Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 53

Seven Empty Cans

Elijah’s POV

My apartment was completely swallowed by a thick, heavy silence when I finally dropped my keys onto the entryway table.

Outside, the darkness of the late night had covered everything, shutting out the rest of

campus.

My phone buzzed against my palm. I turned it over, the bright screen illuminating the dark hallway as notifications from the group chat started stacking up.

The guys were already going back and forth, organizing our next field training session for later in the week.

I scrolled through the text wall until a specific message caught my eye.

Miles: Yo, has anyone seen Matt Calloway in ages? Carter? 00

Miles had tagged me directly at the bottom of the thread. I paused at the foot of the stairs, staring at the screen. That actually struck my attention.

Despite Calloway’s nasty personality and his constant, pathetic attempts to degrade Victoria and pull her down just for being associated with me, the guy was an undeniably solid infielder.

It had been his singular, obsessive goal since our freshman year to finally beat the Oakridge baseball team at regionals, and now, with the biggest series of the season looming, he was suddenly nowhere to be found.

I began typing rapidly with my thumb as I climbed the stairs toward the main floor.

Elijah: Why the fuck would I know anything about that? I’m not his keeper.

After Miles fired back a predictable row of laughing emojis, I just rolled my eyes, slid the phone into my pocket, and pushed the heavy wooden door to the living room open.

I had expected the apartment to be empty, but the second I stepped inside, my entire body went entirely rigid.

Victoria was curled up on the center of my couch, sound asleep.

She was wearing one of my oversized gray jersey, the fabric hung loosely off her frame, swallowed her shoulders, and had rolled up significantly past her thighs, leaving her bare legs completely on display.

Heat flared deep in my gut. I tried to command my brain to look away, but the sight of her skin against the dark leather of my couch sent a violent rush of blood straight to my dick.

My jaw clenched so hard the bone ached. I had to force my eyes toward the ceiling,

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taking a slow, steady breath to pull myself back under control.

When I finally forced my gaze back down, that warm flutter in my stomach twisted hard into something else–irritation, laced with this fierce, protective edge I couldn’t shake.

The floor around the couch was messy. Her massive engineering textbooks were splattered everywhere, open to pages of dense blueprints.

Her reading glasses were tossed unevenly near the edge of the rug, and scattered among the paperwork were empty energy drink cans.

I counted them automatically. Seven. Seven entire cans of highly concentrated

caffeine.

A wave of worry mixed with genuine anger surge through me.

I knew exactly why she had pumped that much garbage into her system.

She was trying to force her brain to stay awake, trying to drown out the misery of Caleb by burying herself in calculations until she passed out from sheer exhaustion. By now, she probably knows they’re back together. News like that doesn’t stay quiet around here for long.

I slid my bag off my shoulder, setting it down carefully by the door so I wouldn’t wake

her.

Moving with quiet steps, I walked over to the couch and began gathering her things.

I shut the heavy textbooks, stacked her notes into a neat pile on the coffee table, and carefully placed her glasses on top of them before throwing the empty cans into the recycling bin.

When the space was finally clear, I stopped. I just stood over her, staring down at her sleeping form for a long, quiet moment.

In the dim light of the kitchen terrace, I could see the tiny, faint freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose.

They were almost invisible to anyone else, but I had spent so much time quietly soaking Victoria into my memory over the past few weeks that I probably knew the exact placement of every single mark on her skin.

A small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of my lips.

I shook my head at my own obsession, turning on my heel to head into the bathroom to freshen up and wash the dirt off my skin.

When I came back out twenty minutes later, wearing clean sweatpants and drying my hair with a towel, my eyes immediately found her again.

She was shivering slightly, her small frame curling into a tight ball to fight off the chill

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of the air conditioning.

I walked over to the couch, dropping the towel onto a chair, and slid my arms carefully

beneath her knees and shoulders.

The second I lifted her, she tensed, a faint, sleepy mumble escaping her lips as she instinctively tried to resist the movement.

“Let go,” she murmured, her eyes still tightly shut.

“Shut up, Victoria. You’re freezing,” I muttered back.

As if recognizing my voice, her resistance completely melted away.

She leaned into the movement, her head settling perfectly against the center of my chest, her hands clutching at the fabric of my clean shirt as I carried her down the short hallway into my bedroom.

I laid her down gently onto the mattress, pulling the thick, heavy duvet up to her chin to make sure she was completely warm.

Satisfied that she was taken care of, I turned to leave, intending to grab my textbook from downstairs and study at the kitchen island for a bit.

But before I could take a single step away from the mattress, a small, trembling hand shot out from beneath the covers, her fingers locking tightly around my forearm.

“Please… stay with me,” her voice came out soft, broken, and completely devoid of her usual defensive walls.

The absolute vulnerability in her tone halted me instantly. I slowly turned back around to face the bed.

She had opened her eyes, and in the faint amber glow of the bedside lamp, I could see they were entirely haunted, heavy with a deep, crushing sorrow that she had been trying to hide all day.

My heart sank for her. The sight of her looking that broken completely tore through whatever remaining discipline I had left.

I couldn’t leave her like that. Without saying a word, I climbed into the opposite side of the mattress, sliding beneath the heavy duvet.

The second I settled into the pillows, she didn’t hesitate–she immediately scooted across the space, pulling herself right into my chest.

The scent of her hair hit me instantly. She smelled like sweet cherries and clean soap, a combination that was so intoxicating it made my head spin.

We lay there in the quiet room for a very long time, neither of us speaking as the silence stretched out between us.

I could feel the ragged, uneven rhythm of her breathing against my ribs, knowing her

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mind was still spinning out of control.

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