Cant Take My Eyes Off You – Libby Waterford #4
And we don’t need any pretense to kiss each other right now.
His gaze drops to my lips and I’m almost certain he’s got the same idea running through his mind.
“Oh no, what time is it?” I suddenly remember I have to be at the concert.
He looks at his watch and shoots me an apologetic smile. “Almost eight. We better go.”
I help him throw the dishes in the sink and the leftovers in the fridge; then he gets his car out of the garage. “This is your ride?” I ask, impressed at the sleek, sporty dark blue two-seater.
“It’s easy to park,” he says simply, without going overboard enumerating the various attributes of the vehicle.
He knows how to drive it, too, getting me to the city beach in record time without me feeling like we’re in danger.
I’ve always been a little bit in love with him, but I’m falling deeper by the second.
“So, about our date,” he says when we pull as close as we can get. I’ll have to walk the rest of the way, but my dad will have to deal.
“We’ll figure it out,” I promise him. “I do have to work a little bit tonight, but the band is supposed to be really good. Find a place to park and come find me?” I don’t want our night to end here.
He nods. “I’ll find you.”
I flash my pass to the hired security guarding the entrance to the backstage area, and spot my dad standing with Uncle Jay and his wife, my Aunt Cami. “What are you so smiley about, Aurora?” Cami asks as she gives me a light hug.
“Am I smiley?” I touch my cheeks and feel the dimples. “I guess I’m just happy to be here.”
She squints at me as if she doesn’t quite believe me. “Well, your mom and I are introducing the band in a minute. She’s doing a quick interview with the local press right now.”
“Hey honey, I need you to take some pics of Mom from the side of the stage. She wants to use them for the posts she’s going to make about the fundraiser.” My dad hands me my mom’s phone. “How was your dinner?”
“It was… unexpected.”
Dad looks over my shoulder to the backstage entrance with a little frown. “Is that Maverick?”
“Oh!” I look, too, and see Mav talking to the security guard. “He can come back here, right, Dad?”
“Sure. I’ll go talk to the security guy.” He walks away to take care of it and is replaced by my mom, who looks stunning in a white lace dress and cowboy boots. She looks like she could be my older sister, but instead of lamenting the fact, I only hope I’ll age as gracefully as she has.
“Honey pie, sweetheart, light of my life,” she says, gathering me into a hug. “What are you so smiley about?”
“That’s what I asked,” Cami says.
I can’t help myself, smiling harder.
“Well, it’ll have to wait. We’re almost on,” she says to Cami. They take the stage as Maverick and my dad join me off to the side.
“I have to take some pictures,” I tell Mav. “Wait for me?”
He nods. “As long as it takes,” he murmurs.
I don’t care who sees me smiling like a blushy-face emoji. Mom and Cami give their opening speech to an appreciative crowd, while I take as many photos as I can, then the four-piece alt-country band takes the stage.
I like their music, and I’d like to enjoy the show with Mav, but I have to check in with my parents first. “Hey, you guys don’t need me anymore tonight, do you? Mav and I want to watch the concert.”
They exchange a silent glance, and even though they aren’t saying any words out loud, I know they’re communicating.
I wonder if I’ll ever have that kind of closeness with my partner.
I glance at Mav. Will it be him? A shiver runs up my spine as I think about the future—about Mav and me, and the life we could build together.
“Cold?” he asks, shrugging out of the denim jacket he’d put on when we left the beach house. He tucks it around my shoulders before I can even answer.
“Not anymore,” I say, beaming up at him.
“We don’t need you,” my mom says finally. She looks at Mav. “Maverick Mercier, you are a fine boy, but if you do anything to make my daughter cry anything but happy tears, I’m going to have to tell your mother.”
Mav’s face is completely serious when he answers. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “And don’t you ever call me ma’am again. Call me Ariel.”
“Yes, Ariel. I will take very good care of her,” he says solemnly, holding eye contact first with my mom, then my dad.
I’ve had enough of people talking about me like I’m some delicate flower in need of protection. “And I’ll take very good care of him, too, if anyone’s wondering about that.”
“Glad to hear it,” Maverick says into my ear. I shiver again, unable to blame it on the cold.
“Go, go,” Dad says. He puts his arm around Mom’s shoulders in a familiar gesture. “We don’t need you until the panel tomorrow afternoon at the inn. But if you aren’t coming home tonight, text your mother so she doesn’t worry.”
My mom winks at me, and I wish I could say the implication doesn’t make my cheeks flame freshly hot, but apparently, I’m not as sophisticated as I’d like to think. “I’ll keep you posted,” I mutter, then I drag Mav into the crowd in front of the stage before I can be further mortified by my parents.
We stand close to each other, not touching, for a couple of songs. Then Mav puts a hand hesitantly on my waist, pulling me closer, and I relax back, leaning my head on his shoulder. We sway to the music, a country cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
“I love this song,” Mav says, turning me around to face him.
“Me, too.”
We hold eye contact for a moment, until I find myself giggling at the improbability of ending this day in the arms of my first crush—and how it feels like we’re starting something that’s going to be epic and life-changing.
“What’s so funny?” Mav asks.
“Just, us,” I say, trying to sober up. “This is… weird, right?”
“It doesn’t feel weird to me,” he says softly.
“Which is what’s weird about it!”
“You thinking it might be too good to be true?” he asks, echoing a line of the song.
How can I be thinking this is the beginning of something huge and real when we haven’t even kissed yet? What if we do and it feels like kissing one of my many extended family members?
“Maybe. I think we need to kiss first, to find out,” I say, daring him to take me up on my offer by lifting my chin.
“All right,” he agrees. He puts his hands on my waist, and I spare a split-second to worry about my breath, then remember he ate the same garlicky dinner as me. My insecurity melts away when his mouth meets mine.
It’s not like kissing a cousin. It’s not like kissing anyone. Josh had kissed me politely, if enthusiastically. My high school encounters were all brief and sloppy.
Maverick, on the other hand, kisses like it’s the only thing that matters in the universe.
Indeed, the rest of the world, the band, the strangers around us, my parents, the chilly night seaside air, it all falls away and all that’s left is us, anchoring each other, tasting each other, teasing each other with soft, slow kisses.
As the kiss deepens, everything in me lights me up with desire. My entire body feels like it’s glowing from the inside as his hands roam my skin and his mouth slowly, surely, devastatingly, takes me apart. I’ve never had a first kiss like that.
I have a feeling I never will again.
Because there will be no more first kisses for me. Only Maverick’s kisses.
From now until forever.
Eventually, we stop kissing, and my eyes flutter open. I feel transformed in the best possible way.
“Well,” I say, more than a little dazed.
Mav keeps his hands on my shoulders, his own face flushed, his lips more bee-stung than usual. “So, what’s the verdict? Too good to be true?” he asks in a throaty voice.
“Absolutely too good to be true,” I answer, kissing him once more, “and yet somehow, it’s real.”
I don’t, in fact, make it back home that night.
And when we show up to Jay and Cami’s barbecue on Sunday holding hands, we make quite the splash with the Sawyer’s Cove family.
Madison texts me from Maine with a picture of her and some generic blond guy on a beach.
I text back a picture of me and her brother kissing and the message, “Hope you’re okay with being my sister-in-law in three-to-five years, because that’s kind of how we see this going. ”
I swear I can hear her scream of delight from four states away.
Our mothers act like they knew all along we were meant for each other, even though I’m pretty sure they were as blindsided as I was. But if it makes them happy, I’ll go with it.
Maverick takes a job with his dad’s restaurant group and immediately implements several ideas that his dad loves, which increase both profits and the amount the business can give to charity.
I don’t go to grad school. Maybe someday it will make sense for me.
For now, I move in with Mav and take temp jobs while taking acting classes on the side.
I’m not sure if I’ll end up as a working actress or just learn about different industries until I find the right fit for me.
But I’m not in a rush to figure things out.
Sometimes life changes happen slowly, and that’s okay.
Sometimes they happen fast, like the night I learned the love of my life was someone who’d been there all along.
By the way, I returned all of my library books on time.
A California girl born and raised, Libby Waterford lived in Los Angeles for ten years and used the public library system constantly.
Libraries continue to be incredibly important to her life and have helped her raise two voracious readers.
She is the author of the Sawyer’s Cove: The Reboot and the Never a Bride steamy romance series.
Visit her website to download a free story featuring Maverick and Aurora’s parents!
https://libbywaterford.com/
https://www.instagram.com/libbywritesromance/
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/libby-waterford