Brown eyes

Here is the text with meaningless numbers and the recommendation section removed, preserving all the original novel’s text:

Cassius didn’t get the appeal of gardening and today was the first day in over 15 years he set foot in a garden center. And even though they were in a different store in a different state everything looked the same as he remembered it.

As they entered he quickly analyzed their surroundings and found it to be safe, giving Nathalia the o.k. to go further.

He walked behind her so he’d be free to look at her, thinking back to this morning when she woke up all flustered and avoided eye contact all day. He could only imagine what she’d dreamt about, and hoped it was him.

Get it together Cassius, he thought, I’ll never get another job again if they found out I’ve messed around with someone I’m supposed to protect.

Pushing all thoughts of her red and flustered face out of his mind he decided to look around the store again. Off in the distance, some redhead smiled at him, but he chose to ignore it. She just wasn’t attractive to him. He was more into brunettes, like Nathalia.

Fuck, I’m doing it again. Focus.

They stopped by a rack of gardening tools, and despite them looking all the same to him she stood staring at them for a good few minutes.

Looking around again he saw more customers had entered and he knew they had to be faster than this, they couldn’t be seen by too many people.

“Kat.”

She turned around and for the first time today, she made direct eye contact with him. Big brown eyes stared up at him, her mouth slightly opened indicating she was pulled from some deep thoughts.

Gods I love her looking at me like this.

“Yeah?”

“Just grab one, I’m sure they’re all the same. No need to think about it for 10 minutes,” he said. In reality, it probably hadn’t even been one minute.

That was the moment the redhead that had smiled at him before decided to suddenly appear from behind the rack, flashing him that same smile she wore earlier.

“Good morning, do you maybe need help with finding the right spade?”

Cassius really didn’t want to talk to her, but he also didn’t want to seem too rude to people in front of Nathalia. But what truly annoyed him was the fact the employee ignored Nathalia altogether and only asked him.

Do I look like I love gardening?

“She can’t decide what spade to get,” he said pointing at Nathalia.

The redhead briefly looked at her but for some reason decided to continue talking to him instead, annoying him further. So he decided to sweep the room again with his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Well, a plastic spade is lighter so it’s easier to carry around but a metal one is more durable, less likely to break, and won’t rust if you take good care of it,” the girl replied, her voice faltering at the end as it became clear Cassius wasn’t giving her the attention she so desperately wanted.

“Yeah, right, I’ll just get this one then. Er, thanks,” Nathalia replied.

How she had been able to be kind to the employee despite being treated like that was beyond him. But he had to admit it added to his attraction to her.

She quickly threw the spade in the cart and powerwalked past him towards the fruit tree section. He was pleased to see she had written down exactly what she wanted so they were going towards the next section in no time. That is until she grabbed two plants and kept looking at them for the longest time.

Suddenly she looked at him.

“Darius, what do you think?”

He didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t explained what she was talking about and he didn’t know what was going on.

“Wh- about what?” He eventually asked.

“Which one should I get?”

Cassius couldn’t care less about the plants that looked identical apart from the tiny flowers within. One had red ones and the other blue ones.

“What does it matter? Just take both.”

“No I can’t, I want to leave some space for a bird feeder,” she stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Okay, take the blue one then,” he said while looking around. Even more people were starting to enter the store and it was getting kind of crowded, they had to hurry up.

“No, you didn’t think about it, which one would be better for the backyard?” she insisted.

“Hm okay let me think,” he said, hoping to please her so they could leave as soon as possible. “Yeah what was I thinking, the red one is better.”

“But the blue-” she started, but Cassius had enough of it. If he’d let her they’d be there until tomorrow.

“Just get the f-ing plant, kat.”

She thought about it for a second more before putting back the blue one.

“Okay, the red one it is.”

Since Cassius had no gardening experience he had no idea whether or not they were almost done, or if they’d need more supplies. “How much more do you need?”

She briefly checked her little list before replying, “just some fertilizer, and I’m done.”

He gestured for her to start walking and thankfully she did so immediately. She stopped next to a few heaps of bags containing what he guessed to be fertilizer. Seeing the big pile he expected her to stop and think about which one to get again, but she didn’t and went for the nearest one.

But as soon as she’d picked it up she dropped it again.

Not wanting to see her struggle and seeing the cart being full of plants he grabbed it before she could even try again and walked off towards the direction of the checkouts.

“Alright let’s go to the checkout now.” He said as he passed her.

The bag hadn’t even been that heavy.

While driving back to the house she started working on the radio again, pushing the same buttons over and over again, demonstrating she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. But he admired her perseverance.

But seeing that she was going nowhere he wondered if it was about the radio at all, or if she was just trying to stay busy. He’d been like that at one time as well, keeping himself busy day and night just so he didn’t have to be alone with his thoughts.

“If you want to listen to music you could just wear earbuds or something, I’m pretty sure you pushing random buttons isn’t going to fix it,” he said while his gaze was still fixed on the road.

“Yes, I could. But it’s not about the music anymore, I just want to fix it,” she said while not even looking at him but just pushing buttons.

“Let me see for a sec,” he told her while reaching for the radio.

“No, you’re driving so keep your eyes on the road,” she replied while pushing back his hand, sending electricity through his arm.

“Kat,” he warned. He was a great driver and the road they were on was positively deserted. Nothing bad was going to happen if he looked at the radio for two seconds.

Eventually, she moved away, making room for him to look at it.

He remembered his first car, it had a crappy radio just like this one and every bump in the road would shut it off while every bump after it turned it on again. Hitting it hard enough would secure it just so it’d stay on for a few hours. So he smacked it.

And it turned on.

Looking at Nathalia he found her with those big brown eyes wide open, trying to make sense of what just had happened.

“Wh- I- How?” she stammered.

Thinking back on every time she’d tried to unsuccessfully fix it while the solution was this simple he let out a laugh.

“You knew this whole time?” she asked incredulously.

“I had my suspicions.”

“Then why’d you let me struggle for so long?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

He knew it was unfair, that he could’ve helped her anytime but he liked seeing her busy. He liked the way her hair would fall into her face and she’d push it back unconsciously. And then when it would happen again a minute later.

She just looked at him a little longer before turning her attention to the radio, flipping through the channels before settling on one that played some pop song.

The song seemed to relax her as she settled back into her seat and looked outside.

He made a mental note to remember that song.