The Boy with Pretty Eyes

Chapter 6: Smitten

A new customer showed up to the store, Toby was busy talking with Pac & Fit behind the counter. The moment the bell above the door rang Toby gave a quick glance in the direction of the noise, as he usually does. However, he usually would redirect his focus back onto Fit & Pac, not this time.

Toby's eyes followed the customer all the way to the bell on the front counter, which was rung when assistance was needed. He stared in fascination; Toby was left stunned by this customer. As Toby hopped, the customer rang the bell, he rushed over.

He greeted the customer with true enthusiasm, "Hello!"

The customer was amused by Toby's tone, "Hello, uh-Toby."

Toby gushed; he said my name! Wait, that's a completely normal thing.

"How can I help you...?" Toby said trailing off at the end,

"Fred, and I was hoping one of you could give me a recommendation on what type of flowers to buy."

"I'd be happy to help you!" Toby said quickly, he practically jumped to a case.

Inside the case was the shop's best seller, no surprise they were roses. But Toby thought very highly of them, they weren't his favorite flowers, but he did think they were beautiful.

"These are our best sellers! And personally, I think..." Toby continued to ramble on about the flowers.

But all of the words coming out of Toby's mouth did not reach Fred. While Toby was going on about the beauty of the roses, Fred wasn't even looking at them. His eyes were fixated on Toby, forget the roses. He was too busy admiring Toby's beauty, completely mesmerized by every part of him.

Toby had a healthy head of medium length bushy hair, which seemed to always make a perfect swoop. Sure, Fred noticed this but what really caught his attention was Toby's eyes.

They were a mix of a dark green and light blue; Toby had a condition called Central Heterochromia. Where the inner ring of the iris-the eye color closest to your pupil - is a different color than the outer ring, along the edge of your iris.

Sure, it was a pretty noticeable feature, but anyone rarely pointed it out, most thought it was odd. But truth be told, Toby's eyes were stunning, and Fred was clearly amazed by them.

Fred could hardly believe such a person existed, Toby's bubbly personality, beautiful looks, all of it. It fascinated him, Fred only thoughts were questions, on how something so beautiful could ever exist in such a world.

However, Toby noticed Fred was eerily silent, Am I boring him?

In a panic he immediately stopped rambling and asked, "Fred, are you alright?"

Fred snapped out of his state of admiration and his face quickly flushed with embarrassment.

"Sorry I don't know what happened there, '' he said quickly, "No worries, I probably bored you." Toby replied being normally apologetic.

"You didn't, you did just what I asked. Now can I pay for these?" He asked, smiling wholeheartedly at Toby.

"Of course!" Toby said as he unlocked the case and took out the roses from it.

It came in a pretty large vase, so it was hard to maintain eye contact with each other. Toby couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

"Where are you going to put them?" Toby asked, desperate to make one last conversation.

"In my garden" Fred said simply, however this hit him by surprise.

"You have a garden?" he asked, stopping in his tracks. Fred nodded quickly, "Of course, I love plants! Each one is different and beautiful in their own way. It's like people, at least that's what I like to think." he said, Toby just nodded not caring how he struggled to keep the vase up.