Page 20 of In Step

But oh, how I wanted to.

Abe dropped his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. That was pretty personal.”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly, not wanting him to feel bad. This was my stupid awkwardness, not his. “I just... well I don’t really talk about this stuff... with anyone. I guess I don’t know what to say. I just... miss her. I was a kid of eleven, and she was there one day making my school lunch and then gone by the time I got home. It was like this huge rift tore across my life, and I just fell into it and everything went dark.”

His eyes grew soft, and I wanted to fall into them. Then I felt his grip tighten, and I glanced down to see we were still holding hands. I’d almost forgotten. I should’ve pulled free then, but I didn’t.

He leaned so close, I could feel the heat emanating from his body. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s your story, Kane. You tell it, or you don’t. That’s up to you. There’s no right or wrong.”

I swallowed hard around the ball of fear swelling in my throat. I needed the focus off me. I needed Abe out of my space before I... before I... who the fuck knew what. Talked? Kissed him? Neither would end well. I carefully unfolded my hand from his and cleared my throat. “Did your mum improve?”

Abe stared at his empty hand and then leaned back, and I tried to dismiss what looked like disappointment in his eyes. He nodded. “She eventually changed doctors to someone who actually gave a shit and was much better by the time I left school, holding down a job and doing well, and being a mum again. But that sense of being stuck didn’t go away, and when I auditioned and was offered a place with the London Ballet at eighteen, I couldn’t get out of the country fast enough.” He winced. “It was ten years before I went home again.”

I gaped. “Ten years?”

He flushed. “I know, I know. I was angry at the world for a long time, at my mother too, I guess. I knew I was hurting them. My brother didn’t exactly hold back what he thought about it, so I got myself some therapy and started to put the pieces together, and six months later I went home for a holiday.”

“Is it why you still lead such a nomadic lifestyle?”

He looked thoughtful. “Maybe. But I love what I do, and I can’t imagine giving it up to put roots down, not yet. I enjoy a month or two in places like this, but I get itchy feet.”

“Leroy mentioned you’d been home for two weeks before you came up here?”

Abe nodded. “I was supposed to be here earlier, but I changed plans when Con called to say he’d noticed stuff happening with Mum. Memory stuff, mostly. Forgetting her meds or how to work the remotes. But it was getting worse. She’d burned a couple of pots and was struggling to remember Dad’s name at times, or recognise him in photos.”

My heart squeezed and I fought the urge to reach for his hand again. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Yeah, we’re guessing dementia, but she’s got an assessment coming up that I’ll go back down for. That should give us some answers. She’s only sixty-five, and I feel pretty fucking guilty for all those years I never came back.”

“We do what we do for reasons that seem valid at the time.”And god, how I knew that.I tried for safer ground. “So what exactly does the job of a freelance choreographer entail?”

Abe seemed as relieved as me at the subject change. “It’s a feast or famine business. I’m either swamped with work or I’m out peddling for it. And it’s less about being hugely creative, as it is about designing a ballet around a company’s needs and abilities. I might be hired for a thirty-minute piece or a full-length ballet, on a per-day rate or a fixed term. My job is to highlight what the company does best along with showcasing their top dancers and fudging any weaknesses.”

“You have to make them look good.”

He chuckled. “They wouldn’t have me back if I didn’t.”

I listened raptly as he talked about company politics and the competitive nature of dance. The joy of not having to deal with budgets and boards, but how he missed not building long-term mentoring relationships with individual dancers. And how he missed having a home but that he felt tied down when in one place for too long.

But dear Lord, the way his eyes lit up when he described his choreography work. My heart ran at pace as his hands flew through the air, his short nails, clean and painted clear, bright in the sun as he described his favourite performing artists, including Judah. The admiration in his voice, the passion, the joy of creating something special for those dancers to shine.

My heart ran at pace as every part of his body engaged in the telling, the stretch of his sweats across his thighs and the way the thin material bunched and folded over the bulge of his soft cock. The curve of his neck and shoulders as he threw back his head and laughed into the blue winter sky. The swell of his biceps beneath the sleeves of his open black shirt, and the flat planes of his chest stretched beneath the white T-shirt that clung to his body. And his feet—dear god—his feet. Naked and pale, with just a smattering of dark hair that ran to strong toes, every inch painted in scars and callouses born from years of dancing.

It shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was, but my body was so fucking on board, I could scarcely breathe.

“It’s exciting, stressful, exhilarating, rewarding, hair-tearing-out frustrating, and I love every freaking minute of it,” Abe finished, almost out of breath, and I had to force my mind back to the mew and caw of the gulls and the soft swish of the tide against the sand. Seeing something in my expression, he flushed. “Sorry. I got a bit carried away.”

“Don’t apologise,” I rushed to reassure him, wanting to kiss him fucking senseless instead, because for just a few minutes he’d carried me with him out of Painted Bay and out of my small life. “I loved it. It’s a world I know nothing about. I’ve never even left the bloody country.”

“There’s no shame in that. I think it’s kind of special to feel such a connection to a place.”

I fired him an amused look. “Is that another way of saying I’m nuts?”

He laughed. “I’m gonna take a pass on that. So, have you lived here yourwholelife?”

“Except for three years at uni in Auckland. I studied English. But by the time I was done, I had a load of debt and Dad needed help on the farm, so I came back.” My gaze shifted off his pretty face and sideways to the wharf.

“But you left it?”

---