The Last Five Yards

Childhood teammates. Lifelong almosts. One more chance to choose each other.Maren Clarke knows how to keep her world steady: early mornings, carefully counted strokes, and lane three. Sharing the captain's title with Reese Callahan, the chronically late diver with an impossible smile, was never part of the plan. Neither was falling for her.Between shared practices, sunrise coffees, and a first kiss on the shores of Lake Michigan, their senior season becomes the beginning of something neither knows how to hold on to. Reese leaves for a diving scholarship. Maren stays. The future they never quite promised each other slips out of reach.Fifteen years after graduation, Maren is coaching at the pool where it all began when nine-year-old Rowan Callahan arrives, full of questions and determined to swim.Her mother is right behind her.Reese has come home after losing her wife, hoping to build a steadier life for her daughter. Maren knows how to help Rowan find her confidence in the water. Finding her own footing around Reese is another matter.As practices bring them together and familiar coffee cups reappear, Maren finds herself making room for both Callahans. But wanting Reese has never been the hardest part. Trusting her with a place in the life Maren has built means letting herself be seen beyond the routines that keep her safe.The Last Five Yards is an emotional, slow burn sapphic romance spanning fifteen years of first love, missed chances, and finding a family where you least expect it.