Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 33

Not Yours to Protect

Victoria’s POV

The car ride to the restaurant was filled with a weird type of silence.

Caleb kept one hand on the steering wheel, his fingers tapping an unstructured beat against the leather, while the heater blew a stream of warm air into the cabin.

In the past, silence between us was as comfortable as an old sweater. We could drive for miles without saying a word, perfectly content just existing in the same space. Tonight, it felt like we were both tip–toeing around an unexploded bomb sitting right on the center console.

Every time he shifted gears, his arm brushed against the fabric of my dress, and my skin reacted instantly, tightening with a quick flash of awareness.

I hated it. I hated that fifteen years of conditioning couldn’t be erased by a single week

of anger.

When we arrived at Luigi’s, a sleek, dimly lit Italian place on the edge of the downtown district, the waiter led us to a secluded booth in the back.

The air inside smelled of garlic, rich marinara sauce, and melting cheese. It was a nice, upscale spot, the kind of place where the soft lighting and white tablecloths made everything feel expensive and significant.

Sliding into the vinyl booth across from a completely healed, pristine–looking Caleb, I felt a heavy sense of displacement.

“I’m glad we came here,” Caleb said, unfolding his linen napkin and smoothing it over his lap.

He looked around the dimly lit room, his green eyes settling back on me with a soft, vulnerable expression.

“It feels like it’s been a lifetime since it was just the two of us.”

“It’s only been a few weeks, Caleb,” I reminded him quietly, keeping my hands folded tightly on top of the menu.

I wanted to maintain a boundary. I needed him to understand that a bouquet of red roses and a trip down memory lane didn’t mean he was completely forgiven.

He flinched slightly at my tone, his jaw tightening before he let out a slow, controlled breath.

“I know. And like I said back at the learning block… I’m sorry. I really am. I’ve been a terrible best friend lately. I got so caught up in trying to navigate the baseball team, the social scene, and all the drama that came with it that I completely pushed aside the

1/5

Not Yours to Protect

one person who has always had my back.”

The words were beautiful. They were exactly what I had wanted to hear for years But as they hung in the air between us, my mind didn’t register a spark of joy.

Instead, it unhelpfully flashed to Elijah.

“Why now, Caleb?” I asked, looking him dead in the eye. “You’ve spent months letting people look down on me, letting your crowd treat me like a hanger–on. Why is it only now, after I completely stopped showing up, that you’re realizing you messed up?”

Caleb leaned forward, reaching across the white tablecloth to grasp my hand.

His fingers were warm, his grip firm and desperate, exactly the way he used to hold my hand when we were teenagers trying to brave tough situations.

“Because the second you walked away, the reality of my life without you hit me. I’ve been an absolute idiot. I took our friendship for granted because you’ve always been my constant, Tori. When you stopped answering my calls, everything felt entirely off. I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

My heart hammered against my ribs, a fast, uncoordinated thudding that threatened

to choke me. I stared at his hand over mine.

This was the boy I had secretly loved in absolute silence for years, the boy whose validation used to dictate my entire mood.

Loving him had been the definition of my entire existence since I was a little girl.

But looking at him now, a strange, confusing realization took root in my chest.

Hearing him explicitly call me his best friend didn’t hurt the way it used to. Instead, it just felt complicated.

The waiter arrived to take our order, providing a blessed interruption. I gently pulled my hand away from Caleb’s grip, using the excuse to open my menu.

We ordered our usual–a large chicken parmesan to share–but the easy, joking banter that usually accompanied our meals was entirely absent.

As we ate, Caleb tried his best to rebuild the bridge. He told me about his final physical therapy session, how the team doctor had cleared his ankle with a clean bill of health, and how the Coach was already slotting him back into the lineup for the upcoming weekend.

I listened, nodding along and offering small, supportive smiles, but the emotional distance between us felt miles wide.

I was stuck in a dizzying psychological limbo. My soul was trapped between two entirely different worlds.

On one side was Caleb; the boy who represented my past, my safety, and a decade of

2.5

te Yours to Protest

unrequited longing.

群

On the other side was Elijah; the boy who represented danger, intense, dark confusion. and a strange, unyielding protection that made my body burn with an entirely different kind of hunger.

“You’re remarkably quiet tonight,” Caleb observed, setting his fork down and wiping his mouth with a napkin.

He was studying me, his eyes narrowing slightly as he tried to read the expression on my face.

“Are you still thinking about Carter?”

The question caught me entirely off guard, my hand freezing as I lifted a glass of water to my lips.

“What makes you say that?”

Caleb’s expression hardened.

“Come on, Tori. I’m not blind. The guy is practically living in your pocket. He stands up for you at my apartment, his best friend Miles is suddenly escorting you across the campus quad… it’s a lot. Is there something actually going on between you two? Or is this all just some twisted game to him? The whole athletic department is talking about the two of you. He knows exactly who you are to me, and I can’t help but feel like he’s pulling you into his circle just to see if he can do it.”

A sudden flare of anger sparked in my chest, replacing the confusion. I set my glass down with a firm click against the table.

“He’s an arrogant, manipulative prick, Victoria!” Caleb hissed, his voice dropping into a harsh, intense whisper as he leaned across the table.

“You don’t know him the way I do on the field. He plays dirty. He takes whatever he wants, and he doesn’t care who he crushes in the process. I’m just trying to look out for you as your friend. I don’t want you getting caught in his crossfire.”

“I don’t need you to look out for me anymore,” I said, my voice steady, cutting through his rising temper.

“You lost the right to tell me who I spend my time with when you started letting your friends treat me like an outsider. Elijah was there for me when it actually counted. You weren’t.”

Caleb fell completely silent, the harsh words knocking the wind right out of his sails.

He sat back in the booth, his broad shoulders dropping as a look of profound, genuine pain crossed his features.

He looked down at his empty plate, his jaw working silently as the minutes ticked by.

3/5

Not Yours to Protect

After a long, agonizing interlude, the waiter returned with the check. Caleb handed over his card without a moment’s hesitation, paying for the entire meal.

When we stepped out of the restaurant, the night air was crisp and cool, a stark contrast to the stifling atmosphere of the booth.

We walked silently back to his car, the silence between us heavier now, loaded with the unresolved arguments we had just thrown at each other.

Caleb started the engine, pulling out of the parking lot and navigating the dark streets back toward my apartment building.

I looked at the dashboard clock, wishing I could just freeze time. The reality was that our childhood was officially over, and the easy, uncomplicated days of our youth were never coming back.

Everything was changing too fast, and the future felt incredibly uncertain, leaving me with a heavy knot of dread in my stomach about what lay ahead.

When the car finally idled to a stop in front of my apartment complex, Caleb didn’t immediately turn off the ignition.

He shifted the car into park, turning his body in the driver’s seat to face me completely.

The dashboard lights cast a soft, green glow across his handsome features, highlighting the serious, intense line of his mouth.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify