Page 24 of Lady and the Butcher
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 pretendingto 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.
