Chocolate Eyeballs

Another day behind the cash register and I was bored. Usually I would be hungrily stocking the shelves trying to make every single label perfectly perpendicular to the flat surface shelf so each would be beaming its bright label at the next unsuspecting customer. Buy me! Buy me! That's what people are unknowingly bombarded with as they walk through the aisles with perfectly aligned products--subconscience verbal abuse by inanimate objects. It's a science, really. But today, all the shelves were fully stocked, every label face-out, every object dusted to perfection.

I could reorganize the lottery tickets. As fun as that would be, it would confuse people too much because they'd already gotten used to this schema that I'd put in place a week ago. All containers were full and each ticket name shone brightly through the plexiglass cubicles. I spent extra careful time to cut bright, fluorescent labels to show what the new tickets were and their costs. It was a beautiful sight. I pondered where the new tickets that would be coming out next week would be placed. Maybe above the $1 Money Jars, or the $5 Gold Mines, or the $3 Cashword, or the $2 Pure Gold or the coveted spot above the best selling $5 ticket--Break the Bank. If the tickets were personified they would all be in a flutter and discussing who deserved to be above the Break the Bank ticket.

$1 Money Jar: Well, I should be placed there because people love $1 tickets and I should obviously be above the best selling ticket overall. And come on...my name alone..."Money Jar" implies my associated nature with "banks" and the eminent "breaking" of them. People break their money jars all the time...

$2 Pure Gold: Come on. I'm pure gold. Ya put that in banks. Yadayadayada. I deserve to be above there. Someone...anyone...throw me a gold nugget...please!

I was snapped out of my lottery ticket daydream by the ding of the opening door. I saw a little boy run inside followed by his father--Edward.

Edward had been coming into the store for who knows how long and we had never really gotten past the conventional "How ya doing?'s" and stuff like that which was disappointing. He was gorgeous and so sweet and nice. Sometimes I just wanted to pounce on him--eat him up--show him things he never thought possible...

A few months ago, it was revealed to me that he had two children but he had no wedding ring on so that was a sign right? Or was he getting it cleaned for some reason?? Maybe he was recently separated? No matter, we had casually developed this air of flirtation and the tension between us was suffocating. There was an obvious attraction there. It was as if we were characters in a sitcom and we were the two that belonged together and everyone knew it except for the two characters and they just seemed so oblivious and----

"Hey, how's it going?" Edward coyly asked me. He leaned against the counter and it gave a squeak. He had these amazing chocolate brown eyes that held their gaze on me and it was intoxicating.

"Hey, Edward. Nothin much. Just the same ol' stuff."

"That's cool. Hurry up, Josh. We gotta go." His son scurried left and then right overwhelmed by our wide selection of candies and sweets.

"So...uh...do you go to the movies and stuff?" Ed asked very nervously and uncomfortably. This was a guy with two children. Surely, he had smoother lines than this.

I smiled. "Yea, I go the movies all the time. How about you?"

"Yea, yea, I like a good movie here and there. What was the last movie you just saw?"

"Hmm...I saw that new kung-fu movie that came out last weekend. It was surprisingly good."

"Oh, yea, you saw that already? Man, I wana go see that." There was a pause as we locked gazes and then we both turned away at the exact moment. "Hurry, up Josh. They got ice cream too. Here look vanilla."

"Vanilla is the best." I say. Geezus, I'm such a dork. Vanilla retard. Vanilla groupie. Vanilla whore.

"So did you go see that movie with your boyfriend?"

I paused. He was trying to dig for info and it was so cute and endearing. I looked into his creamy chocholate eyes and was lost in them. "Nope. Just went with a friend."

There was a nod and a smile. I couldn't take my eyes away from his eyes. I wanted to fall deeply into them. Swim in the pool of his irises. Sleep in the folds of his eyelids. Run through the fields of his eyelashes.

There was a crash as a jar of lollipops fell to the floor. Suddenly Josh was running around in a hyper, 5-year old frenzy.

"JOSH! STOP THAT!"

But all I could do was look at Edward's eyes (though wrought with frustration with this son).

"JOSH! HURRY UP!"

His delicious chocolate eyes....

"DON'T DO THAT!"

His gorgeous chocolate eyes...

"YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!."

His completely edible, made-for me, creamy, dark, come-hither and be my love-slave, chocolate eyes.....

"Sorry, he gets hyper like this all the time. JOSH!"

I smiled. "It's ok. I want to eat your eyeballs."

My body froze and I felt like I was paralyzed. No way. Did I really say what I think I just said...OUT LOUD???

There was a mind-numbing silence. Josh had tired down and was sitting on the floor now, his hand on his father's leg. Edward looked down at his son and then back at me and now his eyes questioned whether he heard what he thought he heard.

"Gumballs! We have gumballs. Did he want some gumballs?" I motioned to our colorful gum section and gave a sigh of relief when Edward merely shook his head and let the strange (Twilight-esque) moment melt away behind us. Thank the heavens for gumballs.

Finally, they decided on a pack of green apple gumballs and a pint of vanilla ice cream.

There was a pause as I gave him his change.

A question in his eyes and a patient reply waiting on my lips.

But then he began to walk away. I wanted to scream COME BACK COME BACK ASK ME ASK ME ANYTHING AND I'LL DO IT!!!

He looked back at me and I looked at him and we both smiled. I watched as the glass door shut behind him. He started up his car and drove away.

I couldn't wait till the next time he came into the store.