Prototype Crush

At a high-stakes science fair, perfection-driven Phoebe is forced to team up with calm builder Malik. Their prototype might win district, but trusting each other could change far more than the project.

Phoebe has spent years believing strength means carrying everything alone.

So when her science-fair project starts failing at the worst possible moment, the last person she wants stepping into her carefully controlled world is Malik, the quiet builder who notices too much and stays too steady under pressure. But when his transport design and her filtration system begin working together, their forced partnership becomes something far more dangerous than school gossip or district judges.

Because Malik doesn’t just help Phoebe save the project. He changes the way she understands support, ambition, and what it means to be truly seen.

As district recognition pushes them toward bigger futures, Phoebe and Malik find themselves caught between the lives they’ve worked for and the love they never planned to build. And when opportunity finally arrives with a cost neither of them can ignore, they’ll have to decide whether what they created together was only the beginning of a project or the beginning of something meant to last.

Prototype Crush is a bright, emotionally rich clean YA romance about science-fair partners, first love, shared ambition, and learning that support can make a dream stronger without making it smaller.