Synopsis:

Laya Ellwood has never fit neatly into lines or expectations.

Curious, expressive, and easily consumed by the world around her, she feels everything too deeply and dreams too wildly for a life that often feels too small. She hides her loneliness behind humor, her anxiety behind curiosity, and her heart behind movement. Still, beneath her bright energy lives a quiet ache to be understood, not just seen.

Harlan Crestwell has built his life around discipline.

Reserved, composed, and calculated, he finds comfort in precision. As captain of the university soccer team and a top law student, he is defined by control and consistency. Everyone knows him, but few truly know him. He is steady where others falter, loyal but distant, the calm center in every storm.

When their worlds collide at a campus mixer neither plans to attend, something unexpected happens. She speaks and he listens. He looks and she sees him. For a brief moment, everything both of them thought they understood about connection begins to shift.

What begins as curiosity becomes quiet gravity. Laya is drawn to the steadiness he carries, while Harlan is disarmed by the warmth she refuses to hide. But falling for each other means surrendering the very habits that have kept them safe; her need to chase meaning and his instinct to avoid it.

Set against the misty Oregon coast and The City of Roses, RISE is a slow-burn love story about opposites who reflect each other in unexpected ways. It explores the tension between control and freedom, logic and feeling, and the bravery it takes to rise beyond fear and into love.