Chapter 2
T here was something ironic about stocking nipple balm while wondering if your own nipples had forgotten what touch felt like.
I crouched near the front window, refilling the display of herbal perineal sprays and organic pacifiers, trying not to look as resentful as I felt.
Outside, the heat was still clinging on—humid, stubborn, too much for late August—but the first hints of fall were creeping in.
A few leaves had started to crisp at the edges.
Tourists passed with sunburned shoulders and caramel-dripped pralines, snapping photos of the shop’s hand-painted sign like we were part of the charm.
Locals knew better.
The Nesting Place smelled like lavender and beeswax, soft and maternal, the kind of scent that said here, it’s safe to breathe .
The lighting was warm, the playlist gentle.
We were the village, the fourth-trimester sanctuary, the baby haven with healthy snacks in the lobby and affirmations on the bathroom mirror.
Nestled on a quieter stretch of Queen Street, we weren’t selling onesies and Instagram aesthetics—we were holding space. For healing. For grief. For the raw, leaking, primal truth of new motherhood.
The tourists didn’t stay long.
The locals came back with their second babies. And sometimes their third.
And I? I was the founder, doula, class instructor, and queen of the we see you, mama Instagram captions.
Only I hadn’t been seen in a long time
Not really.
Not the version of me who lay awake at night, touching myself to the idea of something rough. Of being used. Of not being the one to hold space for once, but the one made to lose it completely.
The bell above the door jingled, and I stood up fast, tucking a golden curl behind my ear and wiping my hands on the soft cotton skirt of my sunflower-yellow wrap dress—fitted at the waist, breezy everywhere else, and covered in faint smudges of calendula balm.
“Welcome to?—”
“Don’t start with your customer voice,” a familiar drawl interrupted. “You know it makes you sound like you teach goat yoga on a commune.”
I blinked. Then laughed. “Stephan?”
My little brother—who somehow looked like a Patagonia ad and a contractor all at once—stepped through the door carrying a canvas duffel and the same cocky smile he’d had since high school.
“You’re back,” I said, coming around the counter and pulling him into a hug. “How long have you been in Charleston?”
“Couple hours.” He squeezed me tight. “You were my first stop. Be flattered.”
“I am. And also mildly offended you didn’t bring coffee.”
He stepped back and looked me over. “You look good, Sim. Like, crunchy-goddess-who-knows-how-to-midwife-a-goat good.”
“I don’t know how to midwife a goat.”
He raised a brow. “I feel like you could figure it out.”
“Don’t tempt me. The doula memes would write themselves.”
He dropped his bag beside the counter and glanced around the shop. “Place looks great. Bigger than last time.”
“I knocked down a wall. Built out the consultation space.”
“You did that yourself?”
“I hired a woman who runs a lesbian construction co-op. We bonded.”
He grinned. “Of course, you did.”
I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms. “So. To what do I owe the honor?”
“My birthday,” he said, all faux innocence. “I’m turning thirty. Thought I’d plan a party. Wanted to make sure my favorite older sister would be there.”
I snorted. “I’m your only older sister.”
“Still counts.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of party?”
“Nothing wild. Just drinks, food, friends. Saturday night. You in?”
I tilted my head. “Will I have to talk to any finance bros or libertarians?”
“No. But you might have to be nice to a couple of my colleagues.”
“Define ‘colleagues.’”
“Engineers. Infrastructure nerds. Some old friends. One of them might bring a guitar.”
I groaned.
He laughed. “He only plays sad girl covers of The Killers, so you’ll survive.”
“You know me so well.”
He leaned against the counter next to me, picking up a jar of whipped belly butter and sniffing it. “Smells like a spa and a forest had a baby.”
“Good. That’s the brand.”
We stood in comfortable silence for a moment, watching a pregnant couple wander past the front window, pausing to point at a swaddle set shaped like tiny oranges.
Then he said, more gently, “You doing okay?”
I hesitated. “Define ‘okay.’”
He gave me a look. “That’s not a great sign.”
“I’m fine. Just tired. I spend twelve hours a day talking about birth and nipple trauma. It’s a lot.”
“Are you still dating that Pilates guy?”
“Um, no. He believed in semen retention and called orgasms ‘vibrations of the ego.’”
Stephan choked on his laugh. “Jesus.”
“Yeah. We didn’t last long.”
“Well,” he said, nudging me. “You should come to the party. You might meet someone.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stephan, I’m literally surrounded by the consequences of sex all day, every day.”
He raised a brow. “And?”
“And I haven’t had any in months. It’s like working in a chocolate factory while on a juice cleanse. You smell it. You see it. But you’re just out here chewing kale and pretending it’s fine.”
He grinned. “Maybe Saturday will help.”
“Maybe.”
But in the back of my mind, I thought of the letter.
Of the whisper between customers last week.
Of the name I wasn’t supposed to know?—
Alpha Mail.
“You’re unusually smug today,” I said, trying to sound bored as I straightened a stack of burp cloths.
“That’s because I’ve been overseas for eight weeks working my ass off in a country where the water pressure could flay skin,” Stephan said. “Now, I’m home, I smell like actual soap, and I’m not waking up to the sound of jackhammers and jackals.”
“You missed your Amazon Prime account, didn’t you?”
“Deeply. I had to ration deodorant. I’ve been through things.”
I looked him over again as he leaned into one of the display shelves.
He had the kind of build you got from hauling gear and climbing rebar, not from gym selfies.
A little too tan, a little too scruffy, a streak of drywall dust still clinging to the hem of his jeans.
His hair was dark, wavy, perpetually windswept, and his beard had just enough salt to give him that rugged, I-build-bridges-and-break-hearts look.
Charleston moms probably threw themselves at him at Trader Joe’s.
“You don’t look like you’ve been suffering.”
“Because I handle my needs,” he said with a cocky smirk. “Unlike you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why aren’t you sexually frustrated? Seriously. What are you, just out here scratching the itch like it’s a bug bite?”
“Exactly like that.” He grinned wider. “Itches get scratched. No shame in maintenance.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You really can do it with no emotional connection?”
“Sim, we’re animals. We’re built for connection, sure. But we’re also built to get off so we don’t explode.”
“Wow. So poetic.”
“I aim to inspire.”
I folded my arms, the edge of my dress crinkling under my fingers. “I’m not sure I can do it without meaning something. Like, I want it to matter. I want it to feel … not hollow.”
“Yet you’re out here fantasizing about some mystery man.”
I stilled. “What?”
“Please,” he said, voice low and amused. “You think I can’t tell when you’re lost in thought? You’ve got that look in your eyes. Like you’re mentally somewhere else.”
My cheeks burned. “I hate that you’re this observant.”
“It’s a gift.”
He bent down to unzip his duffel and pulled out a box of locally roasted coffee beans. “Peace offering. Since I failed to arrive with an iced oat latte like a proper gentleman.”
“You’re forgiven,” I said, grabbing the box and inhaling the scent. “Barely.”
We both leaned against the counter again, facing the front of the shop. A breeze pushed through the door’s top pane where it didn’t quite seal, carrying in the laughter of a bachelorette group wearing matching tank tops that said Push It Real Good .
“This place is you,” he said after a moment. “It always has been.”
I looked around—at the vintage bassinet holding knit loveys, the shelf of postpartum tinctures, the chalkboard sign advertising tonight’s breastfeeding support circle. “Sometimes, I wonder if I built it for them, or if I built it so I’d have a reason not to unravel.”
He didn’t say anything to that. Just nodded once, like he understood more than I’d expected.
We came from a big family—five of us, born in a blur of chaos and cloth diapers and garden-grown zucchini. Me, the oldest. Stephan, a year behind. Then Darla, quiet and sharp-eyed. And the twins, Max and Milo, who’d shown up last like they knew Mom was done and they had to sneak in under the wire.
“The twins will be chaos at your party,” I said, just to shift the air. “Milo’s still nursing that sad excuse for a mustache, and Max keeps trying to convince Mom to cosign a swordfish tattoo.”
Stephan snorted. “I love our family.”
For a moment, we both watched a group of new moms walk past the window, one pushing a stroller with a sunshade, another wearing a baby on her chest.
“I heard something weird the other day,” I said.
Stephan tilted his head. “Define weird.”
“Two clients. Whispering during a postpartum prep class. About this thing. A … service.”
“What kind of service?”
I paused. “A fantasy one. One-night-only. No names. No strings.”
He raised a brow. “Like a sex club?”
“No. Just one man. Delivered like a … package.” I swallowed. “Apparently, you write them a letter. Say what you want. They send someone.”
“Is this a real thing?”
“I didn’t think so. But they spoke about it like it was sacred. Like it wasn’t even about sex. It was about being seen. Or ruined. Or both. I don’t know.”
Stephan was quiet for a long moment. Then: “And you … thought about it?”
I didn’t answer.
That was the answer.
He whistled low. “Damn.”
“I’m not going to do it,” I said quickly.
“You sure?”
“No,” I admitted.
And that was the truth. I wasn’t sure. Not about anything.
But especially not about what I wanted more—freedom or surrender. Wholeness or ruin.
Meaningful connection … or exactly the opposite.
“I wrote a letter,” I said finally, voice barely above a whisper.
Stephan blinked. “Wait. What?”
“I wrote it,” I repeated, keeping my eyes on the stroller outside. “To Alpha Mail. I didn’t think I would, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About what it would feel like to not have to be anything. Just … taken.”
His mouth opened. Closed again. “Sim?—”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I know how it sounds.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You really think that’s a good idea? Letting some stranger show up and—what? Ruin you?”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“Jesus.”
“I don’t want to date,” I said. “I don’t want small talk or dinner or swiping left on men who think I’m intimidating. I want to not think. Not plan. Not be the one holding it all together for once.”
Stephan exhaled, like he was trying to exorcise every protective brother instinct from his body in one breath. “You could just come to my party and hook up with a decent guy.”
“Stephan.”
“I’m serious. One of my buddies from grad school is single, tall, smart, not secretly a felon …”
I gave him a look.
He raised both hands. “Fine. You want danger, dominance, whatever—I still don’t love the idea of you writing to some secret sex cartel in the middle of your quarter-life crisis.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“Exactly. You need a real distraction. Not something that ends with a SWAT team and a moral reckoning.”
I snorted.
He looked at me sideways. “But you already sent the request.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I haven’t heard anything. Maybe they ghosted me.”
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
The door jingled again before I could answer.
A woman stepped in, holding an infant with two different socks and an alarming amount of applesauce on his shirt. “Hi,” she said, breathless. “I’m here for the breastfeeding group?”
“Of course,” I said, pushing off the counter and slipping back into my practiced calm. “You’re right on time. Head straight through the curtain, and help yourself to tea.”
She smiled in relief and moved toward the back.
Stephan stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Text me the details about Saturday?”
“Done.” He paused at the door. “And Sim?”
“Yeah?”
“If this guy shows up …” His voice lowered. “Be careful, okay?”
I gave him a dry smile. “When have I ever not been careful?”
He gave me a long look. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Then he was gone, swallowed by the sidewalk and the heat and the last days of a Charleston summer.
And I?
I went back to stacking nipple balm, wondering if I’d just invited something into my life that I wasn’t ready to survive.