Page 27 of To Believe In You
“But you could.”
His vision flicked to her.
Oh. Had that sounded like she wanted him to occupy his time with her? Her cheeks burned. “Awestruck.” Hurried, the word sounded like a cough. “Tim wants to try to help you get in with the band.”
“Ah.” He treated her to a view of his back as he rolled the chair into place. In his scalp, an inch-long white line showed through his short, brown hair. Another scar. Did he even remember how he’d gotten them all?
“What was …? Can I ask …? What was Tim talking about?”
His back stiffened, and his profile came into view as he frowned out at Main Street. “The money?”
Lina nodded, but he wasn’t looking. “Yeah.”
“I owe my parents. That’s the commitment I was talking about when you first came down to Fox Valley.”
“Money can certainly complicate relationships.” Hence the reason she’d never mentioned her net worth to anyone in Lakeshore. And, come to think of it, the reason she didn’t trust Shane’s apology. She hadn’t returned either of his messages.
“They’re not asking for it, so I guess it’s not complicated on their end.” Matt rubbed his thumb against his pointer finger. When he turned in her direction, he didn’t quite make eye contact. “But one of the steps is to make amends for what I’ve done.”
As if he’d given her chair a good spin, her perspective shifted. He was paying back family when they hadn’t even asked him to? There must be more to the story that wouldn’t paint him as favorably. “What did you do?” She swallowed, hoping to subdue the accusatory edge in her voice. “I mean, how’d you accumulate so much debt?”
She suspected she knew. His old lifestyle must’ve been expensive, and by all accounts, he hadn’t stopped living extravagantly when he’d been fired from Awestruck. The band he’d joined afterward couldn’t have paid nearly as much—Awestruck was one of the top-earning bands in the country. The world, even. Most musicians made only a modest income—if that—and even if the band Matt had ended up with had done all right financially, their run had been short-lived.
Literally. The lead singer, August Peltier, had died of an overdose, bringing the band to a screeching halt.
Anywhere in there, Matt could’ve run low on funds and resorted to getting them from his family. Judging by the family business, the Vissers got by, and probably comfortably, but she doubted they could afford to part with such a sizable amount. Had he stolen it? Talked his parents into parting with some of their retirement to get him out of trouble?
Matt sighed, ending his long silence. “A few years ago, before I got clean, I was home in Fox Valley. The lake had frozen over, and the first fishing shanties were up. Pickups were out on the ice.” Vulnerability softened his eyes.
This was not the story she’d expected at all.
“One night, I took Visser Landscaping’s biggest dump truck out to do a donut.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“The ice couldn’t handle the weight.”
As a teen, she’d watched a movie where an accident forced a car off a bridge. Ever since, the horrible scene haunted her whenever she drove near water. How much worse to break through ice and have to fight both the cold and the water?
“What did you …? How did you get out?”
“It didn’t go through all at once. I got away, but the truck was a total loss, and the powers that be were not at all happy about polluting the lake. The money will pay back my parents for the fines and recovery and get them another used dump truck. They’ve been limping by, using their smaller one, ever since.”
“They didn’t have insurance on the one that sank?”
“Insurance refused to cover the loss. I was just lucky to have not gone down with it. Pretty sure my brother, Pete, would rather I had. I deserved to, that’s for sure. I was drunk. High. The whole thing.” He scratched the panther tattoo. “Another bad decision in a long line of them.”
She agreed, of course. He’d made a lot of poor decisions. But compassion warmed her. He’d owned his mistake without blaming others or sugarcoating his choices or their consequences.
If the old Shane had done all the same things Matt had for all the same reasons, he would have found a way to blame everyone else. Anyone but himself. Had Shane changed to be more like this? Honest, vulnerable, committed to a better life?
It didn’t matter. Shane was her past.
And what’s Matt, Lord?
Dreaming of a future that involved the musician could too easily result in more lofty dreams shattered. But a buoyant swirl of attraction and respect circled in her core. Shane was her past, and Matt may never be part of her future, but she no longer minded having him as part of her present. In fact, she rather preferred it this way.
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