23. Grant

Declan makes a decision in August. Not the one I'm waiting on, but another one.

"We need to learn to cook," he declares one Sunday afternoon.

"Cooking is overrated."

But he signs us up for a class anyway later that week. I meet him on a Thursday after his four o'clock game—I had an early afternoon one, so I caught the tail end of his, sprawled in a seat on the third baseline, watching my boyfriend win. It was fun, and I felt like a baller, winning at life.

I still do as we walk along Market Street on our way to cooking class. "So, you still contend we're failing at life if we can't cook well?" I ask.

Declan nods crisply. "Yes. What if something happens and you can't DoorDash?"

I scoff. "What would that situation be?"

"You really can't foresee a situation where you can't order DoorDash?" He arches a brow in question.

I screw up the corner of my lips, tap a finger against my chin. "Not really."

"What if it's the middle of the night?"

I lift a finger to make a point. "Aha! I thought you were going to pull the middle-of-the-night card. And that's why I keep veggie burgers, sandwich meat, and avocados at the house, along with, wait for it, bread. I also have red peppers and hummus." I pump a fist. "Booyah. All the food groups."

Declan rolls his brown eyes. "You are seriously adorably helpless."

"That's not helpless. That's a life hack for a midnight snack. So, unless we're hiking the Inca trail or backpacking in Ecuador, none of which I can really see us doing, I'm all set. Big Bear Grylls fan here," I say, patting my chest. "But I don't need to be Bear Grylls, eating bugs or snakes or whatnot."

"I wasn't suggesting we fry bugs in the wilderness," Declan says when we reach the corner, stopping at the light.

My lips quirk up in a grin. "Have you seen Bear Grylls? I'm not sure he fries them. A lot of times he just takes them and pops them in his mouth and eats them raw. Sort of like candy. Wait." I grab Declan's arm, curling my hand around his bicep for effect, which is totally an excuse to curl my hand around his bicep. "Is that the kind of cooking class you signed us up for? Are we going to learn how to eat bugs like candy?"

Declan cracks up, then drapes his arm around me as we cross the street. "No. It's sushi."

"Ahh. You remembered my favorite cuisine."

"We only order it half the time," he says.

"But why the hell did you sign us up for something hard like sushi? You have more faith in me than you should. My skills are pretty much on the basic sandwich-making level."

"Don"t you want to graduate to advanced sandwich-making?"

"I love sandwiches, but not that much. I don"t love them as much as I love sex or Lady Gaga or James Bond. Definitely not as much as baseball."

"You better not like sandwiches more than sex," Declan growls in warning. "But the sandwich tidbit you just dropped?" He taps his temple. "I'm filing it away in my Grant intel."

I kiss his temple, then he stops me in my tracks on the street, curls a hand around the back of my head and seals his mouth to mine in an unexpected moment of street-side passion from my guy.

In one hot second, my temperature spikes as he sweeps his lips over mine, crushing my mouth in a searing kiss. Right on Market Street. At eight in the evening. As a trolley trundles by. As tourists stroll around us. As cars cruise along the road. Slinking an arm around his waist, I let out a shameless whimper as his lips devour mine.

Someone, somewhere, is taking a picture of us. I just know it.

And I love it.

After hiding our secret affair when we were teammates in spring training five years ago, then keeping it under wraps when we got back together in February and tested the waters of a relationship, it's a welcome change to kiss him freely on the street.

It's like a dream come true. I slide my other hand around his waist and our street kiss threatens to go full NSFW. I'm not sure I have the will to stop it, because Declan brushes his lips against mine with the same passion, the same fire we had the other night when he came home and had to fuck me after a game, the same passion he had after the dance club, the same lust he rained down on me the night we got back together.

How is it possible the passion doesn't fade? Instead, it intensifies. Hell, our desire for each other feels exponential.

Declan finds the will to break the kiss. He breathes out hard. "Did that help your PDA kink?"

I look him in the eyes, grin salaciously. "Oh, yes. It did."

"Good."

I arch a brow, a little suspicious. "Is that why you did it? Just to satisfy me?"

He pushes his pelvis against me for a mere second, then pulls back. "Does it feel like you're the only one who's satisfied?"

"Mmm. How am I supposed to make it through a cooking class now?"

"I want you to know that the kiss wasn't just for you—it was for me too. You should know, Grant, I also have a you kink, so it works out really well when I can make you happy."

It works out so incredibly well that it takes my mind off the fact that we haven't returned to our talk from a month ago in my car.

That we haven't once touched on what all these next steps look like. We're taking cooking classes, we're domestic as hell sometimes, and we're living this bold, incredible life.

But I still don't know how far he wants it to go.

Or when he'll let me know.