Mile High Spicy Chapters: Every Scene, Heat Level & Content Warnings (2026)
Mile High spicy chapters start at chapter 16 and run, on and off, to the very last chapter. Liz Tomforde’s hockey-player-meets-flight-attendant romance rates 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit on our five-chili scale: open door, detailed, heavy on dirty talk, with five confirmed spicy chapters in a 56-chapter book and a long, deliberate build before the first one. It’s for readers who want enemies to lovers with a cocky athlete who turns out to be the softest man on the team, and a heroine who has sworn off athletes for very good reasons. The timing is good: Amazon MGM Studios is developing the Windy City books as a Prime Video series, Tomforde has been talking publicly about how much of the spice will make it to the screen, and the series now runs five books deep. Below: every spicy chapter with what happens, content warnings, how it compares to the rest of Windy City and the other big hockey romances, and a hotter bonus scene from our own shelf.
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Is Mile High Spicy?
Yes. The scenes are fully on the page and explicit, and Evan Zanders talks during them the way he talks to the press, which is to say a lot and with no filter. It isn’t wall-to-wall, though: Mile High is a long book, the first fifteen chapters are banter and tension on the team plane, and the big emotional arc (Stevie’s body image, Zanders’ mental health, the found family around them) gets as much page time as the sex. Four chilies: explicit, frequent enough, never the whole plot.
The setup: Stevie Shay is a flight attendant newly assigned to the private plane of Chicago’s NHL team, the Raptors, and she has one firm rule about dating athletes. Zanders is the team’s resident villain, a player who loves the penalty box, his reputation and himself, roughly in that order. He decides the new flight attendant is going to like him. She decides he’s exactly the kind of man she swore off. Road trips, hotel bars and one very small airplane galley do the rest.
Mile High Spicy Chapters List
Chapter numbers below were matched across a chapter-by-chapter summary and a reader-compiled spicy chapters list, and we only give an exact chapter where both agree. Descriptions are non-graphic and spoiler-light.
- Chapter 16: the first kiss and the first scene, in a hotel suite on the road. After fifteen chapters of sniping, the tension finally snaps. Explicit, and the start of a two-chapter sequence.
- Chapter 17: the sequence continues into the bedroom. Explicit and long. Together, chapters 16 and 17 are the hottest stretch in the book and the part most readers mean when they ask where the spice is.
- Chapter 30: the next full scene, after a long run of pining, a New Year’s kiss in the galley (chapter 23) and a gala slow dance (chapter 25). Explicit.
- Chapter 32: a scene in a car. Explicit and shorter.
- Chapter 56: the final chapter, after a third-act rough patch and a kiss in chapter 55. An intimate, explicit night that closes the book.
One reader list also flags around chapter 36 as spicy; the chapter summary we checked doesn’t, so treat it as a maybe. The galley moment in chapter 13 and the club dance in chapter 15 are tension, not scenes.
Content Warnings
Mile High is a feel-good sports romance with heavier material underneath. In brief: fatphobia and body-shaming, including internalized body image struggles and dysmorphia; panic attacks and anxiety; suicidal ideation; alcohol and drug use; vomiting; and explicit sex with plenty of dirty talk. Nothing is dark in the dark-romance sense, but Stevie’s body image arc and Zanders’ mental health storyline are written seriously.
How Spicy Is Mile High Compared To…
- The Right Move (Windy City #2): 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit. Stevie’s brother Ryan Shay and Indy Ivers, roommates and fake dating. About the same number of scenes, a slightly later start.
- Caught Up (Windy City #3): 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit. Single-dad pitcher Kai and Miller Montgomery. A notch fewer scenes, more emotional.
- Play Along and Rewind It Back (Windy City #4 and #5): 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit. Same house style; Rewind It Back has the fewest listed spicy chapters of the series.
- Icebreaker (Hannah Grace): 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit. College hockey captain and a figure skater, sharing a rink. Similar heat, younger leads.
- Behind the Net (Stephanie Archer): 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit. Grumpy goalie and his live-in assistant. Similar heat, slower burn.
Read the Series in Order
Windy City is five connected standalones set in one Chicago sports family, each with its own couple, best read in order because the side characters become the next leads. Start with Mile High (2022, Zanders and Stevie), then The Right Move (2023, Ryan and Indy), Caught Up (2023, Kai and Miller), Play Along (2024, Isaiah and Kennedy) and Rewind It Back (2025, Rio and Hallie). Our Liz Tomforde books in order guide covers the 2026 spinoff and the Prime Video series news, and our list of books like Mile High covers the pro sports romances to read next.
On the screen side, Amazon MGM Studios is developing Windy City for Prime Video. As of mid-2026 there was no cast, no showrunner and no release date announced, and no confirmation of which couple the show opens with, though Mile High is the obvious bet. Until then, chapters 16 and 17 are only available in the original format.
If You Wanted It Hotter: A Fractal Enigma Bonus Scene
Mile High works because Stevie is the professional on the team plane and Zanders is the player who has to earn her. Our pick flips the job, puts the woman in charge of fixing a star goalie, and comes with an exclusive bonus chapter set on a road trip, which is where all the best Windy City scenes happen too.
Goalie Problems — Tessa Valehart
She stood in his crease. He told her to prove it. Goaltending coach Wren Cassidy is hired by the Northbridge Wolves for eight weeks to fix Alexei Volkov, a star goalie who keeps getting beaten by the same goal, forty-two times over. He’s injured, grumpy and done listening to anyone. She’s very good at her job and has no intention of being charmed. Forbidden workplace heat, competence kink, praise in both directions, a hero who falls first and a dog dad.
The bonus scene: “Session Plan” is Alexei’s side of the first road trip of the new season, three months after the epilogue: a hotel room in her name, a mirror, a plan written in pencil with the times on it, and the thing Wren has waited six months to ask for. Very explicit, and hotter than the book. Read the novel first.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Coach × Goalie, Forbidden Workplace Romance, Grumpy Hero, Competence Kink, Praise Kink (Both Ways), Injured Athlete, He Falls First, Control and Surrender, Switch, Size Difference
Read the Goalie Problems bonus chapter →
Start reading Goalie Problems →
Return to Contact — Tessa Valehart
Cleared to play. Not cleared to touch her. Grant Callahan is a veteran captain coming back from a rebuilt shoulder, and the return-to-play study he volunteers for keeps putting him back in front of the surgeon who rebuilt it. Every rule says no. A silver-fox hockey captain, professional boundaries that bend a little more every week, and phone sex before they ever touch. It has its own bonus chapter too, “Road Game,” set on his first road trip under the new contract.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Surgeon × Hockey Captain, Forbidden Romance, Injured Athlete, Comeback Story, Phone Sex Before First Touch, Silver Fox Hero, Mutual Pining, Dirty Talk, Scar Worship
Start reading Return to Contact →
Mile High Mistress — Aurora North
The sapphic pick, for readers who were there for the flight attendant. Vivian Lane is an ice-queen consultant who hasn’t had a real human connection in years. Remy Santos is a senior international flight attendant who has kissed goodbye in every time zone. A panic attack at 35,000 feet lands Vivian in Remy’s arms, and a first-class lavatory changes everything. Forced proximity, opposites attract and an ice queen melting at altitude.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Forced Proximity, Opposites Attract, Ice Queen, Forbidden Romance, Grumpy/Sunshine, Praise Kink
Start reading Mile High Mistress →
For the rest of the rink, the Tessa Valehart author page collects her MF hockey and racing books, and our guide to sports romance beyond hockey covers the other Windy City sports.
FAQ: Mile High Spicy Chapters
What chapter is the spicy scene in Mile High?
Chapter 16 is the first kiss and the first scene, and it carries straight into chapter 17. After that, the confirmed spicy chapters are 30, 32 and 56.
How many spicy scenes are in Mile High?
Five confirmed spicy chapters (16, 17, 30, 32 and 56), with one more possible around chapter 36. In a 56-chapter book that’s a moderate amount, spread across the middle and the end.
Is Mile High dark?
No. It’s a funny, warm sports romance with serious threads about body image, anxiety and mental health. There’s no dark-romance violence. Our romance spice levels guide explains how we rate heat separately from darkness.
Is the sequel spicier?
About the same. The Right Move has a similar number of scenes and the same four-chili heat; the whole series sits at that level, with Rewind It Back a touch lighter.
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