Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 2

Fake Sprain, Real Blood

Victoria’s POV

It’s been a week since I found out my best friend, the boy who’s owned my heart for years without even knowing it, has a girlfriend.

Every time I close my eyes, I still see it: Caleb kissing Lexi.

It was a memory I relived on a loop, a picture that haunted my retinas.

I wished I could reach into my chest and manually stop my heart from beating for him. Or hunt down whoever was pulling the strings of the universe and beg them to rewrite the story—make Caleb realize that maybe hot girls weren’t his type after all, and that a quiet engineering nerd like me could be enough.

I knew how pathetic that sounded. But that was the cruelest part of loving someone who didn’t love you back: it turned you into someone you barely recognized.

The campus was crowded and loud as students spilled toward the stadium in groups for the baseball game.

I didn’t want to go. I wanted to be petty. I wanted to take vengeance for every time he’d bailed on me by bailing on him.

But Caleb had asked me himself, and my stupid, loyal heart wouldn’t let me skip it. My love burned stronger than the anger sitting heavy in my chest.

I grabbed a lemonade from a stand and headed into the fray.

The closer I got, the louder the roar of the crowd grew.

When I finally found a spot in the stands, my eyes found them instantly.

Caleb and Lexi were near the dugout. The game was minutes from starting, and he was leaning down, kissing her softly while she giggled and adjusted his cap.

My heart clenched so hard I thought it might actually burst. I knew I should look away, but I was a masochist for the view.

I stared until a passerby nudged my shoulder accidentally, jolting me out of my trance.

The game started, and I tried to focus. I really tried to lose myself in the crack of the bat and the red dirt kicking up as players slid into home. But it was difficult.

Suddenly, the energy in the stadium shifted. The opposing team stepped up to the plate, and the crowd erupted.

It seemed like one player in particular had sparked the chaos. And I had a pretty good idea who it would have been.

I looked up, squinting against the floodlights to find him.

With a single, powerful swing, he sent the ball screaming into the far reaches of the field. A home run.

The silence on Caleb’s side was deafening, while the other half of the stadium exploded.

People were jumping over seats, shouting a familiar name that traveled through the crowd in a roar .

“Elijah! Carter! Elijah!”

He was standing at the plate, his chest rising and falling. He pulled off his batting helmet, and for a second, the world narrowed down to just him.

Elijah was dangerously handsome, the kind of guy who seemed sculpted to tempt.

Dark hair fell carelessly across his forehead.

His onyx-colored eyes, black as polished stone, burned with a heat that made it hard to look away.

He possessed a sharp jawline, dusted with just enough stubble to be rough but enticing, and lips curved in a perpetual half-smile that promised sin.

As he wiped sweat from his brow, a dark tattoo peaked out from his sleeve, curling around his bicep.

He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. And then, for a fleeting, impossible second, I felt his eyes land right on me.

My breath caught. It lasted maybe three seconds before his teammates swarmed him, pulling him back into the celebration.

Seeing him reminded me that I had only a few hours until the post-game party, the one where I was supposed to show up with a boyfriend who didn’t exist.

I glanced back at Elijah Carter. I knew of him, everyone on campus did.

He was one of the star players on the baseball team, rich, talented, and the kind of guy most girls fawned over.

I had never really paid him any attention before. My world had always revolved around Caleb.

But the way he’d looked at me a moment ago made the air feel strangely charged.

After the baseball game, I should’ve gone straight home to rest. Instead, I found myself at Keith Sterling’s house for the after-party; Eva’s boyfriend, and tonight’s host.

Eva invited me, and even though I refused at first, she didn’t stop trying until I finally agreed. Not entirely because of her persistence, but because I had a lie to protect, a completely fictional boyfriend I needed to somehow produce out of thin air before Caleb started asking questions I couldn’t answer.

I scanned the crowded room, searching for any guy who looked like he might possibly play the part.

I almost laughed at myself. How the hell was I supposed to do this?

‘Hi, I’m Victoria. I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend because I’ve been lying to the guy I’ve loved for fifteen years just to save face.’

Pfft. Yeah, like that wouldn’t blow up in my face.

I sighed and shook my head.

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