Page 24 of Cheap Shot

Half of him wanted to check and see if he had a message from Sebastian. The other half didn’t.

Why did he fuckin’careanyway?

The dude had been nothing but a pain in his ass every time Luke went in the box.

After he finished eating, he set his plate aside and picked up his phone.

The app was still up when he logged onto it, and he found a message from BloomingGoodTime. It read:Want to do this again?and he was still online.

But it was a bad idea, right?

The guy hadammunitionagainst him now.

And Sebastian could say all he wanted about how he would never do that but uhh, Luke trusted that promise about as far as he could throw him.

He’d looked the guy’s shop up online though and at least he hadn’t been lying about having locations in multiple cities.

Luke knew fuck all about flowers, but the ones Sebastian made sure did look fancy and when Luke saw some of the prices listed, he figured the guy had to be doing okay. Plus, there was the whole ‘being able to afford prime location season tickets’ thing and all.

So he wasn’t in it for the money, thank fuck.

While a part of Luke was relieved that nothing had changed after their hookup—Sebastianhadat least been true to his word that he wasn’t going to try to out Luke or something during a game—it certainly hadn’t made his chirping die down at all.

Luke was torn between disappointment that it hadn’t shut the guy up and grudging respect because it hadn’t.

Luke still wouldn’t put it past Sebastian to be in it for the opportunity to screw him over though.

Anyguy who showed up at games three nights a week and spent that much time coming up with clever chirps had to have some sort of fucking angle, right? So yeah. Repeats couldn’t happen.

Luke wasn’t the biggest fan of them anyway, since they tended to get messy.

Shame, it had been hot.

Luke stared at his phone screen long enough that the little green circle turned to red.

When a yawn caught him by surprise, he set aside his phone, put away his dishes, and went to bed. Fuck it. He was too old and tired and sore for a hookup tonight anyway.

CHAPTER SIX

The day after the Dallas vs. Harriers game, Sebastian woke up early and put on running clothes. He ate something light, then let himself out of the building.

The sky was still dark, the air cold and crisp as he walked to the nearby park.

Once inside it, he stretched a little, then set off at a light jog.

He liked running, liked the way it cleared his head and blew off the fog of sleep and stress.

It was a great way to get rid of his frustrations and come up with solutions to problems.

At the moment, he was pointedly ignoring the fact that his message to Crawford had gone unanswered last night. Oh, it had been seen. Just not replied to.

He felt like an idiot.

Only, he’d been feelingstressedlast night. It had been one of those annoying days with tons of little interruptions and issues.Supply chain shit and a rude customer, along with three fruitless interviews. The one guy he’d met with couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of showing up on timeorcommunicating about it. And the others just didn’t have the skills or availability needed for the positions.

So, Sebastian was back to square one.

And then on the way to the game, Brie texted Sebastian to unload some of the divorce shit she was dealing with from her ex-husband’s lawyer. Sebastian had been happy to listen, but it had only added to his foul mood.