Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,44

too late to keep up the pretense. Here, in his arms, she the line had already been breached. They were no longer merely strangers embarking on a one-night stand.

“Where were your parents? Your family? Couldn’t they help?”

He laughed but the sound held no humor. “My parents were never much on success. They divorced when I was ten. My dad had been gone a lot of the time, so I didn’t really miss him. When he was sober, he was a long-haul trucker. When he wasn’t, he just made life miserable for the rest of us.”

What a barren childhood.

“I lived with my grandma after the divorce.”

“The one who hung your certificate?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. She was good to me and wanted me to do well, but it didn’t last and I had to move back in with my mom a few years later.”

“Why?” she asked, her fingers stroking the taut plains of his shoulders. She stopped, pressing against a knot of tension, and he groaned in appreciation.

“Nana died,” he said. “Heart attack. Mom didn’t really want me. She’d remarried and having me around was just a reminder of past mistakes. Brian wasn’t a bad guy or anything but he had his own kids, so he just let me do my own thing ’til I was old enough to get away and live on my own.”

And in those scant words, Leanne could make out the loneliness and fear that shaped him into the man he was today. He’d overcome physical and material deprivations but the emotional deprivations had marked him far more deeply. No wonder he claimed to have no time for fun. For all intents and purposes, he’d been on his own since he was a boy, shouldering burdens and expectations no child should have to carry.

She tried to keep her voice light, not wanting him to suspect how his history had affected her. “So why dance? You could have done a sports scholarship, gone into something more—” she tried to find a word that didn’t sound insulting, “—traditional.”

His lips twitched but he latched gratefully on to the new subject. “Wasn’t good enough. Lots of places offered. I played baseball in high school, football, some volleyball too. But it was just a few thousand dollars to play on the second or third string. I couldn’t pay my own way with that kind of money. I needed a full scholarship or I’d never see the inside of a lecture hall.” He shrugged and continued, “Then one of my guidance counselors suggested I try applying to dance. Turns out, they’re desperate for men. Wellington offered the best scholarship, four years tuition. Not my living expenses or books but it was better than any other offer I got and I was stupid grateful.”

He laughed again and this time there was real humor in his voice. “It took me most of my first year to get it through my head that guys like to dance too.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah, I kept thinking I was going to put in my four years, get a minor in something practical like accounting or business but somehow, I found myself spending more and more time in the studio. It just…it just felt like I fit there, you know? Then I started working for June, at the club, and everything seemed to click.” His voice was wistful.

“You should be proud. I can’t imagine overcoming those odds and succeeding like you have.”

“You know something?”

“What’s that?”

“I keep expecting someone to come and take it all away. That they’ll figure out I’m a fraud who doesn’t deserve the chances he’s been given. Straighten out the irregularities and send me back to where I belong.”

“No one thinks that.”

“I’m the odd one out, Leanne. Everyone else belongs here. I just lucked into it.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.” He smiled at her firm statement but Leanne knew exactly what he meant.

She’d spent years being the odd one out too, though she’d never gone without as Brandon so clearly had. She’d always been too smart, too brainy, too lost in her books to fit in. In academia, her weaknesses had become her greatest assets and she’d come to love the sense of belonging she’d found almost as much as the intellectual challenges. But her parents loved her, provided for her, made sure she had all the opportunities she could ever want.

Brandon had none of that.

He’d been forced to do it all alone.

Now, as a man, he chose to be alone. It was where he was comfortable.