Page 6 of Cheap Shot

Which meant an enormous amount of time and energy spent by Brie on top of her job as a medical transcriptionist.

It was why Sebastian had moved to Boston in the first place.

Brie’s asshole ex-husband had bailed last year, saying “this isn’t what I signed up for” and Brie had run herself ragged since. She was stressed and exhausted and after the umpteenth trip from New York to Boston, Sebastian had finally asked, “What if I move here?”

She’d protested of course, hadn’t wanted him to give up his life there.

But his two floral shops were doing well, Max had just broken up with him, and really, there was no reason hecouldn’tvisit his friends there from time to time. His best friend, Nicholas Calhoun—captain of the New York Rockets—had understood better than anyone why Sebastian had to put his family first. He’d said he’d miss Sebastian, but he admired that he was so committed to helping Brie and Harper.

Besides, Sebastian liked the challenge of something new.

So he bought a storefront in Beacon Hill and fixed it up.

The night before he opened the shop, he and Brie sat on the floor by the counter, sharing a bottle of Champagne and talking. Several glasses in, she’d broken down in tears and told him that she never would haveaskedhim to move there but she was grateful he had anyway. That she couldn’t have done this alone for much longer.

He’d hugged her and told her she’d never have to worry about that again.

Their parents were as supportive as they could be from a distance, but they lived all the way out in New Mexico and theirdad had been injured in a car accident ten years ago, leaving him partially paralyzed.

Their mom did a lot to care for him, and his condition made travel to Boston difficult. Brie and Harper went out to visit them when they could, but unfortunately, that left her at a loss for day-to-day hands-on help.

Sebastian was filling in wherever he could, but he privately wondered if that would be enough when the next crisis hit.

Thankfully, Harper was doing pretty well right now. Still, it was stressful for all of them.

On top of running three floral shops—two remotely—Sebastian spent a lot of time at Brie and Harper’s place. He didn’t havetimeto date, and quick hookups usually did the trick.

Tonight’s was looking less and less likely to happen though because the train didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

While Sebastian waited, he answered the texts from his dad and Brie, then sent a message to Nicky asking how he was doing.

Sebastian didn’t really expect to hear back. Nicky had been dealing with persistent post-concussion syndrome for several years now and often took days or weeks to reply to messages, depending on how he was feeling. Sebastian didn’t take it personally.

“Fuck! Is this train ever going to go again?” the woman behind him muttered and Sebastian silently agreed.

He opened the hookup app again and debated if he should just cancel instead of making some dude come all the way to Beacon Hill, just to have Sebastian pull a no-show.

Thankfully, before he could do so, the train began to move. Sebastian crossed his fingers. Two more stops before his. He could just make it in time if there were no other delays.

He navigated back to the guy’s profile. There wasn’t a lot of info about him, but he was good looking. Solidly muscular with a great dick. He had a ton of ink too. It was all blurred out and Sebastian idly wondered why. Clearly, he didn’t want to be recognized.

Ugh, hopefully the guy wasn’t married or something.

Sebastian should have asked. He usually did, he’d just been in a hurry tonight.

Though it wasn’t like guys didn’t lie about that stuff anyway.

When the train reached the stop before his, he closed out of the app again, tucked his phone into his pocket, and got out of the seat, moving toward the door.

He wormed his way past people who gave him dirty looks, but it meant he was able to bolt out the doors the moment they opened. He struck out at a quick jog, grateful he lived less than a block and a half from the train.

He had his keys out before he reached Twig & Bloom and fitted the key into the lock. He pushed open the front door of his flower shop, breathing in the cool green floral scent that never failed to put a smile on his face.

He didn’t have time to enjoy it for long tonight though.

Sebastian shut the front door but left it unlocked, then turned on a small lamp sitting on the counter.

Unfortunately, he ran the risk of someone thinking the shop was open—despite theclosedsign on the door and the incredibly late hour—but it was either that or tell guys to go through the alley and to the entrance at the back of the shop.