Sweet Tooth | joshler

III

Two days after that, Tyler and Jenna had been working at the bakery all morning and afternoon.

While Jenna was in the kitchen doing all the baking, Tyler stood at the counter and dealt with the customers. It had been fairly slow compared to usual, but they definitely didn't mind it. They had been pretty busy all week, so having a little break like this was nice to them.

Whenever Tyler had any free time though, his mind always drifted off to the boy he met the a couple days before, hoping that he'd walk through the door at some point today.

He couldn't explain why he was so eager to see him. right now, he wouldn't exactly say he had any affection for the boy yet, but he definitely at least had a 'friend crush' on him. Overall, he found his small act of kindness from yesterday very nice, and he got good vibes from him. Just from their small encounter, he could tell Josh was a good person, and deep down, he wanted more people with that good energy in his life... and also wanted someone that cute, too.

After being in thought for a few minutes, he was suddenly snapped out of it when he heard the door open. He looked up in hopes that maybe it was him, but he was quickly let down again when it was not.

Either way, he greeted the random customer with a welcoming smile and a peppy tone, and found out that she was there to pick up an order she had placed online, and so he headed back in the kitchen and got the box from Jenna.

He brought it back up to the counter for her and the woman then payed for it all, and as he was giving her the typical 'have a nice day' line at the end as she turned to leave, the door opened again.

He looked up not expecting anything abnormal, but his eyes widened when he realized that it was actually the blue-haired boy this time.

A smile quickly appeared on his face as he blurted out excitedly, "hey, it's you!" When he realized he might seem weird for being so happy about it, he tried to ease down on the excitement, but he was still giddy and kept his smile, "what'd ya come back for? Are you buying something?"

Despite Tyler's attempt to hide it, Josh did notice how he lit up when he saw him, and it gave him a slight warm, content feeling in his chest. He then went on and answered his question, "actually, yeah. Long story short, I went to see my mom the other day and I told her about me bumping into you and following you here, and she basically told me that she knows the bakery and she and Jenna's mom used to be close friends at some point. But, she also asked if I could pick up something from here so, that's why I came back."

Tyler was a bit surprised that his mom knew Jenna's, just because it was a weird coincidence. "Oh, huh, well that's pretty cool," he then answered with a small smile, "but, what would you like me to get you?"

"She mentioned something about strawberry turnovers. Do you guys still sell those?"

"Mhm," Tyler replied with a single nod, "and they come in groups. So two, four, or six?"

After taking a couple seconds to decide, he settled, "four, please."

"Gotcha," the other said, then heading back towards the kitchen to inform Jenna of the order.

Josh stayed standing in front of the counter until Tyler got back there, and since they were done discussing the order and there weren't any other customers currently, they both stood there in awkward silence for a few seconds. Before it could get too uncomfortable, Tyler went and tried to offer, "you can sit down and wait if you want-"

Unintentionally talking over him a bit, Josh answered with a question, "oh actually, I had a question. Does Jenna's mom still work here or-?"

Tyler shook his head and began to explain, "oh, no. Not in the store with us at least, not often. She takes care of the inside stuff mostly, like getting products delivered here and paying off stuff, all that junk. She doesn't normally come in the store anymore unless we really need the extra help or just to check up on how we're doing."