Chapter 3: The Walk of Shame and The Revelation
The first thing Kara became aware of was the soreness. A deep, muscular ache between her thighs that pulsed with every heartbeat, a tender rawness that brought the previous night rushing back in vivid, Technicolor detail. The second thing was the arm.
Ty's arm was draped across her waist like a dead weight, heavy and possessive, his forearm pressed against her stomach and his hand curled loosely near her hip. His chest was warm against her back, his breath a slow, steady rhythm against the nape of her neck. He was still asleep. She could tell by the way his breathing hadn't changed, by the complete stillness of his body behind hers.
Kara lay there and didn't move.
The room was dim, the floor-to-ceiling windows doing nothing to block the pale gray light of early dawn that filtered through the city haze. The skyline was a silhouette against a sky the color of wet concrete. Somewhere far below, a garbage truck rumbled through the streets, and the distant sound of a siren wailed and faded. The hotel was waking up. The world was waking up.
She should go.
She knew she should go. This was the part where she slipped out, gathered her clothes, and disappeared before things got complicated. It was a routine she'd perfected over the years, a carefully choreographed exit that left no room for misinterpretation. No expectations. No promises. No morning-after awkwardness where someone tried to turn a one-night stand into something it wasn't.
But she didn't move.
Instead, she turned her head, just slightly, just enough to look at him.
His face was relaxed in sleep, the sharp angles of his jaw softened, his mouth slightly parted. Dark lashes rested against his cheeks, impossibly long for a man, and there was a faint shadow of stubble along his jawline that hadn't been there the night before. His hair was a mess, dark and tangled against the white pillow, and there was a crease from the sheet pressed into his cheek.
He looked younger like this. Less like the cocky, grinning playboy who'd bought her a drink and more like the boy from the paycheck-to-paycheck home he'd mentioned in passing. The one who'd clawed his way out. The one who sent money back to parents who never quite got their act together.
Something tugged in her chest. Something dangerous and unwelcome.
Kara Mitchell did not do feelings. She did whiskey and one-liners and leaving before sunrise. She did casual and uncomplicated and absolutely no strings attached. She'd spent her entire adult life in a fighter squadron, surrounded by men who treated relationships like a weakness and emotions like a liability, and she'd learned those lessons well. Better than well. She'd perfected them.
But Ty was still holding her.
His arm hadn't moved. His hand was still curled near her hip. And even in sleep, his body was angled toward hers, like some unconscious part of him had decided that she was worth holding onto.
That was the thought that finally made her move.
She slid out from under his arm with the slow, careful precision of someone defusing a bomb. Inch by inch. Breath by breath. She kept her eyes on his face, watching for any sign of waking, and when her feet finally touched the cold floor, she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
He didn't stir.
Kara stood there for a moment, naked except for her black socks, and looked down at him. At the sprawl of his body across the rumpled sheets. At the faint red marks her nails had left on his shoulders. At the way his hand had curled into the empty space where she'd been, fingers still reaching for something that was no longer there.
She turned away.
Her clothes were scattered across the floor like evidence at a crime scene. Jeans crumpled near the foot of the bed. Shirt draped over a chair. Bra hanging from the corner of the TV stand, and she had a vague, hazy memory of Ty flinging it there sometime around three in the morning. Her thong was somewhere else entirely, and it took her a full minute to find it, wedged under the edge of the rug near the bathroom door.
She dressed quickly, efficiently, the way she'd been trained to do. Jeans up. Shirt over her head. Bra on. No underwear, because the lace was soaked and cold and she wasn't about to put that back on her body. She'd deal with that later. She raked her fingers through her cropped hair, trying to tame the worst of the bed-head, and then she looked around for something to write on.
The hotel stationery was on the desk near the window. Thick, cream-colored paper with the hotel's logo embossed at the top. She found a pen in the drawer and stood there for a long moment, the pen hovering over the paper.
What was there to say?
Thanks for the good time? That felt cheap. See you around? That felt like a promise she wasn't sure she wanted to make. Nothing at all? That felt cruel.
She settled on the simplest option.
Thanks for the good time. —K
Short. Direct. No strings. No expectations. Exactly the kind of note she'd leave. Exactly the kind of woman she was.
She placed it on the pillow next to his head, where he couldn't possibly miss it, and then she grabbed her boots and slipped out of the suite without looking back.
The hallway was silent. The elevator ride was silent. The lobby, when she finally reached it, was nearly empty, just a bored-looking concierge and a bellhop who didn't bother to look up from his phone. Kara walked past them both and out into the gray morning, the cool air hitting her face like a slap.
She flagged a cab at the corner and gave the driver her address. Then she leaned her head against the window and watched the city slide by, the buildings gray and anonymous in the early light, and tried very hard not to think about the man she'd just left behind.
---
Her apartment was small and sparse, a one-bedroom on the fourth floor of a building that had been built in the seventies and never updated. The walls were beige. The furniture was functional. The only personal touches were a framed photo of her and her father at her winging ceremony and a stack of aviation manuals on the coffee table that she kept meaning to read and never did.
She showered. She scrubbed herself clean, washing away the sweat and the sex and the smell of Ty's skin. She stood under the hot water until it ran cold, and then she stepped out, wrapped herself in a towel, and looked at herself in the mirror.
Same face. Same sharp jaw and playful hazel eyes and cropped dark hair. Same compact, athletic frame with the faint bruises on her hips that Ty's fingers had left behind. She touched one of them, pressed her thumb into the purpling skin, and felt a small, private thrill at the pain.
Then she shook her head and got dressed.
The flight suit was familiar and comfortable, a second skin that she'd worn for years. She zipped it up, pulled on her boots, and grabbed her helmet bag from the hook by the door. By the time she climbed into her car, the sun was fully up, and the day was already promising to be too hot.
The drive to base took forty minutes. She spent most of it with the radio off, letting the silence fill the car, and tried to convince herself that the fluttering in her chest was just nerves about the flyover.
It wasn't.
---
The briefing room was already buzzing when she walked in.
Her squadron was a collection of eight pilots, all men, all younger than they acted, and all absolutely insufferable when they had something to tease her about. Which, judging by the way they all turned to look at her the second the door swung open, was exactly what was about to happen.
"Well, well, well," said Lieutenant Commander "Sparks" Hendricks, leaning back in his chair with a grin that was all teeth. "Look who finally decided to show up."
Kara dropped her helmet bag on the table and fixed him with a flat stare. "I'm two minutes early, asshole."
"Two minutes early and wearing yesterday's clothes." That was Lieutenant "Pip" Morrison, who was the youngest pilot in the squadron and the most annoying, a combination that Kara had learned to tolerate with copious amounts of alcohol. "Rough night, Mitchell?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
"We do," said another voice, and she turned to find Lieutenant "Chip" Dawson smirking at her from across the room. "We really, really do. Because there's a running bet going, and I've got fifty bucks on whether you made it to breakfast or not."
Kara snorted. "You bet on me?"
"We always bet on you." Pip shrugged. "You're the most interesting thing that happens to this squadron."
"Gee, thanks."
"So?" Sparks leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with unholy amusement. "Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Make it to breakfast."
Kara thought about the note on the pillow. The way Ty's arm had felt around her waist. The tug in her chest that she was still trying to ignore.
"No," she said. "I didn't make it to breakfast."
The room erupted in groans and cheers, money changing hands, Pip slapping Sparks on the shoulder and Chip cursing under his breath. Kara watched them for a moment, then shook her head and headed for her seat.
"You're all children," she announced. "Absolute children."
"Children with fifty bucks," Sparks said, pocketing the cash. "So what happened? Did you leave before he woke up, or did you do the walk of shame?"
"I do not do walks of shame."
"Did you at least get his name?"
Kara hesitated.
Just a beat. Just half a second of silence. But it was enough, and she saw the exact moment Sparks caught it, his eyes narrowing, his grin sharpening.
"Oh, shit," he said. "You liked him."
"I did not—"
"You liked him!" Pip practically shouted. "Holy shit, Mitchell actually liked someone! Quick, someone write this down, this is a historic occasion—"
"I will end you," Kara said, but there was no heat in it, and they all knew it. "Can we please focus on the brief?"
The brief was straightforward. A flyover for the season opener, four F/A-18s in a diamond formation, full afterburners over the stadium right as the national anthem concluded. Kara was flying lead, which meant she was responsible for the timing, the formation, and making sure no one spectacularly screwed up. It was the kind of mission she'd done a hundred times, but it still made her blood hum with anticipation.
They walked out to the tarmac together, the heat shimmering off the asphalt, the smell of jet fuel sharp in the air. Kara climbed into her cockpit, settled into the familiar seat, and let the ground crew strap her in. The canopy sealed over her head with a pneumatic hiss, and for a moment, everything else faded away.
There was no Ty. No note on a pillow. No tug in her chest. There was only the checklist and the throttle and the sky.
"Tower, this is Vulture One," she said into her comms. "Ready for taxi."
"Vulture One, cleared for taxi. Runway two-seven."
The engines roared to life, a deep, bone-shaking thrum that vibrated through her entire body. She taxied to the runway, waited for the signal, and then pushed the throttle forward and let the jet scream down the asphalt.
The wheels left the ground, and Kara Mitchell was free.
---
The flyover was flawless.
Four jets in perfect formation, screaming over the stadium at five hundred feet, the roar of their engines drowning out the dying notes of the anthem. Kara led the formation with a precision that bordered on artistry, her eyes fixed on the instruments, her hand steady on the stick. They banked left, then right, then shot skyward in a vertical break that made the crowd below gasp.
On the radio, she heard the excited chatter of her squadron, the whoops and curses and "that was fucking awesome" commentary that always followed a good run. Kara didn't say anything. She just flew, letting the jet do what it was built to do, and felt the familiar, grounding calm that only came when she was in the air.
When they landed, her heart was still racing.
The debrief was quick, efficient, and mercifully free of any further teasing about her personal life. By the time they were done, it was early afternoon, and the sun was scorching the tarmac. A pair of town cars were waiting to take them to the stadium, where they'd been invited to watch the game from a suite.
Kara could think of approximately eight hundred things she'd rather be doing.
She slouched in the back of the car, her arms crossed, her eyes half-closed, listening to Pip and Chip argue about some stats thing that she didn't understand or care about. Football. She hated football. She'd never understood the appeal of watching large men crash into each other for three hours, punctuated by endless commercial breaks and mediocre overpriced beer.
"Cheer up, Mitchell," Sparks said from beside her. "Free food and free booze. Could be worse."
"I could be getting a root canal," Kara muttered. "That would be worse."
"See? There you go. Looking at the bright side already."
The stadium was enormous and loud and absolutely packed with people, a seething mass of jerseys and signs and screaming fans. Kara followed her squadron through the tunnels, past security, and up into the climate-controlled luxury of the owner's suite. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, plush leather seats, and a buffet table that looked like something out of a catering magazine.
Kara grabbed a beer and claimed a seat near the back, away from the crowd. The game started, and she tried to pay attention, but her eyes kept drifting away from the field. The players were small from this distance, tiny figures in colored uniforms, and she couldn't tell one from another.
Then she saw him.
It was impossible to say what caught her attention first. The way he moved, maybe, that fluid, almost feline grace that seemed out of place in a sport built around brute strength. Or the way the sun glinted off his dark hair as he jogged onto the field. Or the particular width of his shoulders, the long, muscular stride that she'd felt pressed against her own body just twelve hours earlier.
Kara sat up straighter.
He was wearing a red jersey with white numbers, and when he turned to say something to a teammate, she caught a glimpse of his face. Just a profile. Just a split second. But it was enough.
Her stomach dropped.
"Hey, Mitchell," Pip said, nudging her. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I'm fine," she said, but her voice was strange, distant. Her eyes were fixed on the field, on the tall, broad-shouldered receiver who was even now catching a pass and sprinting down the sideline.
It couldn't be him.
It couldn't possibly be him.
But the way he moved was the same, that easy, athletic grace that had carried her across the hotel room and onto the bed. And when he slowed to a stop and turned, when the jumbotron flashed his face on the giant screen for half a second, Kara saw the crooked grin, the sharp jaw, the dark eyes that had looked up at her while his mouth was buried between her thighs.
Ty.
Ty Brooks.
The star wide receiver of the NFL.
The man she'd left a note for on a hotel pillow.
Kara sank down in her seat and took a very long drink of her beer.
"Oh no," she whispered. "Oh, fuck me sideways."
"Mitchell?" Sparks's voice was concerned now, the teasing edge gone. "Seriously, what's wrong? You're white as a sheet."
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I just—I need a minute."
She made it through the first half without incident, mostly by staring at her phone and pretending to be busy. She didn't look at the field. She didn't watch the player with the number eleven jersey catch pass after pass after pass. She didn't think about the way his hands had felt on her body, the way his voice had sounded when he'd called her a good girl.
She didn't think about it.
She really, really didn't.
Halftime came and went, and during the third quarter, a stadium official appeared at the door of the suite. He was young and eager and wearing a headset, and he smiled at the group of pilots with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested he'd drawn the short straw.
"Lieutenant Mitchell?" he said.
Kara looked up. "That's me."
"Sir, we've got a request from the team. They'd like to invite you and your squadron down to the sideline to meet the players. Part of the military appreciation thing."
Kara's blood ran cold.
"The whole squadron?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral.
"Yes, ma'am. Coverage is going to be on the jumbotron, so we'd love to get some photos."
"Photos," Kara repeated.
"Yes, ma'am."
She wanted to say no. She wanted to say that she'd rather claw her own eyes out than walk down onto that field and come face to face with the man she'd left naked in a hotel bed. She wanted to say that this was a terrible idea and they should absolutely not do it.
But her squadron was already standing up, already grinning, already slapping each other on the back and making their way toward the door. And Sparks was looking at her with that sharp, knowing expression that said he knew something was up.
Besides, saying no would require an explanation. And there was no explanation she was willing to give.
"Fine," she said, standing up. "Let's go."
The tunnels were concrete and loud, the roar of the crowd echoing off the walls like a physical force. Kara walked at the back of the group, her heart pounding, her palms sweating, and tried to think of what she was going to say.
Sorry I left without waking you up. Thanks for the orgasms. Nice to see you again.
Nothing sounded right.
They emerged onto the sideline, and the noise hit her like a wall. The field was impossibly green, the players impossibly large, and the whole thing had a surreal, slow-motion quality that made Kara feel like she was floating.
The team's PR person was a blonde woman with a headset and a clipboard, and she herded the pilots toward a gaggle of players who were waiting near the bench. Kara hung back, letting her squadron go ahead, and tried to find Ty in the cluster of red jerseys.
She found him almost immediately.
He was standing near the end of the group, talking to a coach, his helmet off and his hair damp with sweat. He looked up as the pilots approached, his eyes scanning the group with casual interest, and then his gaze landed on her.
The world stopped.
For a long, suspended moment, neither of them moved. Ty's expression was unreadable, a mask she'd seen him wear in interviews, the one that said he was cool and confident and absolutely in control. But his eyes—his eyes were wide, shocked, the same dark eyes that had looked down at her while they were tangled together in that hotel bed.
Then he smiled.
It wasn't his public smile. It wasn't the cocky grin he used with the media. This was something smaller, softer, a private smile that seemed to say I know something about you that no one else knows.
Kara felt her face go red.
"Well, shit," Pip whispered beside her. "Is that—Mitchell, is that the guy?"
"What guy?" Kara said, too quickly.
"The guy from last night. The one you left the note for. The one you liked."
"I didn't—I don't—"
"Holy shit," Sparks said, appearing at her other side. "That's him. That's the guy from the hotel."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"Because your face just went the color of a fire engine, and you're staring at him like he's holding your missing underwear."
Kara wanted to die. She wanted to sink into the grass and disappear. She wanted to be anywhere in the world except this stadium, on this sideline, with her squadron watching her with expressions of delighted, merciless glee.
And then Ty was walking toward her.
He was even taller up close. Even broader. Even more impossibly good-looking, with his sweaty hair and his flushed cheeks and the way his jersey stretched across his chest. He stopped a few feet away and looked down at her, and his smile widened.
"Lieutenant Mitchell," he said. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Brooks," she managed. "You're... you're a football player."
"I am."
"You didn't mention that."
"You didn't ask." His eyes flicked over her shoulder, to where her squadron was watching with barely contained glee. "These your guys?"
"Unfortunately."
"Hey," Pip said, stepping forward with a grin that was far too eager. "So, Ty, buddy, pal, just out of curiosity—did our girl here really leave before breakfast, or did you have to chase her out?"
"Pip!" Kara hissed.
"What? I've got money on this."
Ty laughed. It was a real laugh, warm and surprised, and it made something in Kara's stomach flip. "She left before breakfast," he said. "But she stole my favorite pair of socks on her way out."
"What? I did not—"
"There were black socks on the floor. They weren't mine."
"They were mine, you idiot. I was wearing them."
"Were you?" He raised an eyebrow. "I must have been too distracted to notice."
The squadron howled. Kara wanted to hit him. She also wanted to kiss him. She settled for glaring up at him with a look that promised retribution.
"You're enjoying this," she said.
"Immensely." He leaned closer, his voice dropping so only she could hear. "I wasn't expecting to see you again. But I'm glad I did."
Kara's breath caught. "Why?"
"Because I never got to ask you something."
"What?"
He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes serious now, the teasing grin fading. "What are you doing after the game?"
"After the game?"
"Yeah." He shrugged, a casual gesture that didn't quite hide the vulnerability underneath. "There's a bar near my hotel. Not the one from last night. A different one. I thought maybe you'd want to get a drink. Talk. No pressure."
Kara stared at him.
This was the part where she said no. This was the part where she walked away, back to her squadron, back to her life, back to the carefully constructed walls she'd spent years building around herself. This was the part where she did what she always did and left before things got complicated.
But Ty was looking at her like she was something worth waiting for.
And she was so tired of pretending she didn't want that.
"Okay," she said.
Ty blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay. One drink." She crossed her arms, trying to summon some of her usual swagger. "But only because I need to reclaim my socks."
His grin returned, wide and bright and absolutely infuriating. "I'll bring them with me."
"You'd better."
Behind her, the squadron erupted in delighted, merciless laughter. Kara flipped them off without looking. Ty just laughed, and the sound of it settled into her chest like something she might want to keep.