Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 54

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me.”

I looked down at her, genuine curiosity in my eyes as I caught her gaze.

“Why?”

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Then

Zhen

Elijah’s POV

“I don’t know,” she murmured, looking past me, “when you talk about the law, or justice, it sounds different. It doesn’t sound like someone just trying to pass a class to stay eligible for sports. Why choose that over something purely sports–related?”

I stared up at the ceiling, a faint, humorless smile appearing on my face as my thoughts drifted.

“I originally got into baseball because of my uncle, Chris. He used to take me to the batting cages every single weekend when I was a kid. It was his ultimate dream to play in the MLB, but he was permanently disabled in a car accident when he was a teenager. I fell in love with sports through his eyes, really, and it gave me a career path on the field.”

Victoria looked at me, her expression softening into something incredibly sweet.

“So you’re fulfilling your dream and his at the same time?”

“You could say that,” I muttered, looking past her toward the window.

She was quiet for a second, her observant eyes tracking the micro–expressions on my face before she pressed further.

“And criminology? Something tells me there’s a story behind that choice, too.”

A haunted, quiet smile crossed my lips, and I let out a soft chuckle, looking down at

her.

“That brain of yours is entirely too observant,” I murmured, looking down at her.” Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Not a single thing,” she retorted, a familiar, playful spark returning to her eyes as she leaned into my space. “Come on, Carter. Spill.”

“Let’s just say…” I paused, my jaw tightening slightly as the old bitterness threatened to surface.

“Let’s just say the justice system didn’t exactly favor someone very dear to my family a long time ago. The whole process was broken, handled by people who cared more about closing a file than finding the truth. It fueled my passion to actually understand the mechanics of the law from the inside out.”

I could tell the second the words left my mouth that she wanted to ask more

questions. I could see the curiosity burning in her pupils.

But she was too emotionally aware and die telligent to push it; she could clearly read the rigid line of my shoulders and kn Successfully unlocked!

fully share yet.

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y I was comfortable enough to

instead of pressing, she smoothly swerved away from the topic, a gesture I appreciated more than I could actually voice.

“And you?” I asked, shifting the focus back to her. “Engineering. How did that come about? Let me guess–you watched too much Young Sheldon as a kid and fell in love with physics?”

She burst into a genuine laugh, the sound bright and musical in the quiet bedroom She shook her head against my shoulder.

“You aren’t entirely far from the truth, actually. My dad used to give me old, broken radios and toaster ovens from the warehouse to keep me quiet on weekends. I became completely obsessed with figure out how things worked from the inside.”

As she spoke about her passion, her face completely transformed. The heavy, sorrowful look vanished, replaced by an absolute radiance as she explained structural integrity and material sciences.

She was breathtakingly beautiful when she was talking about the things she loved, her eyes animated and alive.

Soon, the conversation reached a perfect, effortless flow state, before slowly plateauing back into a comfortable silence.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the silence.

I looked down at her, my gaze expectant, waiting for her to clarify.

“I noticed what you did,” she continued softly, her eyes locking onto mine with a raw sincerity. “You engineered this entire conversation just to keep my mind from spiraling about Caleb. I appreciate that, Elijah. Really.”

A soft smile broke across my face. I reached forward, my large hand moving smoothly to cup her warm cheek, my thumb resting right against her cheekbone.

“Don’t thank me, Lowe. That’s exactly what your boyfriend is supposed to do.”

She let out a tiny, soft giggle, the sound vibrating against my palm.

“You’re taking this fake role a little bit too seriously, Carter. You don’t have to keep pretending when it’s just the two of us in the dark.”

My thumb gently stroked her skin, my eyes locking onto hers.

“Who said I was pretending? I just can’t stand seeing you look this broken over a guy who doesn’t even deserve your time.”

We stared at each other, the space between us suddenly growing charged with a different kind of tension.

Before the silence could pull us under again, she broke the eye contact, her fingers reaching up to grab my wrist.

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Her fingers traced the diamond on my wristband, her head dropping as she stared down at my hand.

“But seriously, thank you.” She looked back up, her eyes wide and searching.

“You’ve been incredibly helpful to me over the last month, and I don’t even know why. Tell me, Carter–what do you actually gain from this? I mean, you don’t even have feelings for Lexi anymore. The agreement is basically pointless for you.”

I leaned in a fraction of an inch closer, watching the exact second her breath hitched in her throat as my shadow fell over her.

“Are you entirely sure you want to know the answer to that, Lowe?” I asked, my voice dropping into a low, dangerous register.

She swallowed hard, her eyes tracking my movement. “Ye… yes.”

I let out a soft smirk, smacking my lips as I deliberately pulled back, breaking the spell before she could panic.

“Well, I’m not telling you. My benefits are for me to know, and for you…” I reached out, my index finger gently tapping the center of her chest, right over her heart. “…to completely forget about that dick of a best friend you have. He isn’t worth a single drop of your tears.”

I pulled my hand back entirely, resting it behind my head.

“He’s not a dick,” she defended automatically, though the response lacked any real heat. I could tell a part of her was finally starting to believe my words.

“Lowe, come on-”

“Don’t call me that,” she interrupted, her brows pulling together into a sharp frown.

I paused, looking down at her. I could tell she genuinely didn’t like the moniker. Personally, I liked her middle name–Marlowe had a classic, distinct ring to it that set her apart.

I wondered why she hated it so much, but I decided to respect the boundary.

“What do you want me to call you then?” I asked.

“Victoria is fine.”

“Well, everyone calls you that,” I countered, shaking my head.

She stared at me in absolute disbelief, her lips parting. “And what exactly does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t want to call you what everyone else calls you,” I said simply.

She shook her head, a dry, amused scoff escaping her lips.

“You really think you’re some sort of special, entirely different category of person, don’t

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you, Elijah?”

“Well, I am,” I said with an arrogant smirk.

“You’re unbelievable,” she muttered, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “It’s my name. You don’t just get to reinvent it because your ego demands a custom version”

“I do on this mattress,” I shot back smoothly, shifting slightly so she had to look at me.

“Give me something else, then. Because ‘Victoria‘ sounds like I’m addressing a professor, and ‘Lowe… you don’t seem to like it and I respect that. What else do you have?”

“Nothing,” she insisted, though the small, stubborn twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “My family calls me Tori sometimes, but if you use that, I will actually bite you.”

“Good to know. Tori is officially disqualified,” I murmured, my eyes tracking the way the amber lamplight caught the edges of her face. “We need something else. Something that actually fits.”

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