Shifting Gears (2 page)

“Okay, okay, you win, love. I’ll leave
you be...for now.”

Clay lets go of my arm and walks
toward the grinning girls, still standing there, watching us. They
giggle as Clay approaches them, and I can faintly make out him
saying, “Hello, beautifuls.”

Such a damn flirt. Some nights that
shit gets him in trouble. Bouncing back and forth from girl to
girl, guy to guy like he does. They get jealous and want to
fight.

Insanity.

After several trips to the bar for
liquid love in the form of shots and the ever-flowing Stella, I’m
ready to head home. It’s easy to find Clay—he’s still making his
rounds out on the dance floor. Ang and Cass are flirting with some
of the guys from one of tonight’s opening bands. I’ve never heard
of them but, with The Rox’s magic, they sounded great.

Cass is a sucker for drummers, so
she’s flipping her hair and smiling big at the guy with the blond
shoulder-length hair, who looks like he breaks girls’ hearts on a
regular basis—which is the way Cass likes them. Angie takes guitar
lessons because she likes them and the guys who play them, so she’s
chatting it up with the guitarist from the same band.

I love to go out with the girls and
Clay, and I love coming to The Rox, but I dread this time of the
night. I’m always the first one ready to head home. It takes
several, “You guy’s ready?” to get Cass and Ang away, if they’ve
found someone who interests them. Clay, on the other hand, always
has my back. I know when I give him the heads-up that I’m ready to
go, he’ll make it happen. He is, after all, our ride
home.

I approach the two of them, and, as I
suspected, they aren’t ready. Cass gives me a look that screams,
“Please don’t make me go yet,” and when I turn to Angie, her pouty
lips read the same.

“We told Gage and Chris we’d stick
around for their next set.” Cass points to their new
friends.

Clay comes up behind me and wraps his
arms around my waist. He starts us in a dance, swaying my hips from
side to side. Judging by the childlike grin on his face, he’s in a
great mood, having a good night. I really don’t want to spoil it.
He looks at me and knows what I’m thinking, what I want to
say.

“You ready, Niki-cakes?”

I got that nickname from my
unfortunate love for pancakes—unfortunate because no matter how
much I try to work them off, those pancakes stick to me like
butter. Still, I can cook the hell out of them, and the three of
them are always asking me to make my pecan praline ones for our
Saturday come-over-in-your-pajamas mornings. Cass and I live in the
same complex as Clay and Angie, so our places have become second
homes to one another.

I nod, hesitantly.

Clay links his arm with mine. As we
turn away from Cass and Ang, we yell out against the blaring music,
“Stay safe.” Pointless to try to talk them in to coming with us.
They’ll manage to get a ride home on their own, I’m
certain.

We make it through the crowd, which, a
little after midnight, is still full, with some people just
arriving. The Rox stays open until three AM, yet another cool thing
for the indie bands as it offers them more play time compared to
other traditional venues. Outside, we make our way to Clay’s
car.

I love animals, music, books, and fast
cars, in that order. I’ve always been attracted to badass cars. I’m
talking old school Fords, Chevies, and Buicks. They truly make my
heart go pitter-patter. The louder—and, most importantly, the
faster—the better. It’s something about being in a classic—it
captivates me, stirs me. The beauty of it. Hearing its rumble.
Feeling that vibration. It’s like a tease, enticing me to be bad,
which I never am. But I am a penny pincher, which means I don’t
have a hot muscle car. I drive a Honda, the safe, sensible car of
women nationwide.

Clay, however, has the hotness: a
sixty-eight Mustang Fastback. Looking at Clay, with his designer
everything, you’d think of him as a Beamer kind of guy, but he
shares the love of classics with me. Lucky for him, with his
well-paid modeling gigs, he has the extra cash for its
upkeep.

As Clay walks us to his Stang, its
midnight blue gleaming in the moonlight, I’m thankful his arm’s
still around me, because I’m really lightheaded. Smashed, without a
doubt. Cass and her lethal-ass shots are the death of me... Okay,
so I set my own self up for punishment.

He helps me in, and I reach over to
unlock his door. As I turn back in my seat, I notice a dim light
coming from the adjoining lot behind us. Odd. The Rox is crowded
tonight, but it’s not crowded enough to force anyone to park in the
overflow lot. Unless they parked there on purpose. To be in the
dark.

When I look closely, I can see the
light is actually the cherry of a cigarette. And, attached to that
cigarette, leaning against his nineteen sixty-seven Buick Special,
is Holt.

He’s alone, unless Amber is naked and
passed out in the backseat. Likely. I straighten in my seat without
hesitation as Clay climbs in. He takes one look at me and knows
something is up. I guess my face is betraying me. The sudden
mixture of emotions I’m feeling. Fear and pain. The fear of Holt
seeing me and pain that he doesn’t.

“Are you okay? You look like you saw a
ghost or something.”

I laugh under my breath. That’s
precisely what I have seen: a ghost. One that’s still haunting
me.

“Yeah, I’m okay, just tired. I think I
let Cass talk me into one too many shots.”

I didn’t know Clay back when Holt
first came into my life, and I’m not about to walk down memory lane
with him now. I’m ready to get the hell out of here. Clay starts up
the Stang, and we pull out.

I glance back to sneak another look at
him as we make it onto the road. I can’t help myself. He’s still
standing there, in the dark. Someone who doesn’t know him, doesn’t
know that body, the way he holds himself, his confidence and
cockiness, wouldn’t be able to make out that it’s him. But I know.
God, do I ever.

He lifts the floating light of his
cigarette to his mouth, takes a drag then flicks it out. It sails
in our direction. He turns away from us and walks to the driver
side of his car. When he opens the door, the shadow of a head pops
up from inside. In that instant, I know I want him to disappear
again, just as fast as he did before.

The whole car ride home, he’s all I
can think about. Seeing him again brings up all these memories I’d
locked in a metal box and buried in the basement of my mind. God,
why couldn’t I have walked up to him and said what I’d rehearsed in
my head over and over again for the last three years? Instead, I
stood there, jaw dropped, like the emotional train wreck he always
makes me.

Three years, and he can still have
this effect on me. Pathetic. He doesn’t even remember me! I’m
nothing to him, while he was once everything to me.

I’ve got to suck it up. I don’t have a
choice, really. It is what it is. The past. I trusted too soon.
Messed up. Made a mistake. If he’s back to stay, I have to deal
with it. I’ll pretend I don’t know him, the same way he looked at
me tonight as if I was just another face in the crowd. If I see him
again, I’ll avoid his eyes and keep a distance. I’ve already been
enough of an idiot. I don’t need to make a public display of
it—confronting him, sinking even lower. For my own sanity, I’m not
bringing all that back up to the surface now. Not
happening.

I try my best to concentrate on what
Clay’s saying as we drive home. He’s doing all the talking while I
sit in silence.

“So yeah, I should be gone for about a
week.”

He’s talking about a modeling gig in
Atlanta next month. Coral Springs, where we live, is small compared
to Atlanta. Most of its residents make the thirty-minute trip there
to do their shopping, since Coral Springs only offers little Mom
and Pop stores—the kind I love.

Who wants to dress like everybody else
anyway? I find the best clothes and shoes at Hartley’s, my favorite
clothing store in town. I shop there a lot, especially when I crave
something girly, the opposite of my work gear: scrubs and low top
Converses.

Clay parks the car and turns to me.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”

I force another smile before
answering. “Honest, I’m tired.”

He walks me to my door, like he always
does for me and Cass, and kisses my forehead. “Sleep well,
Niki-cakes. See you in the morning for breakfast.”

“You too.” I give him a hug and walk
in. As I shut my door, I hear the faint sound of a car peeling off.
The neighbors must be fighting again.

While I’m getting ready for bed, I
brush out my hair and laugh out loud as I imagine Cass and Ang
having fun, unlike me, standing here alone, caught up in my past.
Are they even going to make it home before the sun comes up? Doubt
it.

God, I wish I could be more like
them—confident, fun. Carefree. The word does not fit into my world.
I’m so far from it. I always worry, I always have to be organized,
and I always watch the clock.

Fun for me is reading a book or
playing Scrabble, though I sometimes talk Clay into taking the
Stang out. There’s a strip of abandoned road near us that teenagers
use for late night drag racing, which pulls at me. But even though
he has the badass car, he treats it like the classic it is. He
doesn’t like to “overdo it.” The most exciting place I go is The
Rox—the only place I enjoy, really. Music, much like my animals, is
a beautiful distraction.

And beauty, that’s another thing. Cass
and Angie have it from head to toe. Cass, who works as a paralegal
for a law firm in Atlanta, has short jet black hair that’s styled
in a wispy boy cut only she can pull off. Her eyes are her best
feature. They’re an emerald green, and if you stare at them long
enough, you can almost feel yourself drowning in them. Her
five-foot-eight figure is always in the most form-fitting clothes,
whether it’s a pencil skirt for work or a dress for a night
out.

Ang, a waitress at a restaurant near
our complex, is just as beautiful. Her long fire-red curly hair and
porcelain skin makes her stand out. She isn’t like everyone else,
and she likes it that way. She’s a little shorter than Cass but
still taller than my five foot four inches.

Both of them are so confident. They
can walk into any room and get looks. I find myself walking behind
them whenever we go out together. That’s how I see all the eyes on
them. It’s like this at The Rox, just like everywhere else, while I
find a corner to sit and listen to the music and sip my
Stella.

I hate myself for dredging up these
twisted thoughts, but maybe if I had that same confidence, those
looks, he might have stayed. Or at least remembered
me...

I down two ibuprofen with a tall glass
of water and settle myself in for the night, hoping sleep will
come. As soon as close my eyes, I see Holt’s face. Smiling at
Amber. Standing by his car. Looking past me as he stood at the bar.
Me, watching as someone else gets their happy while I stand there.
Alone. Like always. The tears are coming, but I force them back.
He’s not getting any more tears.

I give in to the fact that my mind
isn’t going to allow sleep. I sit up in bed and toss back the
covers. A glass of milk and my e-reader is what I need. A good book
always saves the day, or at least helps me escape reality...for a
little while.

****

I wake after eventually falling
asleep, e-reader in hand. Saturday-come-over-in-your-pajamas
breakfast turns into Saturday-and-still-in-my-pajamas lunch. Clay
and Ang saunter in around eleven, the same time Cass decides to get
up. Clay and I get to hear all about the adventures of Cass and Ang
from the night before, which is almost as entertaining as watching
Clay circulate the dance floor.

As I am clearing the lunch dishes, Ang
follows me into the kitchen. “So what’s up with that Holt
guy?”

My lunch almost comes back up. I turn
and glare at Cass, thinking she’s told Ang about Holt.

I try to settle myself so I can speak,
but before I can, Clay chimes in. “Who’s Holt?”

And so the conversation about Holt
Maddox begins as if I am not even in the room.

“He’s just this dick Niki knew a long
time ago,” Cass says.

“What’d he do to be a dick?” Clay
asks, turning to me with a look of anger, concern.

I try to speak, but the words won’t
come out. I can’t bring myself to talk about that day without it
revealing all the pain, all the humiliation I still feel. I
would’ve said or done something, anything, different if I’d known
that day was going to end the way it did. With me alone.
Heartbroken. In the twenty-five years of my life, that day still
stands out as one of the worst.

Instead of answering Clay, I push past
him and run down the hall to my bedroom. It’s been less than
twenty-four hours since I saw Holt Maddox, and already I’ve broken
my promise not to cry for him again.

I try my best not to think about it,
not to remember, but the memories take hold of me. I’d done so well
all these years, pushing them away, learning to forget. Pretending
I was better...