𝐀𝐮𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐉𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 never expected to start college with a five-month-old daughter on her hip, but she’s determined to build a better future for them both. At just eighteen, she balances classes, motherhood, and survival with a quiet strength no one sees—not that she has time for anyone to notice. Love isn’t on her mind. Stability is. Safety is. Her daughter is. But then there’s him. 𝐊𝐚𝐢 𝐄𝐥𝐢 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 is nineteen, sharp-edged, reckless, and always keeping the world at a distance. He’s the kind of guy people stay away from—the one with the temper, the attitude, the walls too high to climb. But the moment he meets Aulora, something in him shifts. Something softens. Maybe even breaks. He doesn’t know how to handle it. He only knows he wants to. When a tiny baby girl melts the heart he didn’t know he had—and her mother unknowingly steals the rest—Kai finds himself drawn into a world he never thought he could belong to. A world where trust matters. Where gentleness matters. Where family… matters. But Aulora has been hurt before. And Kai has never cared for anything enough to fight for it—until now. Can two people with completely different lives learn to meet in the middle? Or will the obstacles between a single mother and a guarded boy prove too heavy to carry? A tender, slow-burn college romance about healing, unexpected love, and the baby steps that lead two hearts exactly where they’re meant to be.
