Vague Intentions

Sixteen-year-old Elara is smart, but she’s no Physics prodigy like her mother, the brilliant Professor Claire Vance. They are a two-woman comedy troupe, best friends who share everything—including Claire's latest obsession: a twenty-one-year-old student named Beaux. Beaux is the polar opposite of the academic elite. He’s "slow," processing the world at a different pace, and he’s a total disaster in a lab coat. But with his leather jacket energy, devastatingly crooked smile, and a sense of humor that makes Claire laugh until she cries, he’s become the "handsome project" Claire is determined to introduce to her daughter. The Departmental Gala was supposed to be a boring networking event. Instead, it becomes a silent battlefield of stolen glances. Across the crowded ballroom, Elara and Beaux lock eyes in a high-voltage exchange that leaves her breathless. They don’t exchange a single word, but by the time the music stops, Elara is completely mesmerized by the boy who finds "home" in her mother’s orbit because his own parents are too busy making a living to notice him. Now, caught between her 9th-grade reality and the magnetic pull of a guy who moves at his own speed, Elara has to wonder: Is she falling for her mother's favorite student, or is she the only one who finally sees the heart behind the slow-burn smirk?