Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 96

Chapter 96

Victoria’s POV

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For the next hour, the highway passed by in a blur outside the tinted glass, but inside, the van was filled with warmth.

We set the vehicle’s navigation to a smooth, leisurely pace, allowing the smart system to handle the curves of the road perfectly.

Elijah turned out to be surprisingly focused when he painted. He sat with his tongue lightly poking against the inside of his cheek, carefully applying strokes of blue and white to his canvas.

I, on the other hand, managed to get black paint on the tip of my nose within the first ten minutes, a fact that Elijah took great pleasure in pointing out by laughing at me for a solid three minutes.

The moment slipped away. I looked down at my hands, suddenly quiet.

Elijah noticed the change immediately. He set his brush on the edge of the palette, studying me for a second.

“Hey.” He tipped his head. “Where’d you disappear to?”

I let out a dramatic sigh and rested my chin in my hands.

“I’m just thinking… If I have to solve one more fluid mechanics problem tonight, I might actually lose my mind. Finals are starting on Monday, and I still feel like I’m making educated guesses half the time,”

“You’ll get through it.” He encouraged. “I’ve seen how hard you’ve been studying.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Tell you what-we’ll trade. I’ll take your fluid mechanics exam, and you can write my behavioral criminology paper.”

I laughed.

“Deal. Then we can both fail together.”

A quiet chuckle escaped him before he returned to his painting.

“Worst of all,” I muttered, rinsing my brush in the jar beside me, “the engineering café somehow has the worst coffee on campus. I honestly don’t know how people drink that stuff every day.”

“Didn’t I take you to Bean House last week? You could always visit there-you know?

I slowly turned to stare at him.

He looked back at me. “What?”

“You actually thought that coffee was good?”

“It was.”

I blinked once before slowly shaking my head.

“Wow. Your standards are lower than I thought.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“No, I’m being honest. That place is living off aesthetics.”

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11:37 Sat, Jul 11

Chapter 98

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He laughed under his breath.

“Whatever you say, baby girl.”

Why the hell did that sound so attractive?

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He just kept painting, completely oblivious, like he hadn’t casually committed attempted murder on my self-control.

I didn’t know if it was the baby girl, the low rasp in his voice, or the fact that he hadn’t even looked at me when he said … but together? That was a fucking lethal combination.

I bit my lip and quickly looked away before he caught on to just how badly I’d reacted.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the cabin was the soft scrape of our brushes against the boards.

I leaned back to inspect my work, reasonably proud of the abstract sunset I had managed to pull off, before leaning forward to peek at his side of the table.

“Elijah,” I called, squinting hard at his board. “What… is that?”

“It’s a sailboat,” he replied instantly, his tone completely deadpan. “In a harbor. At dusk.”

“A sailboat?” I leaned closer, poking a bright yellow blob in the center of his canvas. “Then why does it have a beak? Elijah. this looks suspiciously like a deformed duck.”

“It’s an abstract sailboat, Victoria. You just don’t understand high art,” he defended, holding the canvas up with an incredibly offended expression.

“Sailboats don’t have beaks,” I pointed out, laughing so hard my ribs actually ached against the edge of the table. “You literally painted a mallard.”

“It’s a triangular sail,” he insisted, though a telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth completely gave him away. “You’re just projecting your lack of artistic vision onto my masterpiece.”

“It’s an abstract sailboat, Victoria. You just don’t understand high art,” he defended, holding the canvas up with an offended

expression.

“Elijah, it has a beak,” I pointed out, leaning across the table to poke the yellow blob on his canvas. “Sailboats don’t have beaks.”

Just as he was about to defend his artistic honor, a loud, energetic ringtone echoed through the cabin. Elijah’s phone was vibrating against the console up front.

He reached over, glancing at the screen before hitting the speaker button.

“Speak. Elijah answered.

“Yo! Carter! Tell me you and Tori are miserable right now,” Jace’s loud, boisterous voice boomed through the van’s speakers, instantly shattering the quiet.

In the background, a chorus of shouting, splashing water, and loud laughter filled the audio.

“We’re currently on a boat in the middle of the lake, freezing our absolute toes off, but Leo just caught a fish that looks exactly like Jace’s first-grade yearbook photo.” Nate’s voice cut in, followed by a loud laugh from Leo and an offended shriek from Jace in the distance,

Hey! Victoria! Are you there?” Adele’s voice screamed near the microphone. “Alison almost fell out of the canoe because a dragonfly landed on her paddle! We’re having the best time! Please tell me you’re stuck in a boring train right now!”

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Chapter 98

I leaned closer to the speaker, pulling a mock-heartbroken expression even though they couldn’t see me.

“Adele! I cannot believe you guys went fishing without us. This is how you all are? Just rubbing it in our faces while we’re suffering on the road? The betrayal is real. I’m officially unfriending all of you.”

“No, wait! Come back! We’ll save you some fish!” Miles shouted from somewhere in the background, followed by Jace laughing hysterically.

“Don’t be jealous of them, Toria,” Elijah chimed in, leaning back in his chair with a smug smile. “They’re trying to flex a freezing cold lake while we’re currently riding in a luxury lounge with custom leather seats and a self-driving system. We’re doing just fine.”

“Wait, what?” Jace asked, the audio suddenly getting quieter as he clearly pulled the phone closer to his face. “What do you mean, luxury lounge? Carter, did you rent a mansion on wheels again?”

“Goodbye, boys. Enjoy the hypothermia.” Elijah said smoothly, hitting the end-call button before they could reply.

The van fell back into a peaceful silence, and I collapsed against the back of my seat, a wide, genuine smile lingering on my face.

It felt so incredibly good to hear our friends’ voices, to know that life was still moving forward, sweet and uncomplicated, outside of the hospital walls we had been trapped in for so long.

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