Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (17 page)

“I’m going to start
looking for my own place to live,” I blurt.

It’s not what I’d planned
to say.

I was going to say
something about how I’m going to go and see if I can catch up with Eli, but I
don’t know what to do with the words now that they’re spoken. The funny thing
is I don’t take them back.

I may not know what to do
with the words, but the idea is just as sweet as it’s always been. Maybe it’s
just wishful thinking—after all, it’s not like I suddenly came into money—but
it feels good to say the words.

“I’m going to start
looking for my own place to live,” I repeat. “I know that’s not going to be
easy on you, but I’m never going to get any clarity about myself or what I want
to do with my life, much less with my boyfriend, if I’m always here.”

It’s not going to be
easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight, but I don’t plan on unsaying
anything. One way or another, I’m going to make this work.

Chapter
Sixteen

Eli’s Night

Eli

I’m driving home from
what was supposed to be a fun night out with Kate when I get a phone call.

“Hello?” I answer.

There’s a lot of
background noise, but through the sounds of glasses clinking, loud music and
the occasional “Woo!” I hear my friend and former informal bareknuckle boxing
opponent saying, “Hey, Rans, it’s Mick. I’m out here with some of the guys,
thought you might want to tag along if you’re not doing anything.”

“I’m really not in the
mood,” I tell him.

“I thought it might be
nice for you and me to get out and do something,” he says. “You know, kind of
bury the hatchet.”

“I’m still not in the
mood,” I tell him.

“Come on, man,” Mick
says. “All our stuff aside, when was the last time you got out and did
something?”

“I do stuff all the
time.”

It’s not really smart to
go into details over a cell phone, so he’ll have to take my meaning.

“That’s work,” he says.
“It’s good that you’re motivated, but everyone’s got to blow off some steam
every once in a while. You could use a vacation.”

“Bye, Mick,” I say and
hang up the phone.

I’m not sure why I
answered it in the first place.

Neither of us has been
openly hostile toward the other since Mick got out of the hospital, but it’s
still going to take me some time before I’m ready to be all buddy/buddy with
him again. Even if I were, I wouldn’t feel like it tonight.

Kate’s pulling away, and
I really don’t know why.

It’s possible when she
saw Mick in the shop after our “little talk,” she felt I’d gone overboard and
is two minutes away from ending the relationship.

Did I overreact?

I don’t know. It really
seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I mean, I
did
take the guy to the hospital.

Still, I can see how she
might think I went a bit too far. The guy’s nose is pretty hilarious right now.

It’ll heal, I’m sure.

Other than that, the only
thing I can think is that Kate’s mom spiked her daughter’s water with something
that made her a lot more open to the idea of hating me. Hate’s an exaggeration,
no doubt, but she’s obviously not too happy with me right now.

I get back to my humble
apartment on the western edge of town, making sure to keep the lights off until
I’ve got the front door closed behind me. The neighbors don’t need to know what
kind of stuff I have in my home.

Sometimes people have
larger mouths than wallets. There are a few things in here I didn’t exactly
earn working at the shop.

Every once in a while, a
recently-defeated opponent will manage to talk me into taking something other
than money to pay for the honor of seeing me beat them on the pavement. I’ve
never had pity with a pink slip, but with the right offer, a $1,000 win can
turn into a flat screen the size of my mattress.

Thanks to my overwhelming
generosity, I’ve ended up with a lot of stuff.

Now with the light on and
the door closed behind me, though, I feel like I haven’t really been home in a
while. It’s a strange feeling, especially because I haven’t slept anywhere else
since that morning Kate and I had to make our great escape from her
second-floor bedroom.

I sit on the couch and
grab the remote, but I can’t convince myself to press the power button.

Mick’s right: I could use
a vacation. I’m not sure if I want to go out boozing with him and whatever
group he’s cobbled together for the night, but getting out wouldn’t be such a
bad idea.

It’s difficult to pin
down why, but being here, surrounded by things I either won directly off of
other people or bought with money from other races, I feel so small, so
unmistakably alone. It’s not a feeling I like.

I pull out my phone and
find Kate’s number. Maybe if I just give her a call, we can talk and work out
whatever problem we’re having this week.

It’s too soon, though.
Whatever the reason, she’s not thrilled with me right now, and it doesn’t
really seem to me that calling her up right now isn’t going to do much good.

I glance back at my
enormous television, standing on the antique chest of drawers I won off a guy
in a Honda Civic. He was pretty broken up about it, but it was either that or
his shitty car. He hadn’t done nearly enough to that thing to make it worth my
time.

Usually, I can squeeze a
sense of pride looking around my apartment, but right now I just feel like an
intruder stuck in a room with a whole lot of other people’s things. I’m
starting to feel like I can’t get out.

Looking back to my phone,
I find Mick’s last call and I call him back.

“Change your mind?” he
asks, answering the phone.

“Where can we meet up?”

I hate to admit it, but
after being home for less than ten minutes, I’m looking forward to a night on
the town.

*
*
       
*

The night starts out
innocent enough. I meet up with Mick and some guys I know from the pavement and
we have some drinks, talk cars.

Looking back over the
last half hour, I’d say the moment things went wrong was when we all agreed
that we should check out the new piano bar in town.

I can live with piano
music. It’s not the kind of thing I’d play in the car—if I had a car that had a
radio, CD player, tape deck, eight-track player, or MP3 input—but it doesn’t
bother me, either.

It’s not the music that’s
making this so uncomfortable, though.

With a name like The
Branded Sub, I probably should have figured out that it wasn’t just a normal
jazz bar. At first, I was looking for some kind of naval thing, but once we got
through the doors and into the club itself, it became clear enough.

See, along with being a
piano bar, The Branded Sub is also a BDSM club.

Now, I’m not one to judge
what consenting adults do in their free time, but this isn’t my scene. From the
way the other guys are hunched forward, trying not to look at anything but
their drinks, I’d say I’m not alone here.

Our waiter—a
twenty-something man wearing a black corset, his hands elaborately tied behind
his back and a stamp on his forehead in the shape of a crescent moon that’s
made to look like someone branded him with an iron—comes by the table with a
pleather-clad blonde woman carrying a bullwhip in one hand and a tray of drinks
in the other.

“Down,” the woman says,
and our waiter drops to his knees and leans forward. Once he’s negotiated his
positioning with his hands behind his back, the woman sets the tray on his
back. She looks up at us with narrow eyes, saying, “He’s been bad. Make him
stay there a while.”

Up until this point, the
only words that have escaped any of our mouths were our drink orders. Now,
we’re all looking at each other, just waiting for the first person to say it.

“So,” Mick says, but he
doesn’t follow it up with anything.

I kind of want to take
the tray off of that guy’s back and tell him he doesn’t have to be our drink
holder, but I really don’t know what they do to you for something like that
here. It’s entirely possible
he’s
the
one that would get mad if we did that.

Gingerly, we pass out our
drinks, leaving the tray on the man’s back. When in Rome, I guess.

Still, as I’m finishing
up my pint of beer about fifteen seconds later, I think I’ve about hit my limit
with this place.

There’s a stage with what
looks like a catwalk in the center of the bar. There
is
a piano sitting on it, but nobody’s playing it right now.
Instead, a man wearing an oversized bull’s head mask is holding a microphone
against the mouth of his mask, and he’s saying the malevolent fashion show will
be starting in twenty minutes.

This really isn’t my
thing.

A funny thing happens,
though. Without a single word, me and the other guys at the table pull out our
wallets at about the same time, take out enough money to cover our drinks, and
we all stand and walk to the door.

Once we’re all out on the
sidewalk, we all turn to glare at Mick.

“How was I supposed to
know?” he asks.

A couple of guys call it
a night right then and there, but I’m not ready to face my empty apartment. I haven’t
had nearly enough to drink.

So, when Raoul—his real
name’s actually Quincy, but I guess he thought Raoul was the better racing
name—says the words, “Strip bar?” I’m pretty quick to agree.

I’ve never really seen
the appeal to strip clubs, personally. Paying women to pretend like they’re
sexually interested tends to make me feel a little pathetic, but it’s a place
with liquor that’s neither a bondage club or my apartment, so I’m willing to
deal with the more mild awkwardness.

At least, that’s what I’m
thinking while we’re on our way there.

Once we’re inside,
though, I want to leave. I get that I’m not here to ogle somewhat naked women,
but I don’t think Kate would appreciate my coming here after we had a bad date.
How could she
not
get the wrong
impression?

Still, I’m not going home
until I’m staggering, so I guess we’ll just have to make this quick.

The other guys find a
table near the stage while I’m up at the bar, ordering drinks supposedly for
the table. In reality, each of the six shots I tell the bartender to have
brought to the table is for me.

If I can get through all
that, I’m willing to bet I’ll be ready to go home and call it a night.

I get to the table and
sit with my back to the stage. It’s still pretty uncomfortable, but I think
I’ll live.

Raoul’s saying something
I can’t begin to hear over the Def Leppard song these women must be so
incredibly sick of by now, and I’m glancing at the bar, hoping that at any
moment, a nice waitress will bring over the poison so I can get the hell out of
here.

Mike, the only guy at the
table going by his real name tonight, nudges me, saying, “Hey, I heard about
your last race. Think you’re going to be able to win the whole thing?”

“I don’t know,” I answer.
“Word is that Jax is racing something pretty insane out there, and I don’t
think there’s a prize for second place, so we’ll have to see how it goes.”

Mike nods and falls into
another conversation as the waitress finally comes over with a tray full of
vodka shots.

“Here you go, guys,” she
says, setting the tray on the table.

I give her a tip and grab
a shot.

“Thanks for the drinks,
man. That’s really-” Mike says as he reaches for one of the shot glasses. I
swat his hand away.

“Get your own,” I tell
him.

After five minutes and
all but one of the shots—my stomach can’t handle any more right now—I think I’m
finally ready to relax. Unfortunately, I’m in a place where that’s not actually
possible.

The problem is that it’s
so loud next to the stage conversation’s not much of an option. That wouldn’t
be such a problem if I was here for the peep show, but right now, I’m just an
increasingly intoxicated guy sitting at a table with people he may as well not
know, being pounded by music nobody’s listened to
outside
a strip club in two decades.

I’m about ready to tell
Mike he can grab that shot he’s been eyeing when the music changes and Mick is
gesturing wildly, trying to get me to turn around.

When I turn around to
look at the stage, my heart relocates to my throat.

The woman on stage with
the light skin and long, black hair, I know her. Actually, we used to date.

She and I were never
quite a fit for each other, but even after we broke up, I’ve still found myself
thinking about her from time to time. Desiree—her real name. I couldn’t tell
you what her stage name would be—isn’t just an ex, though. She’s my what-if
girl.

For the first time of the
night, I watch a dancer’s full set. I get a little irritated when Mick gets up,
walks over to the stage, and drops about twenty bucks in singles to get Desi’s
attention.

I know what he’s doing.
If Desi and I can hit it off, Mick thinks maybe I’ll break up with Kate. This
late in the game, I doubt he’d want to go after Kate himself, but it would make
things less awkward if I was dating someone else.

Mick’s plan works enough
that he gets Desi’s attention and that attention turns to me just as quickly,
but I’m not interested. Things may have hit a rough patch with Kate, but that
doesn’t mean I’m going to cheat on her. That’s not how I roll.

When the song ends,
though, Desi hops off the stage and pulls up a seat next to me. Mick doesn’t
waste a lot of time moving to sit on her other side, so before we even start, I
ask her, “Any chance you’d like to catch up a bit in a quieter part of the
club?”