Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 58

anning Away

She’s Slipping Away

Caleb’s POV

“You came for him?”

I stood just five feet from them, the leather of my baseball glove sticking to my sweat- palmed hand.

The surrounding chatter of the stadium gates, the lingering cheers from the bleachers, the entire post–game high–it all receded into the background.

Victoria’s eyes slid away from Elijah’s face, tracking slowly until they landed on mine

I waited for the familiar softening in her expression. I waited for her to step away from him, to give me that apologetic, gentle look she always gave me whenever some guy tried to crowd her space.

Instead, she took a deliberate step closer to Carter. Right before my eyes, her small fingers slid into his, locking her hand securely in his grip.

“He’s my boyfriend, Caleb.” Her voice didn’t have its usual warmth. It was completely flat, entirely void of any emotion. “I have to be here for him.”

My chest tightened so hard I could barely draw a breath. I stared at their joined hands, a toxic mix of shock and pure disbelief curling in my gut.

Victoria.

My Victoria. The girl who had spent the last fifteen years completely wrapped up in my life, trailing after me from childhood parks to college stadiums.

She had spent all of university archiving my stats and sitting in the exact same spot in the bleachers for every single home game.

She was supposed to be wearing my number. She was supposed to be waiting for me outside the dugout, just like she always had.

Instead, she was standing under the shadow of the new team captain, letting his large hand anchor her to his side like she belonged there.

“So, Victoria is actually hooking up with Carter now,” Noah remarked, leaning back against the sticky wooden booth.

He let out a low chuckle, sliding a condensation–covered bottle of Bud Light across the table toward me.

“Man, the whole campus is talking about it. The golden boy and the scholarship nerd. Who would’ve guessed?”

“Drop it, Noah,” I muttered, my voice tight as I stared down at the amber liquid in my glass. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

1.5

We were sitting in the back corner of The Thirsty Duck, a loud, low–ceilinged dive bar near the stadium.

Half the roster was a few tables over, pounding pitchers and shouting over the jukebox, but I couldn’t even bring myself to look at them.

Tonight, the victory didn’t feel like mine at all.

Even though we had won the series, losing the captaincy title to Carter had been a public execution. Finding Victoria wrapped around his neck afterward had been the final nail.

Noah took a long swig from his beer, his eyes narrowing as he watched me.

“I’m just saying, man. Why didn’t you ever go there with her? From what I’ve seen since freshman year, she’s always been right in your pocket. Beautiful, smart, completely locked onto you… and you just let the third baseman walk right in and take her?”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. I just kept clenching and unclenching my fist beneath the table, the skin over my knuckles stretching white.

Noah’s questions were a direct threat to the order of my world.

Victoria wasn’t supposed to fall in love with someone else. That wasn’t how the script

was written.

For years, she had been my shadow–the secure foundation I could always return to whenever my life got messy.

She was mine. It didn’t matter if I hadn’t claimed her officially; she belonged in my orbit, functioning exactly when, how and where I needed her to.

The idea of her look, her attention, and her body belonging to Elijah Carter made a feral, possessive anger claw at the walls of my stomach.

“And seriously,” Noah continued, leaning forward, completely oblivious to the anger rolling off my shoulders.

“Why Lexi though? You’re Caleb Ashfield. You have a literal rule about never going backward. Once an ex is done, she’s dead to you. So what’s so extraordinary about Lexi Grayson that made you break your own code? Come on, tell me, buddy. What’s so good about her?”

I kept my mouth shut, taking a slow, heavy swallow of my beer to avoid answering him out loud.

Lexi Grayson wasn’t just ‘another‘ girl; she was status. She was luxury, influence, and the daughter of a man who sat on the university’s athletic board of trustees.

Noah wouldn’t understand the reality of it. He didn’t know the dark, transactional nature of high–tier campus social circles.

29

Shoping Away

He didn’t grow up in the same country–club circles. He didn’t understand the dark, transactional nature of families like mine, the Carters, or the Graysons.

Out here, prestige is currency, and Lexi Grayson wasn’t just a girl who satisfied my urges and social status, she was an asset.

When Lexi and I broke up a week ago, it hadn’t been because the passion died; it was a calculated power play on her end.

She wanted to see if I would beg. She wanted to see if the star outfielder could be brought to his knees by a girl who held the keys to every exclusive alumni circle and trust–fund network in the state.

I hadn’t begged. My pride wouldn’t allow it, and Ashfields don’t chase.

But over the last month, as Carter’s profile began to rise on the diamond and his name started circulating heavily among the major league scouts, the landscape shifted. I needed security.

Elijah already had his family’s legacy backing him, and with him taking the captaincy, he could easily secure the top spot with the scouts.

In college baseball, a team rarely actually needs a designated captain, the head coach usually runs the whole show.

The mere fact that Coach Miller decided that we needed a captain this late in the season sends a massive, glaring signal to the Major League scouts in the stands, telling the Red Sox and Yankees representatives exactly who owns this diamond.

And by the time the draft rolls around next month, that single decision would redefine our draft stock–propelling Carter straight into the first–round conversation with the powerhouse franchises while my own scouting reports hang dangerously in the balance.

Elijah is undeniably a good player. I don’t wish to bring him down, but I damn sure don’t plan to be below him either.

In short words, I needed the kind of social leverage that only a girl of Lexi’s caliber could provide to keep my name at the absolute top of the draft conversation.

When she came crawling back to me last week, whispering apologies into my neck and promising that her father was personally attending the regional tournament with a group of franchise executives, my personal rule didn’t matter anymore.

Taking her back wasn’t a surrender. It was more of a strategic retrieval of my assets. But Victoria… Victoria was supposed to understand that.

She was supposed to know that Lexi was just a necessity for the future I was building. I had always assumed that once the season concluded, once the draft picks were locked in and the noise cleared, I would finally turn around and give Victoria the spot

35

Cupping Away

she had earned.

I had kept her on a leash for years, giving her just enough affection, just enough lingering looks and childhood nostalgia to keep her waiting at the gate.

A hairline fracture split right through my confidence. For the first time in my life, I felt the terrifying reality of control slipping entirely through my fingers.

“She’s just different, Noah,” I finally lied, my voice hollow as I offered a generic, empty response to satisfy his curiosity.

“Lexi and I have history. It’s complicated.”

“If you say so, man,” Noah muttered, shifting his attention toward a group of girls walking past our table.

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