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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,