Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 69

Towheries and Marshmallows

Strawberries and Marshmallows

Caleb’s POV

The silence in the house after Lexi left was thick, the kind that settles into the corners of an empty room and makes every clock on the wall sound twice as loud.

She had slammed the front door hard enough to rattle the glass panes, leaving behind nothing but the faint, synthetic scent of her designer perfume and a stack of

expensive clothes thrown carelessly across the armchair.

I didn’t move from the edge of the bed for a long time.

My phone lay face down on the mattress beside me, buzzing at regular intervals. I didn‘ t need to flip it over to know who it was.

My mother had been trying to reach me all afternoon, her name popping up between countless text messages that I lacked the energy to read.

It was always the same thing: asking how my father and I were getting along, hinting at the tension between my brothers and me, trying to play the peacemaker in a family that had spent years learning how to build walls instead of bridges.

I couldn’t handle her voice right now. I couldn’t handle the reminder that in the grand scheme of the Ashfield household, I was one bad game away from becoming an outsider.

When the knock came at the front door, I thought Lexi had come back to finish the

argument.

I stood up, rubbing the back of my neck, preparing myself to hear another lecture about how I was ruining her weekend.

I pulled the heavy wooden door open, the defensive remark already forming on my tongue, but the words died before they could leave my mouth.

It wasn’t Lexi.

Victoria stood there under the silver moonlight, her car keys clutched tightly in her hand.

A massive, overwhelming rush of relief hit me so hard my shoulders physically sagged.

No matter how bad things got, Victoria was always the one who showed up. But tonight, looking at her under the porch light, everything felt different.

She wasn’t wearing one of those baggy, oversized college hoodies she usually hid behind. Instead, she wore a simple, well–tailored gray ribbed dress that hit just above her knees.

It perfectly outlined her figure: the soft curve of her hips, her small waist, and the

bemes and Marshmallows

confident line of her shoulders.

She possessed a natural beautiful shape, a perfect size that I had somehow managed to completely blind myself to because I had been so obsessed with chasing the thin, runway look that girls like Lexi paraded around campus.

“Hi, Caleb,” she called softly, her voice barely carrying over the breeze.

“Hi,” I breathed, clearing my throat as I stepped backward to clear the entryway. “I…I didn’t think you’d actually come. Come inside. It’s freezing out here.”

She offered a small, hesitant nod, stepping past me into the foyer.

The familiar scent of her, strawberries and marshmallows, instantly replaced the lingering traces of Lexi’s perfume, and it felt like the first clean breath of air I’d taken all day.

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” I began guiding her toward the back of the house. “Do you want something to drink? Water? Soda? I think I have some of that lemonade you like in the fridge.”

“Water is fine, thank you,” she murmured, walking over to the kitchen island.

She slid onto the bar stool, her eyes scanning the neat countertops as if she were visiting a stranger’s house.

I went behind the counter, my hands shaking slightly as I poured a glass of ice water.

I had spent the last two hours terrified that she wouldn’t answer my text, terrified that Elijah Carter had completely erased whatever history we had left.

Seeing her here was a second chance I didn’t deserve, and I wasn’t going to blow it.

I walked across the small kitchen space and handed her the glass.

Our fingers brushed for a brief second, and I expected the usual warmth to appear on her face, but her hand was cool, and she pulled away almost instantly, placing the glass on the dark wood of the island.

“Thanks,” she whispered, keeping her eyes fixed on the water. “Your text sounded urgent, Caleb. Is everything okay? Is it your dad? What did he do this time?”

The fact that she knew exactly why I was hurting before I even opened my mouth made a heavy knot of guilt tighten right in my throat.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, leaning my elbows on the opposite side of the counter, desperately wanting to close the physical distance between us.

“He called. The usual stuff. Told me if I don’t get drafted in the top two rounds, he’s cutting me off entirely. No inheritance, no support, nothing. He called my career a failed hobby, Tori.”

I waited for her to lean across the counter. I waited for her to reach out, to take my

Strawbemes and Marshmallows

hand, to tell me that my father was wrong and that I was the hardest–working player on the field, just like she had a hundred times before. But she didn’t move.

She just looked at me, her expression soft with sympathy, but entirely detached.

“I’m sorry, Caleb. You don’t deserve that from him. You’ve earned everything you have on that field.”

The words were right, but the delivery felt empty. It felt like she was reading from a script of our past rather than feeling it with me in the present.

She tapped her fingers on the countertop.

“You know…” she began, a small smile spreading across her face. “I was really surprised you called me so late. I thought you’d be getting ready for the Sigma Chi mixer tonight with Lexi. You never miss that.”

I let out a dry, humorless chuckle.

“Lexi left. We got into a massive fight, and to be honest, I don’t think she’s coming back anytime soon.”

Victoria raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, taking a slow sip of the water.

“Wow. The golden couple has a fracture in the porcelain. What happened? Did she finally realize your baseball statistics aren’t a substitute for a personality?”

The sharp, sarcastic bite of her humor immediately eased the tension in my chest.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. That was her; the classic, sarcastic

Victoria I’d known since we were kids.

Hearing her snap back like that was the best thing I’d heard all week.

God, I had missed her so damn much.

“Ha–ha, very funny,” I replied, looking up at her. “No, it wasn’t that. It’s just… I finally realized she doesn’t actually care about me, Tori. At all. We were arguing, and I was trying to tell her about the pressure my dad is putting on me for the draft, and she literally laughed in my face. She told me she didn’t have time for my heavy sentiments because it was ruining her ‘pre–party‘ mood.”

Victoria’s smirk faded, replaced by a quiet, steady gaze. She set the glass down, her fingers tracing the rim.

“I mean, I don’t want to say I told you so, Caleb, but… besides, I thought you had broken up with her. What happened to ‘Caleb is the prize and doesn’t chase‘?”

“Don’t mock me, Tori.”

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