Wake Runner

She's the coach's daughter. He's got a secret that could end everything he's built. Neither of them planned on falling first.
Róisín Quinn has spent her whole life being "Coach Quinn's daughter" — the girl teammates befriend to get closer to her father, the girl new recruits are polite to and never quite honest with. She's built a reputation as the rowing club's sharp-tongued, unbothered manager specifically so nobody bothers trying to get past it. Then she catches Cathal Merrigan climbing out of the boathouse at four in the morning with a split lip and a lie ready before she's even asked the question, and something about the way he refuses to explain himself — refuses to ask anything of her at all — makes him the first person in years she actually wants to get past his guard for.
Cathal Merrigan rows like his life depends on it, because in every way that matters, it does. His scholarship is the only thing standing between his family and losing what's left after his father's accident, and the fights he's been taking on the quiet side of Dublin every other weekend are the only thing standing between his mother and a stack of medical bills she doesn't know he's covering. He can't afford a single thing that puts the scholarship — or Coach Quinn's trust — at risk. He especially can't afford Róisín Quinn noticing him at all, let alone noticing the bruises he's getting worse at explaining away.
He tries to keep her out. She's never been very good at staying where she's put. What starts as her simply refusing to look away from a boy who won't ask for help becomes something neither of them saw coming — and something that puts everything Cathal's been protecting directly in the path of everything Róisín's father controls. When the two collide, both of them have to answer a harder question than whether they want each other: whether either of them knows how to be loved by someone who isn't asking them to be useful first.
Tropes: Friends to Lovers • He Falls First (and Fights It Hardest) • Forbidden-ish Romance (Boss's Daughter) • Irish College Sports Romance • Secret Double Life • Grovel Arc