Page 40 of To Believe In You
Though apparently, he would’ve deleted thepleasefrom her text, because he hadn’t used a single nicety.
Matt lowered the phone to the desk. “He hung up. Can’t imagine why.”
She nodded, gulped, and drew a hungry breath.
Shane hadn’t changed. His call proved that. She ought to be glad he’d hung up. Glad Matt had intervened.
Yet … If only Shane had realized the value of what he’d lost—her and their future. Remorse wouldn’t have changed her mind about their breakup, but if he’d fought for her, he might have healed the pride he’d damaged by thinking little enough of her to use her money at the cost of their relationship.
Instead, he’d hung up.
Foolishness.
She huffed, then drew more air in. Her heart seemed to beat extra fast, as if to make up for lost time. “Okay.”
Matt focused on her as if he could see the adrenaline racing through her veins. “You sure?”
“Of course.” But if Shane lacked remorse and had overstepped her ban by calling once, what would stop him from calling again, this time to berate her?
She’d told Matt she didn’t want to aggravate Shane by allowing another man to answer her phone, and he’d done so anyway. In that way, both had disregarded her boundaries. Matt had done so as a favor to her, but how often had Shane trampled her wishes because he thought he knew better too?
Matt continued to wait.
She smoothed the hem of her shirt, floundering. Should she thank him?
Bailey poked her hand forward, the ring pinched between her finger and thumb. “Ta da!”
“Thank you, darling.” Lina accepted the ring and slid the band over her knuckle and into place.
Bailey scampered back to her babysitter. Matt watched her go before eyeing Lina again. Whether he’d noticed her lack of gratitude, or he could see deeper conflict warring in her, he returned to the practice room, though his next student hadn’t arrived yet.
Lina dropped into her desk chair. She kept her feet anchored to the floor, but her mind circled. Matt and Shane were different, right?
Right.
She’d only discouraged the idea of Matt answering her phone, whereas she’d firmly told Shane to stop calling. Matt knew about the boundary she’d set for Shane and had stepped forward to help her enforce it. Also, though Shane would’ve happily told off another man, he wouldn’t have cared if his actions left her to deal with the fallout, like when the guy called back to berate her, and he wouldn’t have cared what Lina thought about any of it.
Matt, on the other hand, would care if Shane called again, and her hesitance to thank him for stepping in seemed to have hurt him.
* * *
If Lina’sex lived within driving distance, Matt would visit the guy. Shane clearly wasn’t going to ride off into the sunset unless he convinced Lina to ride with him. A twisted sense of courtesy might inspire a rule-follower like her to give in.
If only Matt could recall more than a few digits of the number he’d seen on Lina’s phone.
He ruffled his hand through his hair. He’d much rather numb helplessness and frustration with drugs or alcohol than feel either emotion, but he knew the devastation that followed surrendering to temptation.
Give me a way out, Lord.
His next student would arrive momentarily. He just needed to bridge the gap.
Two bass guitars waited on stands for his next lesson. One of them was his instrument of choice, exactly like the one he’d sold to help cover rehab. It hadn’t been here the first day he’d come, and its appearance afterward suggested Adeline had learned his preference from Gannon and purposely brought it in.
He settled the guitar across his body.
First, he attempted a bass line he’d heard on the radio while delivering pizzas earlier. In the process of piecing it together, he stumbled across a sound he liked better and experimented from there, his attention narrowing to consider only the work.
“You can go.”
