Page 153 of Cheap Shot

The tile flooring Brie had picked out at the home improvement store was a blue and white pattern, so he’d painted that section of cabinets in a matching shade of blue, then hauled them over to Brie’s place on a trailer and installed them with Sebastian’s help.

Well, he’d discovered that Sebastian was fairly useless when it came to home remodeling, but he’d helped lift and hold stuff while Luke used an impact driver to secure it in place, so it had worked out okay.

All Luke needed to do now was add the toe kick and replace the faucet. The old one was technically still functional, but the sprayer had stopped retracting, and Luke hadn’t been able to fix it. He’d picked up a new one from the resale place today. The package had been opened but it still looked brand-new, like someone had gotten it home, realized it didn’t fit their sink, then donated it.

“Can I help?” Harper asked, tugging at his collar.

“Uhh, sure,” Luke said, mentally running through things he could have her do. “Let’s get inside and get to work. Sebastian? Could you grab the board there?”

Sebastian nodded, carrying it toward the house as he sifted through his keys to find the one for Brie’s front door.

In the house, Luke plopped Harper down on the countertop. “You can watch from there while I get the old faucet undone. You can hold the new one in place while I get everything tightened, but this part I need to do by myself.”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh.

“Gotta get a few more tools from my car first,” he said.

When he came back, Harper was still sitting on the counter, playing with the plumbing supplies he’d bought.

“I’ll just be over here working on my business plan,” Sebastian said from the kitchen table. “Tell me if you need help with anything.”

“Will do,” Luke said.

“Hey, Harper,” Sebastian said. “Why don’t you tell Mr. Luke about what the bunny at the PT office did. If that’s okay with him.”

“Oh!” Harper said, lighting up. “Yes. Okay. Do you wanna hear the story, Mr. Luke?”

Luke nodded, stripping off his coat and tossing it on the counter near the slow cooker. Whatever was in there smelled delicious. “What did the bunny do?” he asked.

“It was sooo funny. It did this thing where it raced around and around in a circle and then flopped over like it wasdead. But he was fine!” Harper clapped.

Luke chuckled. “They are pretty funny when they do that.”

Harper kept talking and Luke tried to listen but he got distracted when he glanced over to see Sebastian already tapping away at his laptop. Probably hammering out details on his plan to have Krista work out of Twig & Bloom as an event planner. He’d told Luke all about it, and they’d spent one evening last week working on their respective plans on Sebastian’s couch.

It had been a surprisingly nice time. Luke had even had Sebastian look over the plans for O’Neill’s, just to be sure it was solid. He’d had a few good suggestions too. Luke figured he might, what with him being a successful business owner and all.

He’d said as much when Sebastian had sounded surprised by his willingness to take his feedback.

Luke explained he’d only taken a few online courses in the off-season and was figuring it all out as he went along, so why wouldn’t he ask someone with more experience?

That had earned him a slow and very thorough blowjob, which hadn’t been Luke’s goal, but he wasn’t mad about the result.

I was hoping for more of the same tonight, to be honest,he thought wryly as he put a bucket under the sink, wedged himself in beside it and turned off the water supply, then began undoing the flexible hose that connected the water to the faucet.

But as he listened to Harper talk more about Hops, the brown and white bunny at the PT office, and Sebastian made the same little humming noise he always did when he was thinking hardabout something, Luke decided he wasn’t mad about tonight’s result either.

Maybe he was getting old or something, but he was starting to really enjoy the way things were working out with Sebastian. Maybe the guys on the teamhadbeen onto something.

Luke still didn’t think he was ever going to want the white-picket-fence kinda life with a couple of kids and a golden retriever or any of that shit. But dating a busy florist with a niece he got to hang out with occasionally seemed like a pretty good fit for him.

“I want a bunny,” Harper said with a sigh. “Mommy won’t let me get one.”

“They’re a lot of work,” Luke said. “And your mommy is pretty busy.”

“Hey, Harper, did you know that Mr. Luke took pictures with a bunny recently?” Sebastian said, his voice suddenly much closer.

“Nooo,” Harper said with a giggle. “I wanna see.”