Dance Like Nobody's Watching (5 page)

“Sherrie?” Ty reached for her but she side-stepped.

“Oh, how funny.” Diana laughed, her eyes glinting with
delight. “You know what they say, Sherrie. Those who listen behind closed doors
never hear good of themselves.”

Ty turned towards his dance partner, threatening her with a
sharp gaze. “Shut up.”

Diana raised her hands in mock surrender, taking a few steps
back but remained close by. God forbid she miss a moment of the misery she’d
unleashed, Sherrie thought.

“How much did you hear?” Ty eyed Sherrie warily. At least he
didn’t try to pretend they hadn’t been discussing her.

“Enough.” Sherrie stepped over the mess she’d created,
passing him in the doorway, shrugging off the hand he put on her shoulder.

“Look,” Ty protested, preventing Sherrie’s departure. “It’s
not what you think.”

“It never is,” Diana purred, obviously thrilled to have
front row seats to the drama playing out before her. Her beautiful blue eyes
glistened with ugly spite.

“No, she’s right.” Sherrie’s words stopped Ty when he turned
to say something to Diana as she leaned against the wall, smiling like the cat
that got the cream. “Things are never as they seem.”

Ty didn’t attempt to correct her. Sherrie walked away,
biting her lip to stop the tears from falling until she put some distance
between her and the reason for her humiliation. The limp she usually didn’t
notice seemed to mock her as she tried to leave with some of her dignity
intact.

Charitable efforts?
Why the fuck hadn’t he
defended her?

Sherrie found no answers to the questions circling in her
brain, although the drive home gave her the respite she needed. She doubted her
disability was the reason he’d refused to admit to spending the night with her.
Years of navigating sexual relationships had made her very sensitive to other
people’s reactions. But whatever the hell the reason was for his behavior,
Sherrie couldn’t escape the fact that he’d stood by and allowed Diana to insult
her. In her eyes, a real man protected those he cared about. Either he didn’t
care about her, or he wasn’t the gentleman she thought he was.

By the time Sherrie crawled into bed that night, she thought
she’d figured out what went down. It seemed obvious now. Diana was jealous,
that much was clear. Her reaction implied a relationship between them that went
beyond the professional one Ty claimed they shared—a relationship that
obviously wasn’t over.

Why else would Ty refuse to admit what really happened?

* * * *

Sherrie’s plan to forget Ty and his messy relationship with
Diana went up in smoke first thing the next morning. Diverted to the office by
a phone call, instead of the location shoot she’d been booked for, Sherrie
groaned loud enough for others to hear when she rushed into the Studio’s
reception area and found Ty and Diana waiting there.

“Sherrie.” Ty smiled in surprise but his expression clouded
over when she stared at him without reaction. “What are you doing here?”

“The producer called me in to discuss my new assignment. Why
are you here?”

Ty opened his mouth to answer but Diana’s brittle laugh cut
him off. “Oh, this is too perfect,” she said, returning their confused gazes. “Let
me guess…your new assignment is a show involving high school kids making a
musical?”

Sherrie’s stomach hit her boots. She knew instantly they
were going to be the stars of the show. Questions about why the other dancers
were no longer involved almost burst from her lips before she realized it
didn’t really matter. All that mattered was she had six long weeks stretching
ahead of her where Ty and the dirty Diana would be there for every second.

She gazed at Ty, biting her tongue against all she wanted to
hurl at him. Why involve her in his stupid game with his partner, for one, and
how dare he ruin her first proper job with the studio. Sherrie nearly blew up
in their faces, when the door to the producer’s office opened.

An hour later, she was in her car heading for
Fairborn
High School
, grateful that at least she wasn’t
instructed to give Ty and Diana a ride. Chelwood Studios provided a limo for
‘the talent’ and Sherrie thanked God for small mercies. Some time to catch her
breath and clear her mind wouldn’t go amiss.

The meeting hadn’t been an easy one for her. Sherrie was at
the mercy of the stars of the show. They got to choose who worked with them
and, since the cast changed, Ty and Diana had to be consulted. Of course, they
said they’d be happy with whoever the studio provided, but Sherrie knew they
both had their reasons for approving her. It seemed obvious that Diana couldn’t
resist the sport of making Sherrie feel useless and pathetic, but Ty was a
mystery. Why would he want her around his girlfriend? It didn’t make sense.

 
The effort of
ignoring them both while listening to her boss near wore her out, and she practically
ran from the room when the meeting ended. The obligatory mocking laughter Diana
always produced, followed in the wake of her escape.

With
Fairborn
High School
closed to the
public during the summer months, the studio had taken it over. Parking areas were
set up for the crew, while the playground held craft services, production
vehicles and trailers situated for the costume and make-up departments. Sherrie
found hers quickly and opened the door, shocked to find Ty waiting inside.

“Don’t leave,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We need to
talk.”

“Where’s the charming Diana?”

He thrust his hands into the pocket of his jeans and sighed
in irritation. “What the hell is it with you two?”

Sherrie resisted the urge to kick him out. “You might
remember, I didn’t have a problem with her until I caught you two talking about
me.”

Ty blushed. “About that—”

“Do you mind if we don’t rehash what turned out to be one of
the most humiliating experiences of my life?” Sherrie glared at him, not caring
that she’d revealed far more than she wanted to. “It was bad enough to find out
that you two were an item, but then you added insult to injury by allowing her
to talk about me that way.”

Ty dragged his hand through his hair. “First, there was
never anything between me and her, and second, how the hell was I supposed to
stop her? I can’t exactly force her to shut up.”

“Why lie then, if you had no reason to hide that you spent
the night with me?” She took a step towards him, determined to get the answers
she needed to put her mind at rest. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I went out of town on business Monday night so there was no
point calling if I couldn’t see you. Jesus, Sherrie, it’s barely been three
days and for your information, I don’t even have your number. And about Diana,
I didn’t want her to know, that’s all. What happened between us is private and
I have no intention of explaining myself to her.”

Sherrie tried hard not to voice her real fear about his
reason for denying her, but she failed. A lump in her throat nearly stopped the
words. She forced them out in a pained whisper. “Was it my leg? Was that the
reason you wouldn’t admit to being with me?”

Ty’s hands rose heavenward as if asking for some divine
intervention, before they dropped to his sides, a look of sheer disbelief
crossing his face. “Fuck, Sherrie. Is that the kind of guy you think I am?”

She scrubbed away a traitorous tear with the back of her
fist. “All I know is what I see and hear, Ty. You pretend nothing happened
between us while the woman you are dating—according to the gossip—is mocking my
disability. What in hell did you expect me to think?”

“Not that,” Ty said, turning to leave. “No way in hell did I
imagine that.”

He jumped out of the trailer and slammed the door, making
the whole cabin shake before ripping it open again and leaning back in. “You
know, bigotry goes both ways. Assuming I wouldn’t admit to sleeping with you
because I’m embarrassed about your disability, is as bad as someone telling you
that you shouldn’t have the same rights as others.”

Sherrie closed in on him, fighting the urge to scream. “Don’t
you dare put this on me! You were the one who lied.”

“Yeah, well, you are the one looking for a reason to push me
away. I guess your leg is as good of an excuse as any.”

Ty shut the door seconds before the cup she threw hit his
head. It smashed against the trailer door, shattering into pieces. Sherrie was
pretty sure he’d heard her scream of rage and frustration, and possibly the cup
hitting the door. She waited for a second to see if he’d come back and defend
himself. He didn’t. As the minutes stretched on, the ball of anger in the pit
of her stomach morphed into something else. Sherrie put it down to hunger,
refusing to accept that the feeling in her gut was telling her Ty might’ve been
right.

Chapter Four

Three days later, with the production in full swing and
Sherrie running ragged by the demands of the team, the tension between Sherrie,
Ty and Diana came to a head.

She lost her grip on the armful of costumes she’d been
carrying and muttered under her breath as she turned around to scoop them up
from the floor behind her. The kids whined and bitched about the costumes for
their routine, insisting they have cool stuff like studs and faux razor blades
attached—she was dog tired from making them. Working endlessly for the benefit
of a bunch of know-it-all teenagers, who she suspected were mocking her behind
her back, wasn’t Sherrie’s idea of fun. But she’d lived through worse—the well
meaning pity she’d endured from family and friends after her accident.
 
The kids would get bored eventually.

As Sherrie stepped back around the corner to check if she’d
missed anything, a disturbance nearby made her pause. The image that greeted
her sent the rest of the clothes falling to the floor as she broke into a painful
run.

The students standing around watching the spectacle parted
as she pushed her way through the crowd to the center. Ty had one of the young
men pinned to the wall, the teenager’s shirt bunched in his hands and his
furious face inches from the terrified kid. The youngster, she guessed to be no
more than seventeen, was the same size as Ty and tried to shrug him off, but the
kid had no idea how strong the dancer would be. Ty was muttering something
through clenched teeth, and the guy kept shaking his head, denying whatever it
was he was being accused of.

“I was just joking…it didn’t hurt nobody. She didn’t hear
me.”

“Yeah? Well,
I
heard you. That means you got a problem with me now.”

The kid tried to free himself again. “I’m not the only one
who laughed at her, why are you picking on me?”

“I guess you were the only one stupid enough to let me catch
you doing it.” Ty leaned in closer. “If I ever catch you laughing at Sherrie
again, you’d better start running.”

“Ty!” Sherrie didn’t know why she called out to him. Maybe
she was shocked at the idea of Ty beating up a kid over something that didn’t
bother her…or just that he cared enough to do it? Whatever the reason had been,
he let go of the kid as soon as he heard her voice. “Ty? What in hell are you
doing to him?”

Ty turned back to the young man. “You breathe a word of this
to anyone, I’m gonna come looking for you, understand? Now get out of here.”

The kid sauntered off with a smirk, probably thinking of
ways to reinstate some of the street cred he’d lost in front of his still
shocked and silent friends. They wandered off towards the yard, a few of them
looking back at Ty with a mixture of awe and sardonic amusement.

“Don’t start with me again.” Ty raised his hand and turned
on his heel, heading in the opposite direction of the kids. Sherrie tried to
follow him but his long, fluid gait covered more ground than her slow,
difficult one. Still in pain from her impromptu dash down the hall earlier,
Sherrie was barely managing to keep up.

“Wait up! Ty…stop. I can’t walk as fast as you.”

His stride faltered and he came to a stop, turning shamed
eyes her way. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“No need to apologize. It’s you I’m worried about, not me.” Sherrie
reached to place a hand on his shoulder but Ty ducked away. The rejection hurt
more than she expected, and Sherrie wondered if he’d felt the same way when
she’d pushed him away before. But she didn’t have time to dwell on it. He
looked ready to bolt. “What was that all about?”

“The kid was being a smart-ass. I shouldn’t let it get to
me.” He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“He was talking about me?” Sherrie’s voice trembled on the
last word and the prickle of on-coming tears overwhelmed her.

Ty’s eyebrows bunched in anger and he looked down the hall
towards the retreating students like he wanted to go after them again. Sherrie
put a hand on his arm, confused herself as to why she was almost in tears. The
tension between her and Ty upset her far more than any mindless taunt ever
could. “Let it go. I know they’ve been showing off to each other and acting
stupid. It’ll blow over. It always does.”