“You bet.” The lie rolled off his tongue. When she turned and leaned toward him, he angled his head so her lips landed on his jaw instead of his mouth.
Once she was in the cab, Noah closed the door and leaned back against it. He shut his eyes on a sigh. One down, one to go. And he was pretty damn sure the second one wouldn’t be as easy to get rid of.
“Hope you had fun last night,” came from his kitchen, “’cause you won’t be doing that again until after the Games. Which is probably good for you, considering the lack of wisdom your friends showed leaving the keys to a hundred-thousand-dollar Maserati in the visor. Grab a shower while I finish in here, then we can talk. Where are your trash bags?”
A fresh wave of annoyance blossomed. He made his way to the kitchen, where even more contents from his cabinets lay in piles on the floor.
“Stop.” His demand made her glance over her shoulder with a frown. “Just…stop. Look, I don’t remember what I said last night, but I would never have agreed to this.”
She turned, planted her butt against the counter, and crossed her arms. Her delicious breasts jiggled with the movement, and Noah nearly groaned at the sight. This morning, it felt more like he’d been celibate forty months, not four.
“This is part of the whole program,” she said, gesturing to the kitchen at large.
“What program?”
“The one that’s going to heal that stump.” She tossed a hand toward his foot. “You are way worse off than Drake said. Worse than the earliest MRIs I looked at too. I’m going to have to use every trick I know and probably have to learn a few more to keep you from losing that thing.”
“Who the hell gave you access to my medical files? And lose what? What are you talking about?”
“Drake gave me access, and I’m talking about losing your leg. Who knows how much damage you’ve done? If you’re still limping after nearly four months—”
“It’s always stiff in the morning.” His voice rose with anger, but he couldn’t keep it in check. “I just…had a rough night—”
“I can see that. Excess alcohol and bedroom romping will do that to an injury. Your leg looks like it belongs on an elephant.”
He frowned down at his ankle. “It’s not that bad.”
“I can see half a dozen problems from here that didn’t show on your MRI, which means you’ve done more damage since the accident. You’ve probably got ligament, tendon, and cartilage damage. It’s a good thing we’re starting today. If you’d let this go on much longer, you might never have seen the top of Snowmass again, let alone in February—”
He slapped the countertop hard. “I don’t need another goddamned babysitter.”
“You’ve already started off the day on the wrong foot—no pun intended. Don’t make it worse with meaningless insults.”
“I’m going to strangle that bastard…” He pulled his mind off Drake and his heavy-handed attempts to get Noah to toe the line the way he thought it should be toed, and shot for some diplomacy with Julia. He certainly didn’t want more bad press. And none of this was her fault. “Look, I appreciate you coming, but I don’t need—”
“Judging by the state of your foot, you have no idea what you need. And even I won’t know until I’ve finished a full assessment.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, business as usual, no big. She yanked the full garbage bag from its plastic container and tied off the top. Then started pulling open drawers and lower cabinet doors. “Where are your trash— Ah.”
She dragged a box of Glad bags from the cabinet beneath the sink and lined the garbage can again, then started throwing more food in—his Doritos, his Oreos, his Skittles…
He opened his mouth to yell at her, but she spoke first.
“So, let me just line things out for you. I’ll make it really simple so you don’t have to strain that shredded brain of yours too hard.”
Good pun. He would have given her a point for the snowboarding metaphor if he weren’t so pissed off. He crossed his arms and watched, too tired to fight. He’d just let her burn herself out, take all the food back out of the bags, and have Teresa, his housekeeper, straighten it out later.
“There are five components to my strategy,” she said, pulling can after can of SpaghettiOs off the shelf and tossing them into the garbage. “Nutrition, physical health, mental health, therapy, and training. Simple, right?
“I can definitely see you need extensive nutritional training, but we’ll get to that. Based on the woman who just left, you’re probably also in need of a mental health overhaul. But right now, I just want to toss the crap in this place, which is, like, everything, and bring in all the good stuff. We’ll go to the grocery store together, and I’ll teach you how to read labels, find organic, choose your meat…”
The trash can swallowed his beer, his soda, his frozen pizzas, his ice cream…
“Hey.” He leaned forward and grabbed her wrist before she tossed the Ben and Jerry’s into the trash. “That’s a limited-edition pint. Named for me.”
She turned the carton to look at the front. “Treasure Hunt?”
“Yeah, Treasure Hunt, get it?”
Heavy-lidded, sardonic eyes lifted to his. “No shit.”