Chapter 8
B y the time I got home, I was wired in that way where my pulse wouldn’t slow and my mind refused to let anything drop into place.
The drive had been too short to settle me, the quiet of my house too loud once I stepped inside. I stood just inside the door, one hand still on the knob, scanning the space like maybe I’d catch him here—leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, waiting.
That was ridiculous.
Atticus wasn’t the kind of man who waited for anything. If he wanted to be here, he would be. If he wanted me, he would take me. The thought shouldn’t have sent a streak of heat down my spine, but it did.
I kicked off my sandals in the entryway and set my clutch down on the console table, noticing my hands were unsteady.
The kitchen light spilled across the floor in a warm yellow square, the only real light in the place.
I moved toward it automatically, like something in me was drawn to where it felt safer, only to realize safety was a lie.
I poured myself a glass of water, took one sip, then abandoned it on the counter. My phone sat beside it, face-up, black screen reflecting my own unsettled expression. No new messages. Of course, not.
The Alpha Mail man—if Atticus was him—hadn’t promised me anything. No details. No schedule. And yet there he’d been tonight, apparently, at Stephen’s birthday party, sliding into the periphery of my life as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Atticus hadn’t approached me with recognition in his eyes, not exactly, but there’d been something else there—an intimacy that didn’t need words. He’d looked at me like he knew every secret I’d ever tried to bury.
The problem was, my official guy hadn’t texted again.
He hadn’t called. The rules of the Alpha Mail game—what little I knew of them—had been unspoken but somehow clear: he would control the timing.
Which meant either Atticus wasn’t my Alpha Mail man at all, or he’d decided to change the rules.
I didn’t know which possibility was more dangerous.
I tried to shake it off by moving around the kitchen, but my mind kept circling the same memories.
The overheard conversation weeks ago at The Nesting Place, when two women in the baby wrap section had whispered in voices pitched low with mischief, trading phrases that made me slow my stocking and linger nearby.
“Letter-writing fantasy service,” one of them had said, and the other had giggled in response.
“You choose your trouble. They deliver.”
I’d gone home that night with the name Alpha Mail lodged in my brain.
The women at the shop hadn’t just whispered about it—they’d given me a way in.
An unadvertised url, spoken like a secret.
A barebones webpage with no branding, no promises—just a single text box and the prompt: Tell us what you want.
I didn’t do it right away. I’d told myself it was ridiculous. Reckless. The kind of thing that might end with my picture on the evening news and my mother clutching her pearls. But I’d kept circling back to it. Like a moth to a dangerous flame.
And then, I’d finally typed the letter. Every word of it deliberate. Brutal. Unapologetic. I’d hit send before I could lose my nerve.
Nothing had happened. No ping to confirm receipt. No shadowy reply in my inbox. Just silence. Until the text came. Short. To the point. Two nights.
No name. No number I could call back. No explanation of who or when.
I’d been waiting ever since.
And now … maybe I’d just met him.
I was so confused.
I sank onto the sofa, curling my legs under me, the coffee table still cluttered from the moon circle—half-burned candles, my sage bundle, a faint trace of Alana’s ceremonial smoke.
That version of me—the playful, grounded, slightly irreverent doula who joked through contractions—felt far away.
The new version of me was restless, reckless.
My laptop sat on the arm of the sofa, and before I could talk myself out of it, I opened it and typed “Alpha Mail Charleston” into the search bar.
Nothing useful. “Alpha Mail South Carolina.” Still nothing except a dusty fraternity newsletter and a novelty underwear site from the early 2000s.
I tried “letter writing fantasy service discreet,” “exclusive men fantasy penpal,” “private escort letters.” The results got worse and worse, veering into territory that made me slam the laptop closed, unwilling to have those searches following me around in targeted ads for the next year.
If I couldn’t find Alpha Mail, maybe I could find Atticus.
Except I didn’t have his last name. I frowned at my phone, thumb hovering over Stephen’s contact photo.
It was late, but if he was still out celebrating, he’d answer.
Drunk Stephen was talkative Stephen. I tapped call.
He picked up on the third ring, music and chatter in the background.
“Sis!” he said, drawing the word out. “You miss me already?”
“Yes,” I said before I could stop myself. “Sort of. Quick question: your friend. The one from earlier. Atticus …”
“Carver,” Stephen said, as if it were obvious. “Atticus Carver.”
The name hit me low, settling in my chest with a weight that spread outward until my fingertips tingled. “Right. Carver. And how do you know him again?”
“College,” Stephen said, laughing at something Alicia must have whispered. “Good people. You’d like him. He went into the Marine Corps after we graduated, was gone for a while. Came back with a ton of money somehow, though I couldn’t tell you what he did to make it.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that “good people” was the exact phrase men used when they didn’t want to give too many details. “Uh-huh. Thanks,” I said, letting him get back to his night.
Before he hung up, though, I couldn’t resist. “By the way—when were you planning on telling me about Alicia? You just drop a whole girlfriend into the family group like she’s always been here?”
Stephen chuckled, unbothered. “Figured I’d let you meet her in person. Easier that way. We actually met right before I left town, and we’ve been FaceTiming the whole time I was gone. Got to know each other more in those late-night calls than we probably would’ve if I’d been around.”
There was a pause, softer than his usual banter. “I’m hopeful. Feels like a good thing.”
I smiled, warmth blooming in my chest. “She’s wonderful, Stephen. I really like her.”
When the call ended, I opened the laptop again and typed “Atticus Carver” into the search bar.
The results were useless—too many Carvers, too many dead ends.
A basketball coach in Arizona. A furniture restorer in Maine.
Not a single photo of the man with the cleaver tattoo and the blue, unblinking eyes.
I shut the laptop and sat still, palms pressed to my knees, listening to the slow tick of the kitchen clock.
My anxiety was shifting into something sharper.
This wasn’t the nervous flutter of not knowing if a guy liked me.
This was the deep, bone-level awareness that something in my life had just shifted on its axis and there was no putting it back.
What if he was my Alpha Mail man? What if he’d chosen me on purpose, and then stepped out of the fantasy to appear in my real life? And if so, why? Why not stay hidden behind the screen, where the power dynamic was clean and contained? Why show up at my brother’s party like he belonged there?
I leaned back into the sofa, my head hitting the cushion, thighs pressing together as heat pooled low and insistent. I thought about the way he’d looked at me—feet planted, body loose but coiled, gaze steady. The way he hadn’t smiled, hadn’t looked away.
God, help me, I wanted him. I wanted him in a way that skipped past every sensible, grounded, feminist part of me and went straight for the wild, unrepentant thing that lived under my skin.
That part didn’t care if he was dangerous. That part wanted to know exactly how dangerous he could be.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember every detail from the party.
How he’d stood slightly apart from Stephen, like he was both part of the group and outside it.
How he’d listened more than he spoke, but when he did speak, people leaned in.
How he’d tracked my movements even when he was pretending to look elsewhere.
The way his presence filled the space without him having to do anything at all.
That kind of power wasn’t learned. It was born.
I pushed myself up and paced the living room, the restlessness making it impossible to stay still.
Two nights. If that text had been from him—and I was becoming more convinced by the minute that it had—then tonight had been the second.
But how did he define a “night”? Did it start when he decided it started? End when he said so?
The rules were his, and I hated how much that thrilled me.
Before I’d left the party, he’d asked if I’d be in Charleston tomorrow. I’d said yes without thinking, and his reply— I’ll see you soon —had landed like a promise and a threat all at once. Now, the words looped in my head on repeat, making it impossible to tell if I was more nervous or aroused.
I tried to distract myself by checking emails, flipping through a stack of unopened mail, but it was useless.
Everything felt irrelevant next to the questions burning in my mind.
Atticus Carver. Alpha Mail. The two might be separate.
They might be the same. Either way, they’d both gotten under my skin.
I wandered into the bathroom, catching my reflection in the mirror.
My hair was still styled from the party, my makeup intact except for the faint smudge where I’d touched my lower lash line.
My cheeks looked flushed. I thought about what he’d see if he were here now, leaning against the doorframe, watching me.
My stomach tightened. I could almost hear his voice, low and deliberate, saying my name.
Back in the living room, I curled up on the sofa with my knees tucked to my chest, trying to will myself to sleep.
But every time I closed my eyes, I saw him—Atticus, standing across the room, the faint glint of the cleaver tattoo visible above his collar, his expression unreadable but heavy with intent.
I wondered what it would feel like to have that intent focused on me completely, without the buffer of a crowded room.
I wondered if I’d survive it. I wondered if I’d care if I didn’t.
I was a mess.
Sleep didn’t come. Instead, I lay there in the dim light, the clock ticking toward midnight, my mind looping the same questions, the same images.
Somewhere out there, Atticus Carver was either my Alpha Mail man or he wasn’t.
Either way, I knew this: my life before tonight was over.
Whatever came next would change everything.
And the worst—or maybe best—part was that I wanted it to.
The shrill ring of my phone startled me, the sound slicing through the quiet like a knife. I grabbed it from the coffee table, pulse spiking. It wasn’t him, of course. It was the birth center’s main line.
“Simone, it’s Lexie,” the midwife said, her voice brisk but calm. “We’ve got an early one. She’s thirty-seven weeks, steady contractions, vitals look good. They’re settled in here, but she’s asking for you.”
Three weeks early. Not ideal, but safe enough for the birth center.
Relief loosened my shoulders even as a new kind of adrenaline took over.
I was tired, my body heavy with the weight of the evening, but this was the life of a doula—births didn’t wait for my plans or my sleep schedule.
I had a class to teach in the morning, and I’d regret every lost minute of rest, but when a woman called for me, I went. That part was simple.
“On my way,” I said, already on my feet.
I changed clothes then gathered my doula bag from its hook in the hall closet, checking automatically for a few of the essentials—birth ball, massage oil, extra phone charger, the peppermint spray some mothers swore by for nausea. My hands moved on muscle memory.
By the time I stepped outside, the night air felt thick against my skin. The street was quiet except for the low hum of a car engine somewhere nearby. I turned toward it—and saw him.
Or at least, I saw a man.
A sleek, black luxury sedan idled across the street, windows tinted dark enough to hide everything but the faint outline of a figure in the driver’s seat. The shape was still, but I felt the weight of eyes on me. My pulse spiked for an entirely different reason now, heat flickering low in my belly.
It could be him.
I should have ignored it—kept walking, unlocked my car, gone about my night like nothing was different. But the part of me that had sent the Alpha Mail letter, the part that had stood across the room from him tonight feeling wanted, needed to feed the game.
I shifted my weight and bent to check the knot on my sneaker, the motion pulling my fitted yoga pants tight across the curve of my thigh.
The streetlight caught on the sheen of my skin just above the hem, where the fabric rode higher than usual.
Straightening, I adjusted the scoop of my tank top—not enough to be obvious, just enough to let the heat settle between us—before heading for my car without glancing back.
Even as I slid behind the wheel, I could feel the thrum of it—the possibility that he was watching, cataloguing every movement, deciding what to do with me next. And God, help me, I really wanted him to decide.