Free Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) by Alycia Taylor Page A

sure
things haven’t changed that much in the last fifty years.”
    God, I feel so pathetic
right now.
    “You’re not like other
girls,” he says. “You’re smarter, more determined. You’re more capable. Does it
really strike you as odd that we’d want to go out of our way to protect you?”
    I don’t answer. I’m at my
window, looking out for some way to get to the grass without breaking anything.
    Even though we’ve been
seeing each other for a few weeks now, Eli’s still never been to my house. I
think the reasoning there is fairly obvious.
    “Kate, come on,” Dad says
through the door. “Talk to me.”
    “I have nothing else to
say. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long day and I’d like to try to get
some sleep.”
    There’s a pause.
    “All right. Come down if
you need anything.”
    Right.
    Now, to figure out a safe
way to the ground…

 
    **         *

 
    Believe it or not, with
the right kind of thread count, you actually can tie bedsheets together and use
them as a rope.
    I find Eli at his shop,
under the front of his Galaxie.
    “Did you get the
transmission replaced?” I ask.
    There’s a loud clang and
an even louder expletive before Eli rolls out from under the car.
    “Hey,” he says. “Yeah, I
got the transmission switched out, but it’s leaking oil.”
    Mouth open, I breathe in
through my teeth. “Yeah,” I say. “We’re not really going to be able to take
mine.”
    “Oh, it’s not a big
thing,” he says. “I’ve got a patch on it that should hold at least until we get
back. Are you ready?”
    “Have you showered?”
    I’m not sure if it’s the
oil or the sweat, but he’s a bit ripe.
    “Not yet,” he says.
“There’s a shower in the back of the office from when the old owner used to
live here. I was expecting you to be a little longer.”
    I check my watch. It
looks like I am a bit early.
    “Sorry about that,” I
tell him. “I just had to get out of the house, you know?”
    “Oh, it’s fine. I’ve been
off for a while. I’ve just been trying to get this patched up while I was
waiting for you. Do you mind waiting while I jump in the shower?”
    A more daring part of me
than I’m used to nearly asks if I can join him, but my frontal lobe kicks in
just in time to save me. “That’s fine,” I tell him. “Where should I wait?”
    “There’s a TV in the main
office. If you want, you can set up in there. I shouldn’t be too long.”
    I follow him into the
office proper, where he shows me to the waiting room before ducking into Maye’s
office. She must be off tonight.
    It’s ten o’clock now, and
we’re supposed to be at the meet-up spot in an hour.
    Apparently, the way it
goes is something like this: everyone who’s racing or tagging along meets up at
a gas station or a restaurant, there’s some argument over where to do the run,
and, sometime before sunrise, everyone heads to the agreed-upon start point.
    Tonight is just drag
races, according to Eli, but it sounds like they set up street courses every
once in a while, too. I don’t know how that works just yet, but I doubt it’ll
be too long before Eli tells me.
    I sit for a while
watching reruns of a sitcom I never caught while it was on the air before Eli
comes out of the back, dressed in a black, button shirt and dark pants. He
shaved while he was in there, too, so his face is nice and inviting.
    “Someone looks snazzy,” I
observe.
    He smirks at my word
choice and says, “While we’ve got a few minutes, there’s something I want to
show you.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You said your favorite color
is violet, right?”
    “Yeah,” I tell him.
“Why?”
    “Well, I was hoping to
show it to you in the daytime, but I took a picture after it was finished and I
wanted to get your reaction.”
    “Okay?” I ask, just as
clueless as before the explanation.
    “Here,” he says, pulling
his phone out of his pocket. He’s messing with it for a minute and then he
hands it to me,