Lahat ng Kabanata ng Love Phase Trilogy: Puppy Love: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 7

The alarm on Sienna Vance’s phone didn't ring; it hummed with a low, rising vibration at precisely 5:30 AM. She was already awake. She had been staring at the faint gray light filtering through her blinds for twenty minutes, running through the morning’s timeline in her head like a script she had rehearsed a thousand times. 5:30 AM: Awake. 5:45 AM: Four-mile run. 6:30 AM: Shower and breakfast (high protein, clean energy). 7:15 AM: Review AP Literature notes in the car. 7:35 AM: Arrive at Oakridge High. Sienna swung her legs out of bed, her feet hitting the cool hardwood. Her bedroom was a study in absolute intentionality. There were no messy piles of clothes or dusty knick-knacks. On the main wall hung a dry-erase calendar spanning the full academic year, mapped out in green, blue, and red ink. Opposite her bed was a floor-to-ceiling corkboard centered around a single, glossy brochure: The Vanderbilt National Youth Leadership Fellowship. It was a summer program that accepted exa

The Oakridge Public Library was built in 1928, a heavy stone building that smelled permanently of wet wool, decaying paper, and old pine floor wax. Sienna arrived at 4:12 PM. She had skipped her final cool-down lap at track practice, changed in a record three minutes, and walked the six blocks downtown in the biting October rain, her umbrella fighting the wind the entire way. Her dark hair was damp around her temples, and her shoulder muscles were clamped tight with frustration. She found Kai in the back corner of the local history room, tucked between two floor-to-ceiling oak bookshelves. He didn't look like he was preparing for a high-stakes academic meeting. He was sitting at a heavy oak table, a sweating plastic cup of iced tea beside him, surrounded by giant, leather-bound topographic maps from the late nineteenth century. He had a pair of white archival gloves lying on the wood next to his hands, and he was staring intently at a faded black-and-white photograph through a smal

Kai Rowan's POV Kai Rowan’s world was measured in grain, moisture content, and heavy lifting. On Saturday morning, the Rowan garage smelled like cedar shavings, old gasoline, and linseed oil. Sunlight cut through the high, dusty windows, illuminating the swirling clouds of oak dust that hung in the air like gold foil. Kai stood at the long maple workbench, a hand plane in his grip, taking smooth, hair-thin shavings off the edge of a white oak dining table top. Shhhck. Shhhck. The sound was rhythmic, therapeutic, grounding. He stopped, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm, and looked down at the wood. It was level. Perfect. His phone buzzed on the corner of the bench, vibrating against a tin of brass wood screws. He picked it up, expecting his uncle asking him to pick up a box of three-inch galvanized nails from the lumberyard. Instead, it was a text from a number he’d saved three days ago: Sienna: I found a lead. The grandson of Arthur Vance (