Page 53 of Dear Future Husband (The Dearly Written #1)

Trey + Maybelle

“You want to play some COD?” Williams asked in the doorway of my bedroom.

“Busy,” I tossed over my shoulder as I folded my laundry and placed them into my dresser drawers.

“With what?”

“Maybelle’s going to be here soon. I want my room clean before she gets here.”

“You know,” he sniffed. “I’m feeling extremely neglected by the both of you. Since you guys got together, there has been no time for me.” He clapped me on the back, and I rolled my eyes. “Whatever happened to bros before hoes?”

“Watch it,” I warned.

He let out a hearty chuckle. “Awe, my boy’s the overprotective, touchy type,” he teased. “Calm down, you know I have nothing but all the love and respect for little MandM.”

I quirked a brow. “MandM?”

He smacked his lips together. “Cute, huh? Came up with it myself. Speaking of which. MandM has been chilling in the living room with me and Larson for the last ten minutes.”

“And you’re just now telling me?” I flung the shorts I was folding haphazardly into the open drawer as I pushed past Williams, eager to see my girl.

I entered the living room. Williams trailed behind me, muttering something about me being whipped. Larson was on the couch, laughing at a video he was showing Maybelle.

She blatantly grimaced.

“Come on, May. That’s some funny shit right there,” Larson said, and Maybelle gave him a scrutinized side-eye.

“Mayhem.”

She whipped her head to me. A beaming, beautiful smile overtook the scowl she had for Larson. I couldn’t help but puff out my chest a bit more because of it.

I held my hand out to her. She immediately accepted, and I pulled her up, sat myself in her spot on the couch, then planted her on my lap. As she nuzzled up against me, I kissed the back of her neck.

“Alright jackasses, way to make me feel single as hell,” Larson lamented, standing from the sofa. He grabbed Williams’s shoulder as he joined him in the hall, leaning one arm against the other wall.

“Before I go to rot in my room alone, I’ve been meaning to ask. Did you guys hear about the new undercover security that’s been hanging out outside our apartments?” He looked to Maybelle and me while Williams stared at us like he was really deep in thought.

“No,” Maybelle said, responding for us both. “I haven’t seen anyone either.”

Larson pulled his phone from his pocket then and had a picture up on the screen as he handed it to Maybelle. “Fancy, huh? The school must have a new, fat security budget.”

Maybelle took the phone and held it up for me to peer it over her shoulder.

It was sort of blurry. Like the picture was taken from far away and zoomed in on.

It wasn’t super visible. But the image of a tall blonde man, dressed in a button up and slacks, leaning against a black, window-tinted vehicle with sunglasses on, just outside of Maybelle’s apartment, was undeniable.

“How do we know he’s undercover security?” I asked.

Larson shrugged. “Some sorority girls I know talked to him the other day. He told them he’s a new hire. Real great at his job, though. Pretty sure he got every single one of those girls’ numbers. I’d trust him to save my life.”

Maybelle snickered, but her eyes didn’t leave the screen of Larson’s phone. “Enlighten me on how that qualifies him to save lives.”

“Because a man who has the skill to get about eight girls’ numbers in the same conversation is a hero in my book.”

Again, she huffed a chuckle under her breath, but her eyes narrowed in on the picture. “He looks like someone I know,” she uttered.

I straightened then, pulling her tighter into me so I too could look at the picture more closely.

“Who?” I asked.

She used her pointer finger and thumb to zoom in on the man’s face. “You know Rick, the guy Penny told you about from my work?”

I stiffened further. “The guy with a staring problem?”

She nodded carelessly, then handed the phone back to Larson.

“Yeah, that one. It kind of looks like him with the blonde hair and outfit, but it couldn’t be.

Rick only knows how to stare. I don’t think he’d be able to have a normal conversation with one girl, let alone successfully flirt with a group of sorority girls. ”

Larson lifted from the wall, accepting the phone back. “Yeah, anyway, I thought it was cool. If you need me, I’ll be in my room—wallowing. Good night.” And he left, shutting and locking his bedroom door behind him.

Our attention turned to Williams then, who was smiling something devious as he said, “MandM, and TNT! Damn, I’m good.”

Then he too was gone down the hall with no further explanation, leaving Maybelle and I staring after him.

“You have some weird friends,” she speculated, and I chuckled into her hair.

“ We —we have some weird friends,” I corrected. She smirked but didn’t argue.

I took a tuft of her hair, winding it around my finger. “You got work off tomorrow like I asked, right?”

She shimmied her hips, and I flinched at the reaction my body gave her intoxicating movements.

“Easy, woman,” I gritted out, and she giggled.

“Yes, I got work off and made sure all my homework got done for this surprise day you have planned. Are you going to tell me what this is all about yet?” she asked as she snuggled deeper into my embrace.

She leaned her head back onto my shoulder, tilting so she could place delicate kisses across my jaw line.

I stifled a groan as my hands inched up her waist. “If I tell you, that’ll ruin the surprise.”

Her hands joined with mine as she guided my caresses up and down her body to the places that got us both breathing a little harder.

“Please,” she whispered against my ear and my body trembled with want.

I abruptly pushed her to her feet and tugged her toward my room. “Uh—what’re you doing?” she asked, and I grinned like a giddy son of a bitch.

“You beg, I oblige,” I said simply.

“That’s not what I was saying please to,” she sassed as I shoved her into the room and locked the door.

“You and I both know that’s not true. Now, come here.”

MAYBELLE

The next morning, I woke in Trey’s arms, cuddled up in his bed. He was already awake. He lifted himself up on an elbow to look down at me as he brushed my frizzy mess of bedhead out of my face.

“Good morning,” he said with a dimple-framed grin that had my limbs melting to goo.

“Good morning,” I said as I examined the way the sunlight broke through the curtains. How it lit up the highlights of his hair and the emerald green of his eyes.

His skin was smooth due to his recent shave. His smile was straight and bold. His hair toppled over his brows and the veins in his forearms bulged as he continued to play with the hair that cascaded around my face.

“You’re so pretty,” I whispered, and Trey chuffed before placing a gentle kiss on my collarbone.

“You think so?” he asked, placing a few more kisses down my chest.

“Mhmm,” I breathed, as my back arched. It was like my heart was levitating against my ribcage, trying to meet his touch. Reaching out desperately to feel his bare lips and show him how it only beat for him.

“Trey,” I nearly whimpered.

Instead of answering my pleas, he climbed back up my body, bringing us nose to nose as he smiled.

“Not yet. We have things to do today.”

I glowered. “No— you have things to do. Things being me.”

He pulled my legs up around his waist as he chuckled into the hollow of my neck. “Oh, I would love nothing more than to lay you out and have you for breakfast, but that’ll have to wait. Just trust me?” he asked, and I conceded.

“Fine.”

He grinned wider into my skin, then he was lifting off the bed. With my legs still wrapped around his middle, he carried me into the shower.

It wasn’t until around early afternoon we finally pulled up to a beach.

Trey was being so weird. Actually, all of my friends were.

Bear got up extra early to cook only me waffles with caramel syrup.

Larson, obviously and painfully, bit back every sarcastic comeback in each conversation.

And Williams was super touchy—like—he kept pulling me into a hug every two seconds, saying how happy he was that I was here.

Maybe I was dying, and Trey brought me to the beach to tell me? Even Penny was MIA, avoiding every single one of my texts and calls.

“You ready for our walk?” Trey asked as he pulled the keys from the ignition.

I narrowed my eyes at him and the sun dress I was wearing.

When I told Penny yesterday that I would be spending the day with Trey, she insisted on picking my outfit. I usually stuck to the neutrals, basic tops, and comfortable pants, but Penny vowed—for no particular reason—that I would want to wear something a bit more girly for the occasion.

Her words. Not mine.

She offered up a gorgeous, jade green, sun dress from the back of her closet.

It had cap sleeves, a bodice that held snug to my chest and waist, then flared into a twirly skirt that stopped at my knees.

I gratefully accepted because if Penny knew anything, it was fashion and how to drive a man wild with it.

“You want me to try walking through the sand in this thing?” I asked, gesturing to the dress.

His eyes tore at where the dress hugged my chest and flounced up my thighs. “I have so many things I would like to see you do in that dress, but for right now, yes. Just a short walk. You can hold my hand for balance if you’d like,” he offered, grasping for my hand.

I let our fingers intertwine as I smiled at him. “Okay, fine. Lead the way.”

Trey was opening my door and showing me down to the beach within moments. “You know,” he started, “you fight with me a lot less now. Why is that?”

“I don’t know. I guess there’s no point in giving you a hard time when you already won me over and made me yours,” I said, bumping my hip into his as we stepped onto the sand.

“It’s cute that you think there was a time that you weren’t mine.” He gave me a wry smile, wrapping his arm around my waist, graciously carrying most of my weight and balancing me out.