Page 82 of Two Chambered Heart

“Al dente or soft?” she asked.

“Al dente,” he and his brother replied in unison.

She turned the burner off and carried the pot over to the sink. He’d already put the strainer in there, and she drained the pot.

“Oh my god!” she screeched.

“What happened?” Jason asked, panicked that she’d burned herself.

She grabbed the big wooden on the counter and held it up to her mouth.

“I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut! My weakness is that I care too much!” She belted out the opening words of the song that had just come on into the spoon. Kayden was laughing so hard that he doubled over.

Corey pulled a clean spatula from the drawer and tossed it to Kayden. He caught it and joined in her shenanigans, duetting all the lyrics with her, screaming the chorus into their respective kitchen utensils as they jumped around like they were on stage.

Jason felt stuck between rolling his eyes at how juvenile it all was and getting his own fucking utensil.

“This one’s for you, Jase.” Kayden said, pointing at him. “I’m drunk and I’m feeling down and I just want to be alone. I’m pissed ‘cause you came around, why don’t you just go home?”

Corey scream-sung the rest of the lyrics and he finally caved, grabbing the tongs from the counter and finishing a full performance with them, using a fucking kitchen utensil as a microphone like he was a kid.

When the song ended, Corey was holding the counter with one hand and her stomach with the other, gasping for breath between fits of giggles. Tears lined her bright eyes. He was laughing so hard hisabs actually ached. And it awed him that joy had survived somewhere inside of him he thought was long dead.

It was so much better than whiskey. He imagined this might be what an opium high felt like, and if so, he could understand why people got so damn addicted. This was euphoria.

Chapter twenty-nine

- Corey -

We have a present for you,” Kayden said, sliding a latte across the kitchen island into Corey’s waiting hands. “It’s at the garage.”

Her eyes glinted in glee. “Is it a motorcycle?”

“I think I should teach you how to ride a motorcycle before we gift you one. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She smiled. “You’d teach me?”

“Of course, if you want to learn.”

“I do. I want to learn everything.” It still amazed her how much he was willing to give her. He hadn’t denied her anything. Whatever she wanted, Kayden provided happily, like she was the one doing something for him and not the other way around. He was perfect in every way—kind, caring, attentive, considerate, patient. She could list a thousand positive things about him and not a single negative.

And the sex was mind-blowing.

Both of them validated her lived experiences, accepted her trauma. They just got it, since they seemed to have it too. They didn’t call her crazy or a buzzkill or tell her she should see someone and needed to get over her past.Unlike her ex, they had no complaints. She felt like a different person with them.

No, she felt like herself with them. It was like the person she’d been before had been a character she was trying to play, while the real her had been trapped in the bars she’d tried to keep herself in, screaming loudly enough that it sent her spiraling more often than not.

“I’ll add it to the list, then,” he said, sipping from his own mug, not taking his eyes off her. “Jase is already there. Whenever you’re ready, we can go.”

“Do I need to wear something else?” She looked down at her grey hoodie. It was either Kayden’s or Jason’s. Honestly, she couldn’t keep track. They both smelt the same, cedar and sage and musk, probably bought the same soap from that fancy soap shop. It was comforting, being wrapped up in their woodsy smell. Whenever the hoodies she had disappeared for the laundry, she’d find another one of theirs lying around the penthouse, discarded and forgotten. She’d take it for herself and harbour it until that too went missing for laundry.

“The only thing I like more than seeing you in our sweatshirts is watching you take them off,” he said with a hungry smirk. “What you’re wearing is just fine.”

She blushed, because she still fucking did that every time he spoke, even after all this time. “Then I’m ready to go now.”

“She’s antsy for her present, is she?”

Corey rolled her eyes at him.

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