Chapter 1: The Maddox Effect

All senior art student Asher Maddox needs is a muse for a semester assignment.

What he gets is Jules Imani-beautiful, brilliant, quiet and completely uninterested.

After a disastrous first impression and an even worse second one, the two strike a reluctant deal: Jules gets help navigating a messy semester without an interpreter. Asher gets to sketch the one face he can't stop thinking about.

Jules doesn't like Asher.
Asher doesn't understand Jules.
But that's before the notes. Before the sketches. Before Asher starts learning ASL just to stay in Jules' world.

This was never part of the plan.
But some things are too much to want-and impossible to walk away from.