Back Down

By Lisette Rees-Peel

Nothing you've read. Not a line of it.

A year ago Kit Haldane spent every Thursday in Cal Ashworth's chair, reading the private pages Cal kept at the end of his crew book. In March, Cal found out, and sent him away with one word.

Twenty-eight weeks later Cal drives him home from a wedding and doesn't take the turn for Ely. In his dark hall, he has terms. Nothing from that drawer. Not the lamp, not the thumb. Whatever Kit wants, he asks for out loud, and Cal will say yes or no.

Cal is in his second season in charge of Cambridge's men. He gives Kit Friday nights in his own house, and every Friday at midnight he sends him home. The first night, he booked the cab before he'd so much as touched him. He hasn't told Kit why. He hasn't told him about the letter from the national squad either, the one he won't open.

Kit calls the Boat Race on television, and a journalist with a warm voice and a notebook has started asking where he rowed ten years ago, and with whom, and why he walked away. Kit can lie on air and make it sound like the truth. Now he is lying to Cal.

Then he is sent six weeks up a river nobody is allowed to name, and for the first time in ten years he writes to Cal.

And on race day, in the commentary box, in front of the whole country, Kit has decided something Cal has told him not to do.

Out loud, or go home.

Second chance - a secret relationship - his rules, said out loud - a journalist digging - coach and commentator - explicit - one couple across all three books - Book 2 ends on a cliffhanger

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HMP49SJM
• ISBN13: 9798161591567
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"