landed a right cross and when Mitch came at him with a punch of his own I couldn’t help but be a little bit proud at the way Paul moved his feet and got out of the way. The punch missed, so Mitch threw another. Paul caught his arm and used Mitch’s own momentum to swing around and land a round kick to Mitch’s side. Then as Mitch went down he grabbed his arm to bring it up and pin it behind his back. Mitch probably could have wrenched free, but he was struggling too hard and that was his mistake. He lost his footing at last and they both went down to the hot pavement. Thank God, Paul landed on top. In an instant he had his muscular arm wrapped across the other man’s fat throat. He got him in a choke hold and within seconds Mitch looked ready to pass out. I could hear the sirens and I knew that help was coming. I finally let myself breathe.

  Paul didn’t release his hold on Mitch until he passed out. Then, it looked like he just relaxed it a little bit. But that was good, he wasn’t set on killing him…today at least. The police cars came screeching in and as I was thanking God I suddenly heard them screaming at Paul…

  “Let go of him and put your hands in the air.” He suddenly had three guns trained right at him. All I could do was pray that none of these guys knew or liked Mitch and that Paul wouldn’t make any sudden movements.

  Paul was too smart to screw with the police. He released his hold on Mitch and put his hands in the air. Once again I was horrified. I watched two of the officers each grab one of his arms and pull him off of Mitch. The third officer still had his gun trained on Paul as the put him face down onto the black pavement and handcuffed him behind his back.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” I was screaming at them, still trying to pull free of the business man’s grasp. “It’s not him! It’s the other one. That man is supposed to be in jail. He assaulted Paul with a crow bar.”

  While one of the officers checked Mitch for a pulse, the other one came over where I was standing and still screaming, “It’s not him!”

  “Miss, listen to me,” he said. “It’s procedure. If he didn’t start the fight and his friend over there is okay…he’ll be let go. We have to talk to the bystanders first and get the story straight. You need to find a place to sit down and calm down. I wouldn’t want you to end up in trouble too. Someone will be talking to you soon though, so do not leave.”

  I nodded and licked my dry lips. Here we go again. The cop started to walk away and I said, “Hey, don’t let him tell you he’s one of you. He may have a badge, but he’s scum. He beat me so badly that I was in the hospital with a punctured lung a broken arm and a dislocated one just a few weeks ago. He’s supposed to be in jail. Please take him back there.”

  The cop looked like he wasn’t sure if he should believe me or not, but with a neutral expression he said, “We’ll figure it all out, Miss.”

  I had to watch as Paul was shoved, still bleeding into the back of a patrol car. I almost thought it might be worth getting arrested myself to go help him. Mitch was waking up and I could hear him moaning. I was s tempted to run over and kick him in the throat myself. I was itching to do something. I felt so helpless. Two ambulances eventually showed up as one of the police officer’s was interviewing the witnesses. They loaded Mitch into one immediately. I answered the officer’s questions, the whole time keeping an eye on the ambulance where they were checking out Paul. Mitch was taken to the hospital right away. I did my best to convince the officer that he was supposed to be in jail. What the hell was he doing out already? The officer went to his car and made a phone call. When he came back I could see the frown lines in his face as he said, “Mitch was released on bond today. The judge gave him a low bail amount. He didn’t think he was a danger or a flight risk since he had no history of anything violent before the attack on you. I would suggest a restraining order….”

  “Right, that will help. I can fight him off with a piece of paper.” Rationally I knew none of this was this officer’s fault. He was only trying to help. But I was pissed and he was the one standing in front of me at the moment. “He has history,” I told him. “He was just smart enough not to get caught. Being a cop gets him out of it too. He doesn’t deserve that badge. He’s a disgusting excuse for a human being.” The officer neither agreed nor disagreed with me on that point.

  PULSE #5

  CHAPTER ONE

  Over an hour after Mitch had attacked and beaten Paul with a tire iron, and the police had shoved Paul’s face into the pavement like he was a common criminal, I was still pacing the parking lot of the Chevron station and Paul was still in the back of the squad car in handcuffs. The police were interviewing people, but they didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry about it. They spent a lot of time on their phones too. I wondered if it was about the incident or if they were tracking down their ex-girlfriends like Mitch always was.

  I could see Paul every once in a while looking out the window of the car. He looked pissed and scared. He was probably wondering what would happen to his sister and his nephew if they believed Mitch over him and hauled him off to jail. It was killing me that I couldn’t go over to him. It was killing me that just because Mitch had a badge like these other guys that he was automatically assumed to be th
e victim here. For the first time I wished that I still had the bruises on my face that Mitch had put there so I could show them what kind of a “victim” the son of a bitch really was.

  My patience was really growing thin. “Hey!” I called out to one of the officers. “Are they going to let us get out of here any time soon?”

  The cop looked down at his notepad. “What was your name again?”

  “Jessie Cooper,” I said. I had spoken to this guy at least three times. What the hell?

  “Yeah, we got your statement here. You’re free to go. We have all of your information if we need to contact you…”

  “No! I came with Paul. I’m leaving with him.” I was so frustrated that my voice was shaking and I was on the verge of tears.

  The cop looked annoyed with me and said, “Well then, you might be in for a bit of a wait. We might have to take him into the station…”

  “For what? Why would you need to do that? Look at him and look at Mitch, that’s all it will take to see which one was wielding a weapon. Paul was defending himself. We came here to get gas and that creep followed us. I’m sure none of the witnesses you interviewed have told you anything different. That maniac Mitch came at him with a tire iron. Thank God Paul knows how to fight or you might be working a homicide right now.” The cop stood there with his neutral cop expression and when I finished my rant, he calmly walked inside the store. “Damn it!” I had to let my inner voice yell and cuss to keep my outer one from getting me arrested.

  “I told them I saw the big ugly guy come at the other one with a pipe or something.” A young guy wearing dirty army fatigues was sitting on the sidewalk a few feet from me. I hadn’t even noticed him until he spoke. He had a three or four day’s growth of beard and his hair was dirty and hung down across his shoulders. His teeth looked like he hadn’t seen a dentist in a while and his fingernails were black. I assumed he was a homeless man.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “It’s what happened. They should check the tape though…”

  “Shit!” I looked up where the guy was pointing behind us. There was a surveillance camera mounted up there and it was pointing at the gas pumps. “I didn’t even think of that.” If the guy hadn’t been so dirty…or smelled so bad, I may have kissed him.

  He grinned through his broken teeth and said, “I spend a lot of time around here and most of the time I try and avoid the camera…if you know what I mean.”

  I acted like I knew what he meant and I thanked him again and went into the store. The cop I had just talked to was at the counter talking to the clerk and looking at a laptop screen. I waited until there was a pause in the conversation and they looked up at me. Then, I said, “Excuse me…did you know that there’s a camera out there? It’s pointed right at the pumps.”

  The cop looked like he had a sarcastic retort on the tip of his tongue. He recovered quickly however and said, “Yes, we know.”

  Trying to resort to his humanism I said, “I know you’re getting irritated with me, but I don’t understand why you haven’t just watched it then and let Paul go home.”

  With a sigh he said, “Because it’s not quite that simple. The tapes aren’t stored here. They use a security company. We’re waiting for them to stream over the video. It really is okay if you go home. If he gets released, we’ll let him call you…”

  He was trying to get rid of me. Too bad. “I’m not leaving until he can go with me.” The officer looked overjoyed at the prospect of me leaving.

  I started to head back out to the parking lot when I heard the clerk say, “Here you go.” I turned and watched the annoyed cop’s face as he watched the tape. He rewound it a few times and then he used his radio to ask his partners to come inside. They brushed past me, giving me the same looks that the other officer did. They all seemed to wonder why I was still here. Is it unheard of to wait and see if your boyfriend was going to get arrested or not? The only one who seemed to believe me about Mitch was the first one who took my statement. He may have had a history of his own with Mitch, because he’d acted like he didn’t like him right off the bat. He’d gotten called away and left us in the hands of these guys who seemed more intent on protecting the thin blue line than us.

  They all watched the video, a couple of them pointing at it here and there. Then the clerk burned them a copy and when the one who had been so short with me turned around he said, “We’re going to let your boyfriend go now.”

  I literally bit the tip of my tongue. Telling him that was a brilliant deduction after shoving Paul’s face into the hot pavement and making him sit in handcuffs in the back of a police car for an hour and a half for nothing probably wasn’t a good idea. It was hard to stop myself though. I took a deep breath and instead, I smiled as sweetly as I could and said, “Thanks.”

  I watched as they pulled Paul out of the back of the car. One of the officers was talking to him as the other one took off his cuffs. I saw Paul shake his head “No” more than once. I wondered what they were asking him. I could see from six feet away that he looked like he was in pain. As soon as they released him, we needed to get him to the hospital.

  Finally they let him go and when he came towards me I finally lost my hold on the tears. I wrapped my arms around him and let them flow. I was so relieved that they’d let him go I forgot for a second how much pain he had to be in. I suddenly realized how stiff he felt in my arms and I let him go.

  “Shit! I’m sorry, Paul. I’m just so happy they let you go. Let’s get you to the hospital…”

  “No. Let’s go home,” he said.

  “Paul, you just got beat with a tire iron…”

  He grinned, “Yeah, I was there. It’s not something I’d ever like to do again, but I’m okay. I want to go home.”

  I followed him over to the car and tried to get in the driver’s seat. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and said, “Huh uh. I don’t trust you. I’m driving.”

  “What do you mean you don’t trust me?”

  “You’ll drive to the hospital. I’m fine Jessie, really.”

  That was exactly what I had planned, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. For his benefit, I rolled my eyes. “Okay. No hospital. But let me drive please. You could have a concussion or something.” He finally relented and handed me the keys. I got in the driver’s seat and when Paul climbed in on the passenger side I watched him wince and suck in a breath. I bit my tongue again and started the car. When we pulled out onto the main road he said, “If you drive to the hospital, I’m not getting out of the car.”

  “What? I was going to flip a U.”

  “Right. Home Jessie, please take me home.”

  “You just look like you’re in so much pain…”

  “It hurts…like a son of a bitch. But everything’s moving like it’s supposed to be. I’m just going to be sore for a while. All the hospital will do is give me some pain pills after they make us wait for three hours. I already have some muscle relaxers I can take and I think I have a few pain pills left from when I tweaked my back.”

  “I have some pain pills left over too, but…are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” he said. He wasn’t leaving me any room for argument. I made the U turn and headed for his apartment. I noticed Paul was holding his seatbelt out away from his body especially when I slowed down or came to a stop. The seatbelt hurt mine really badly after Mitch beat me up. I hoped that his aren’t broken.

  “Are your ribs okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding breathless. “Just sore, nothing I can’t handle. I’ve been hurt worse than this after a cage fight. Fucking Mitch though, chicken-shit bastard couldn’t fight with his hands like a man…”

  “Unless he’s fighting a woman,” I said. Paul reached over and grabbed my hand. We drove the rest of the way in silence. When we got to his apartment I tried to help him out of the car.

  “I can do it, Jessie,” he said. He was getting like the cops now, annoyed with me. It was so har
d for me to watch him move though. It had nearly killed me to watch Mitch beat on him with that tire iron and now to watch him try and move around in pain was killing me all over again.

  Once inside I went to the refrigerator and got out a bottle of water for him. I followed him into his room and sat down on the bed as he dug out the pain pills and muscle relaxers. He took one of each and gulped down half the bottle of water. He sat down too and after a few seconds he put his arm around my waist and lay back. I lay back with him, careful not to lean against his ribs.

  “You think they arrested him?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure they did,” Paul said. “Hopefully they’ll get a clue and keep him this time.”

  “In general population,” I said.

  Paul chuckled and then winced. “Don’t say anything funny for at least a week, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” I told him, “But I’m naturally a funny girl. It will be hard.” He smiled and pulled my head over onto his shoulder.

  Kissing me on top of it he said, “I hope a week is all it takes. I don’t have much time before the fight with Trent. I can’t be worried about protecting sore ribs. I have to win.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure there was nothing I could say at this point to convince him to go to the hospital and I doubted he was going to be pain free in time to fight. That wasn’t what he wanted or needed to hear right now though, so I kept quiet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I was able to convince Paul to take it easy for that one day. The day after I left him sleeping and went back to my apartment to get ready for work. I was just about to leave when he called.

  “Hey, why’d you leave without me?”

  “You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you. I have to go to work.”

  “I know. I want to go with you.”

  “To the gym? No way!”

  “Really…Mom?”

  “Come on, I laid next to you most of the day yesterday and all night last night. Every time you move, you wince. Breathing looks painful. The last thing you need to do is work out.”