Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains Novel – Just the Best Friend Victoria’s POV Love hurts. I never understood how painfully true that was until tonight. For fifteen years I loved my best friend, Caleb Ashfield, without a single regret—even though he’d made it clear that hot girls were his type, not a nerd like me. I swallowed every casual rejection and kept right on loving him. But now? I regret every single second of it. He’d canceled our dinner plans with the usual excuse: ‘team training.’ In that moment, it finally dawned on me. All ninety-nine times he’d bailed before… It was never about baseball. It was about her. The sight of them was excruciating to watch. Caleb and a girl I didn’t know, tucked into a dark corner, kissing like no one else in the room existed. My stomach twisted so violently I thought I might be sick right there on the sticky floor. What hurt worse than the kiss was the lie.
Why did he think he needed to lie? Was my love too obvious? Was I making him uncomfortable? No. I’d hidden it behind eye rolls and sarcasm. I’d loved Caleb since we were spindly kids with pigtails and scabby knees. Back when he was the boy who shared his juice box with me on the playground and promised we’d be best friends forever. He just never loved me back the same way. I wasn’t supposed to be here. Engineering nerds don’t belong in loud, sweaty clubs. I had just finished a late group project meeting when his cancellation text came through. After reading it, all I wanted was to crawl under my bed and cry until my eyes swelled shut. But my roommate, Eva, wouldn’t let me. She dragged me out, thinking a night out was exactly what I needed after a ‘grueling week’ at school. I could have said no.
I should have said no. Instead, I let her pull me through the doors, hoping the pounding bass and enough alcohol would numb the ache for a little while. So here I was: numb, my vision swimming from too many drinks, watching the boy I’d loved for half my life kiss someone else. My feet moved before my brain could stop them. I pushed through the pulsing crowd, the music and bodies blurring into nothing, until I stood only a few feet away. “Caleb?” My voice came out smaller than I intended. He jerked back. The curse that left his mouth was low, but I heard it. He murmured something to her, pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. I do not know how to explain this, but that small intimacy hurts worse than the kiss itself. He turned toward me, scratching the back of his neck, his eyes everywhere but on my face. “Tori… What are you doing here? You never come to clubs. That’s a new development right there.” He chuckles. “Training looked pretty intense,” I said, my voice dripping with bitter sarcasm.
“Tori, look…” He let out a sigh. Before he could continue his explanation, the girl stepped forward. She was gorgeous, the kind of effortless, golden beauty that reminded me exactly why I was the “best friend” and never the “choice.” She slid her arm possessively around his waist. “I’m Lexi,” she said, her voice sweet but sharp around the edges. “Caleb’s girlfriend. And you must be the childhood friend he’s always talking about.” The word girlfriend cracked something open inside my chest. I stared at Caleb, waiting for him to laugh. I wanted him to say she was joking, or that she was a friend, literally anything else. But he just looked at me with a blank expression. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “It’s been a couple of months, Tori. I didn’t tell you because… well, you only really have me here. I didn’t want you to feel like I was abandoning you or something.” “Abandoning me?” The word scraped out of my throat. “Caleb, I’m your best friend. Not your damn child.” Lexi let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Don’t be dramatic, Victoria. It’s obvious why he hid it from you. You follow him around like a lost puppy.
He’s too nice to say it, but he’s tired of it.” I flinched. Caleb didn’t deny it. He just looked uncomfortable, like he was waiting for me to evaporate so he could get back to his fun. “Anyway,” Lexi continued, scanning me with cool, bored eyes, “I thought you had a boyfriend? That’s what Caleb said. Maybe you should spend more time with him instead of acting like you’re in love with mine. If you didn’t have one, I would’ve sworn you’re madly in love with Caleb.” The lie I’d told Caleb months ago came rushing back, the one where I casually mentioned I was seeing someone. I’d said it one night when he asked why I wasn’t dating anyone. I lied so I wouldn’t look desperate—so I wouldn’t look like I was just there, waiting for him to finally notice me. “I do have a boyfriend,” I said, lifting my chin even as my soul screamed. My voice stayed steady, somehow. “And I don’t like Caleb that way. He’s just… family.” Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. For a split second, something flickered in his eyes. It wasn’t jealousy; it was pure, unadulterated relief. “Oh. Good,” he said, and that relief was the final kill-shot.
He was glad I didn’t ‘love’ him. “I was worried for a second. Why don’t you bring him next week? I want to meet the guy who finally got the nerd out of the library.” He patted my shoulder. It was the most platonic, “bro” gesture in human history. Then, he turned back to Lexi. I didn’t wait for anything else. I turned and shoved my way through the crowd, my lungs burning, tears blurring the lights. The night air was a cold slap to my system as I burst through the exit. I ditched Eva without a word, my heart too tight by pain to care. I hailed a cab and threw myself inside before the driver even came to a full stop, whispering my address through a throat that felt like it was filled with thorns. By the time I reached my apartment, the shaking had taken over. I locked the door, slid down against it, and pulled my knees tight to my chest. Fifteen years. I turned down an Ivy League scholarship—gave up more than I ever should have—just to stay close to a boy who now sees me as nothing more than a clingy, lost puppy.
I buried my face in my arms and finally let the sobs tear free. Fake Sprain, Real Blood Victoria’s POV It’s been a week since I found out my best friend, the boy who’s owned my heart for years without even knowing it, has a girlfriend. Every time I close my eyes, I still see it: Caleb kissing Lexi. It was a memory I relived on a loop, a picture that haunted my retinas. I wished I could reach into my chest and manually stop my heart from beating for him. Or hunt down whoever was pulling the strings of the universe and beg them to rewrite the story—make Caleb realize that maybe hot girls weren’t his type after all, and that a quiet engineering nerd like me could be enough. I knew how pathetic that sounded. But that was the cruelest part of loving someone who didn’t love you back: it turned you into someone you barely recognized. The campus was crowded and loud as students spilled toward the stadium in groups for the baseball game. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to be petty. I wanted to take vengeance for every time he’d bailed on me by bailing on him. But Caleb had asked me himself, and my stupid, loyal heart wouldn’t let me skip it. My love burned stronger than the anger sitting heavy in my chest.
I grabbed a lemonade from a stand and headed into the fray. The closer I got, the louder the roar of the crowd grew. When I finally found a spot in the stands, my eyes found them instantly. Caleb and Lexi were near the dugout. The game was minutes from starting, and he was leaning down, kissing her softly while she giggled and adjusted his cap. My heart clenched so hard I thought it might actually burst. I knew I should look away, but I was a masochist for the view. I stared until a passerby nudged my shoulder accidentally, jolting me out of my trance. The game started, and I tried to focus. I really tried to lose myself in the crack of the bat and the red dirt kicking up as players slid into home. But it was difficult. Suddenly, the energy in the stadium shifted. The opposing team stepped up to the plate, and the crowd erupted. It seemed like one player in particular had sparked the chaos. And I had a pretty good idea who it would have been. I looked up, squinting against the floodlights to find him. With a single, powerful swing, he sent the ball screaming into the far reaches of the field. A home run. The silence on Caleb’s side was deafening, while the other half of the stadium exploded. People were jumping over seats, shouting a familiar name that traveled through the crowd in a roar . “Elijah! Carter! Elijah!” He was standing at the plate, his chest rising and falling.
He pulled off his batting helmet, and for a second, the world narrowed down to just him. Elijah was dangerously handsome, the kind of guy who seemed sculpted to tempt. Dark hair fell carelessly across his forehead. His onyx-colored eyes, black as polished stone, burned with a heat that made it hard to look away. He possessed a sharp jawline, dusted with just enough stubble to be rough but enticing, and lips curved in a perpetual half-smile that promised sin. As he wiped sweat from his brow, a dark tattoo peaked out from his sleeve, curling around his bicep. He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. And then, for a fleeting, impossible second, I felt his eyes land right on me. My breath caught. It lasted maybe three seconds before his teammates swarmed him, pulling him back into the celebration. Seeing him reminded me that I had only a few hours until the post-game party, the one where I was supposed to show up with a boyfriend who didn’t exist. I glanced back at Elijah Carter. I knew of him, everyone on campus did. He was one of the star players on the baseball team, rich, talented, and the kind of guy most girls fawned over. I had never really paid him any attention before.
My world had always revolved around Caleb. But the way he’d looked at me a moment ago made the air feel strangely charged. After the baseball game, I should’ve gone straight home to rest. Instead, I found myself at Keith Sterling’s house for the after-party; Eva’s boyfriend, and tonight’s host. Eva invited me, and even though I refused at first, she didn’t stop trying until I finally agreed. Not entirely because of her persistence, but because I had a lie to protect, a completely fictional boyfriend I needed to somehow produce out of thin air before Caleb started asking questions I couldn’t answer. I scanned the crowded room, searching for any guy who looked like he might possibly play the part. I almost laughed at myself. How the hell was I supposed to do this? ‘Hi, I’m Victoria. I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend because I’ve been lying to the guy I’ve loved for fifteen years just to save face.’ Pfft. Yeah, like that wouldn’t blow up in my face. I sighed and shook my head. I didn’t know how I was going to make this work but one thing was certain: I was not going to look like a loser tonight. I wouldn’t let Caleb see how much I loved him, how I’d sunk low enough to invent a boyfriend just to hold on to a shred of dignity.
I kept my head down and tried to slip through the crowd toward the kitchen, but I wasn’t quick enough. A warm hand closed around my upper arm. I knew who it was before I even turned around. “Tori? What are you doing here?” Caleb looked down at me, his eyes lit with surprise and a trace of amusement. He didn’t let go of my arm. If anything, his grip tightened—just enough to ignite those giddy feelings. “I’m just getting a drink, Caleb,” I said. My voice came out tighter than I wanted. “I didn’t expect to see you at a house party,” he replied, gently pulling me out of the main flow of people. “You made it out to the game? I didn’t see you.” I couldn’t even respond. I was stuck on his question. “You know, we had them in the first half,” he went on, his jaw tightening. “We fucking had them.” He let out a frustrated breath through his nose. “Until that arrogant son of a…” He bit back the rest of the sentence, a hard, frustrated huff escaping his nose. He wasn’t just unhappy; he was humiliated that Elijah had outshone him. Again. I looked at him, my heartbeat turning slow and heavy. “Did you even bother to look for me, Caleb?” I asked softly. My lips moved before my brain did. Caleb didn’t answer my question.
Instead he studied my face for a moment. “You’ve been quiet this week,” he noted. His thumb brushed lightly against my sleeve. “Are you intentionally ignoring me, Tori?” Yes, I thought. Because every time I see you, it feels like I’m losing another piece of myself. But I didn’t say any of that. I just looked at him, afraid that if I opened my mouth I’d either scream or start crying. So I turned around and walked away.