Cain barked out a sharp laugh. “I wouldn't hold my breath. Look, I'm exhausted and these pills they gave me aren't helping, so forgive me if I'm not brimming with enthusiasm about having someone here to stand around and stare at me. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a piss.”
He dragged himself into a sitting position on the couch and started to stand up, groaning slightly. He got a few inches off the cushion, then sat back down hard.
“Do you need a hand?” Missy asked.
“I can piss by myself, thanks,” Cain snarled. “It's heavy, but I can still lift it.”
“I'll bet you can,” she answered. “If you can manage to get to the toilet in time. Which, from the look of you...”
“Bite me,” Cain said, pulling himself off the couch with a single jerky motion. He overbalanced and started to fall forward.
“Oh, for Christ's sake, here,” said Missy, moving forward to brace him up before he tipped over completely. He was heavier than he looked, and she grunted, keeping herself under his good arm and trying to avoid putting pressure on his ribs.
“Okay, I'm up,” Cain said, starting to hobble toward the bathroom. “You can let go now.”
“How about I walk you over to the door anyway just in case, huh?” Missy replied. She had been here for less than ten minutes and she was already sick of his stupid macho bullshit.
Even so, while she was this close to him, she couldn't help but breathe in his musky scent. It caused a brief but undeniable tickle of primal attraction in the back of her brain. A tickle that couldn't be ignored.
“Don't worry,” she continued jokingly, “once we get there, the door will close and you'll be on your own.”
“Why is your face getting so red?” Cain asked.
“Exertion. From lifting you. Now shut up, we're almost there.”
They made it to the bathroom door and Cain braced himself against the walls, easing into the room slowly. Just before he slammed the door shut, Missy caught a glimpse of his eyes in the mirror over the sink as Cain looked at himself. Even with one eye swollen almost completely shut—and both of them glassy from the pills—Missy could see an anger and shame burning there that looked almost bottomless.
She felt her annoyance with Cain soften just a bit. She'd known plenty of men like him, and they were so terrified of being helpless that most of them would have rather died than been forced to rely on others to help them dress, bathe, and eat, even temporarily. These men who strutted around, so proud of how tough their bodies were, could also be pathetically blind to how fragile their egos were.
Clearly, this was the case with Cain as well.
Missy knew that Cain hadn't eaten since at least the previous night. Well, she certainly didn't relish the idea of spending any time in that kitchen, but Hunter had specifically told her to make sure Cain was eating—and to be fair, she had to concede that even rude pricks probably didn't deserve to starve to death.
She stepped into the kitchen, trying to ignore the sound of her shoes sticking to the yellowed, curling linoleum and then tearing away with each step. She opened the fridge and squinted in.
Three mismatched bottles of cheap beer. A crusty squeeze-bottle of generic mustard. A handful of ketchup packets from about five different take-out places. And a carton of eggs that was three months past the expiration date.
She shook her head and shut the fridge, opening the freezer above it.
The walls of the freezer were bulging with ice that looked at least seven inches thick on all sides. Resting in the middle of it all was a single pork chop, so freezer-burned that it looked like a fossil collected from an Arctic expedition.
Cain slowly shuffled out of the bathroom, entering the kitchen. “If you're looking for champagne and caviar, I'm afraid I'm fresh out,” he said, sitting down at the table with a pained grunt. “But don't worry, the butler will be bringing more tomorrow when he comes to clean out the stables and wash the fucking Bentley.”
Missy ignored the jab. “Do you feel like you could eat? I could order something in for us, if you want.”
“These pills don't give me much of an appetite,” Cain said. “If you want to do something for me so badly, then bring me my smokes and my lighter from the living room, and make me some coffee.”
Missy went to the living room and scooped up Cain's cigarettes and Zippo. On TV, a sitcom wife was needling her husband about forgetting to take out the trash as the studio audience screeched with laughter.
“Do you want me to turn the TV off?” Missy called out.
There was nothing from the kitchen except morose silence.