​Elara Vance is a "recovering romantic" who is currently failing at the recovering part. She’s the person who makes homemade chicken soup for her friends when life gets heavy, but she can’t seem to find the recipe for fixing her own habit of picking the wrong men. After a messy breakup with a "poet" who was really just a guy with a wine habit and a god complex, Elara is determined to keep her life simple, quiet, and entirely under her own control.​ Enter Julian Thorne. Julian is a man who treats a library like a sanctuary and a schedule like a religion. He isn’t just "the guy who’s good at math"—he’s the guy who uses order and logic as a shield against a world that has always demanded too much of him. He’s dry, he’s blunt, and when an accidental collision forces them into each other's orbits, they don't just clash over a class project; they clash over how to exist in the world. Julian thinks Elara is a chaotic storm of emotions that shouldn't be his problem. Elara thinks Julian is a human fortress who desperately needs someone to knock on the door.​ But between the quiet of his off-campus apartment, the chaotic energy of her dorm, and a very observant golden retriever named Barnaby, they start to see the cracks in each other's armor. Behind his clinical efficiency is a man with rich humor who doesn't know how to ask for what he wants; behind her lyrical perspective is a woman afraid of being seen for who she really is, afraid of being inadequate. Elara and Julian have to figure out if they’re a temporary glitch in each other’s systems—or the only thing that actually makes sense.