Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 100

Victoria’s POV

The deep, heavy scent of cedarwood and amber body wash trailed after Elijah as he finally stepped out of the bathroom, his dark hair damp and curling slightly at the nape of his neck.

He looked entirely too awake for five in the morning. Moving straight past me, he grabbed his car keys off the counter along with a heavy, thick leather-bound notebook.

“Come on,” he said, tossing a glance toward the kitchen counter where my folders were stacked. “Let’s go. I’m dropping you off.”

I gathered my heavy binder, shifting the strap of my tote bag up my arm.

“I can drive myself. Eli. You don’t need to go out of your way when your faculty is on the complete opposite side of the campus.”

Elijah halted near the front door, looking down at me with an amused expression.

“You’re driving? In that metallic death trap you call a car? The one that sounds like a lawnmower choking on pebbles every time you hit thirty miles per hour?”

“Hey!” I protested, following him out into the hallway as he locked the apartment door behind us. “Betsy has character. She gets me from point A to point B without complaining.”

“Betsy is one loose bolt away from exploding on the interstate,” he countered, stepping into the elevator and leaning his back against the metal wall.

“I am not letting you risk a breakdown on the morning of your fluid mechanics exam. End of discussion.”

“You’re just jealous because your precious Mercedes doesn’t have a custom duct-tape repair on the side mirror,” I shot back, though a small smile tugged at my lips as the elevator descended.

Elijah let out a low snort, leaning his shoulder against the mirrored wall as he looked down at me.

“Right. I’m losing sleep over it, Toria. Truly.”

When the doors opened into the chilly morning air of the parking garage, he guided me toward the passenger side of his truck.

Before he could unlock it, he paused, looking at the time on his phone.

“We still have a few hours before the doors open. Want a quick coffee first? My machine takes two minutes.”

I checked my own screen. The countdown to my academic doom wasn’t for another two and a half hours.

“Actually, yeah. That sounds perfect.”

Back inside the warmth of the kitchen, the familiar hum of the espresso maker started up.

Elijah stood by the counter, leaning his hips against the edge while the dark liquid began to drip into two mugs.

He didn’t waste time. Even in the lull before the storm, his mind was completely dialed into my test prep.

“Alright, let’s do a quick run-through while this brews,” he suggested, his gaze fixed on me. “What’s the fundamental difference between laminar and turbulent flow?”

“Laminar is smooth and constant, fluid particles moving in parallel layers,” I replied instantly, the definition ingrained into my brain after days of staring at the textbook. “Turbulent is chaotic-uh, I mean, it’s completely irregular, with velocity fluctuations and mixing.”

He nodded, approving.

“Good. Second question. What happens to the friction factor in a pipe when the Reynolds number increases in a fully rough turbulent regime?”

“It becomes independent of the Reynolds number and only depends on the relative roughness of the pipe wall,” I said, a slight sense of pride swelling in my chest.

“Look at you go.” A faint note of approval crept into his voice as he tapped the counter. “Third one. State the continuity equation for steady, incompressible flow.”

My mind suddenly went completely blank. I stared at him, the formulas scrambling together behind my eyes like a tangled ball of yarn.

“Uh… the continuity… it’s the one with the cross-sectional area, right? And the velocity? God, Eli, I forgot the exact notation. My brain is leaking.”

He didn’t let me spiral. He reached out, his fingers lightly tapping the top of my hand where it rested on the counter.

“Hey, relax. Think about a garden hose. If you put your thumb over half the opening, what happens to the water?”

“It shoots out faster.” I whispered, the visualization clicking the memory into place.

“Exactly. Because the amount of water entering the hose has to equal the amount leaving it. So, if the area gets smaller…”

“The velocity has to increase,” I finished, the weight lifting off my chest. “A_IV_1=A_2 V_2. Thank you.”

Relief coursed through me so fast that I didn’t even think about the distance between us.

I stepped forward, closing the small gap between our bodies, and pressed a quick, grateful kiss directly against his cheek.

The second my lips left his skin, Elijah went entirely rigid, his dark eyes widening slightly as he stared down at me.

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