Page 133 of Dear Future Husband

Straightening, still facing the car, I stretched my back out, digging in my back pocket for the keys. Heavy footsteps clunked behind me. I didn’t think to look because I thought Penny was coming back—but I was wrong… I was so wrong.

“Maybelle.”

Startled by the male voice so close behind me, I lost my hold on the keys and my panicked heart. I spun to find a tall, blonde man standing mere feet behind me. I didn’t get the chance to look at him as my keys slipped from my clumsy fingers and clattered to the ground.

Right in front of his black dress shoes.

Chuckling, he stepped forward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I recognized his face instantly as he bent down. He maintained eerie eye contact with me as he picked thekeys up and jangled them carelessly from one hand to the other. He wore the same high-priced business attire he’d always worn when I served him at the coffee shop. A white button-up, dress shirt, black slacks and a luxury watch on his right wrist that reflected the lone streetlight down the way.

“Rick,” I breathed. “Wha—what are you doing here?”

Rick, my every-loyal coffee customer. The one that tipped me well and grabbed a coffee before silently taking a spot in the far corner of the shop. Where he sat and watched me go about my day-to-day tasks at work.

Warily, I extended a hand to accept the keys. He didn’t react, he only watched me. It differed from the way he looked at me all those days while I worked. In the shop, his staring always seemed so absent-minded. As if he were daydreaming and his focus unintentionally fell on me, but not now. Now, his gaze, his studying dark eyes, ate at me, ripped at me and stripped me.

“Maybelle?” he said again, gently, with an unsteady step closer and I stilled. It was difficult to make out the entirety of him in the limited light. Except for the smile that was already sharpening his lips.

We were in the vacant parking lot of a store, in the middle of a town Penny and I hadn’t recognized. It was far from campus and the coffee shop. With that being said, it was more likely for this meet up to be an act of divine intervention rather pure coincidence.

Or it wasn’t an accidental run-in at all.

I should’ve run then. I should have left as soon as I saw his familiar face. I should’ve bolted straight for the store, for Penny when I had the chance, but I was glued in place.

“Yes?” I confirmed, shooting a quick glance at the still empty lot behind him.

Now that he was closer, I got a nose-full of a chemical, heavy smell that radiated from him. I couldn’tname the specific notes of the scent. My mind was tangling with the details before me. It was warring with several instincts.

Numerous fears, reasons and facts twisted into an indiscernible mess.

All because of that one smell.

I didn’t know why, but the smell made me want to cry—no, it made me want to scream.

My hand remained out, barely shaking, but ready to accept the keys as I studied him.

Rick was handsome, appearing as his usual clean-cut self. Except, as the distance between us continued to shrink, I saw a slight rumple to his appearance I hadn’t yet witnessed. His hair was combed back, but a few stray blonde tufts fell out past his eyes. His clothes were neat if not for the rolled-up, uneven sleeves of his shirt that cinched around his elbows.

His choppy chuckle brought my eyes back to his. He was taking full inventory of my body. His languid perusal froze my bones.

“What’re you doing here?” I bit out again, quickly growing uneasy with his creepy theatrics.

He took one step back, like I might’ve struck him. “Oh, Maybelle. Don’t you recognize me?”

“Yes,” I shoved out. “You’re Rick. I serve you coffee where I work.”

“Maybelle,” he drawled disapprovingly. “My name is not Rick.”

Goosebumps crawled a warning path up my skin. I was in danger and my body knew it before I could truly register the threat.

When I didn’t speak, that sharp sneer melted into something akin to bitter amusement as he shook his head.

“You really don’t remember me,” he muttered.

I didn’t care to understand what he was trying to say, what point he was trying to prove. Instead of paying hisunsettling words any more attention, I stretched my hand out farther.

“Please give me my keys. I’m expected home.”