Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,3

bend over backward for a friend.

Brandon liked to think he was included in that select number. He’d certainly been the recipient of her generosity more times than he cared to count in his seven years at the club. He’d lost track of the number of times she’d made him a home-cooked meal or given him a place to study. She even lent him the money for school once, when it looked like he might have to drop out for lack of funds. He’d worked an extra shift for the rest of the term to pay her back, but that was just the kind of woman she was.

If you asked, she’d just say she was looking after her investment, making sure he was fit to perform, but Brandon knew it was more than that. June was, despite the moxie and the showmanship, what his grandma used to call “good people.” She’d been good to him when he needed it the most and God knows his own flesh and blood had rarely, if ever, been interested in making an effort where he was concerned.

“We got a no-show.”

“Hell. Tony?”

“Yup.”

“No-good son of a bitch! I knew better than to book him from Jasper but he swore Tony’d mended his ways.” She paused. “So who’ve you got going on?”

“No frigging idea.” He counted on his fingers. “T’Shaun and Kirby already performed tonight. Lucas and Ian aren’t scheduled to go on ’til after Tony, but they’re both new. Neither one’s got the experience to headline.”

The silence on the radio stretched out, an unspoken solution hanging between them.

“No,” Brandon said firmly. “Forget it.”

“You said yourself there wasn’t anyone else.”

“I don’t dance anymore.” He scowled, although June couldn’t see it. “I blew out my knee.”

“Knee, schmee. You wiggle, you jiggle, you flash your dimples. What do you need your knee for?”

“Forget it, June.”

“Honey, you can do this show with your eyes closed. And remember, it’s just one night. It ain’t the rest of your life or anything.”

Brandon sighed. It wasn’t the dancing he objected to. Before he tore his knee, he’d loved to dance. Still did. He just couldn’t do it five nights a week anymore like he used to.

He was a good-looking guy, tall, fit and—while he didn’t like to brag—not deficient in the equipment department either. Hell, girls had been telling him that since he was thirteen and it hadn’t hurt his stage career at Foxe’s Den. And he liked women. The way they smelled, the way they fit in his arms, the way they felt when his cock was buried deep inside their bodies. But in all years since he’d discovered women, he’d never once experienced a real connection with any of the ones he’d taken into his bed.

He wasn’t indiscriminate. He liked his women one at a time. But the ones in the audience never saw him as a person but as some sort of sexual automaton. Sexy but sexless. Tall and strong and lean but when the fantasy was over, not someone they’d ever want to see in the light of day. And while he sure as hell wasn’t looking for the future Mrs. Myles—after bearing witness to the volatile roller coaster his own parents had endured, the very thought made his blood run cold—it still took a lot out of a guy knowing he was the kind of person a girl wanted to fuck but never acknowledge.

In the early days, he’d needed the money. Every penny had gone to keeping his dreams of learning alive. Of escaping the poverty and neglect of his childhood. He was used to going it alone. He’d learned the hard way that love didn’t prevent you from being disappointed or betrayed. His mom. His dad. Even his grandmother had left after a fashion, dying when he was twelve.

So he’d learned to fake it. Smiled and flirted with all the women, onstage and off. Danced for their money, took a few into his bed. But at the end of a long, hard night performing, he’d felt like he’d given away another piece of himself. And he’d wondered how long he could keep giving pieces away until there wasn’t anything left.

That was why he stopped dancing. The injury had been real, but if he’d really loved it, he could have found a solution. Choreographed routines that took pressure off the ligaments and kept performing. But he’d had enough. He still designed the numbers for most of the male dancers and handled the scheduling and back-of-the-house details, but he hadn’t