to find what none could sell you.

iii. (big grins + careful wisdom)

It's a busy night in early November, the buildup to the artificial retail Christmas rush just beginning and the steady stream of customers in the door making it difficult for them to get anything done other than ring up orders all day. Even in all the buzz, though, Grace has been watching that door like a hawk for her favorite regular, and it's been weeks since she's seen him. Before all the changes to his usual style she would have been very concerned if he had dropped off on his regular visits like that, but now it has a different feel, a lighter one.

Her eyes are still delighted to fall on him as he walks in the door, calling out her most cheerful greeting. As he moves behind the crowd that sifts her view, she comes to the realization that yet again he is not alone. This time, his newest friend is even taller than him- taller and bigger. The man looks like he could lift about half her current line of customers over his head at once. He's not necessarily muscular but he looks strong, and he's a giant compared to even the tall man she has known of for so long. She doesn't think they can hear her greeting, but that's okay. With the crowds they're trying to hold down the fort for, she hardly has the time to be concerned about what they are or are not doing or thinking.

In the next five minutes, however, she's swamped, and of all the amazingly timed opportunities for it to stop working, now is the time when the phone paging system takes a turn for the worst. Maybe she can get rid of the line by herself if she hurries- it's a hopeful thought busted by a strange technical issue with the register that she can't solve. Adrenaline of a busy night coursing in her retail-hardened veins, Grace promises a speedy return to rude and annoyed customers whose unhelpful complaints she pays little mind to, and goes running down the oral care isle in search of her manager. She's pretty sure she last heard the pager working when her manager was called to the pharmacy for assistance with their equally stressful lines and demands. The front store, however, takes policy priority, especially to a manger whose job description does not place them in the pharmacy. Trying to push her way past the lines to the counter of the place, her eyes land on the Giant and her old regular.

By all rights, they should be shoved up against the walls by the thirty or so people trying to get their prescriptions at that exact moment, but something inherent and indescribable about Chris creates a natural bubble of personal space around him, no one willing to get too close. Of course, the intimidating size of his friend likely helps that image along, but she can understand what everyone senses. She's always sensed it too. They're scrutinizing bottles of medicated creams on an end-cap, and the friend is squinting down at his phone, which is a very large model that looks average sized at best in his hands. Trying to shoulder as politely as she can into the crowd, she can't help but overhear their words.

The bigger friend reads something off his phone. "He says it's a red bottle."

"Bottle or tube?"

There's a pause as this question is relayed and another as a message is soon received. "Could be either, depends on the brand."

"That isn't good."

"You doubt your faith in me, brother?" The taller man offers Chris a grin that's all teeth, but not at all in an unpleasant way.

Chris smirks. "Sure would hate to listen to a sun-burnt Texan for the rest of this weekend."

The other man's smile evaporated. "We had best get the right one."

Chris merely nods in response, and the two are soon scrutinizing the shelves with maximum intensity. Grace doesn't have time to zero in, or to wonder just what sort of bizarre happenings you'd have to be doing for a sunburn to happen to you in November, as she calls for her manager's attention and, having been promised a swift return to the front of the store, she begins her power walk back to the counter to be berated by her own personal angry mob.

It's after several minutes of frustration, forced smiles and stressed interaction that she sees the two men in her line, having chosen what must have been the right thing , they seem perfectly comfortable standing in the long line, talking with one another. As they move closer, though, Grace realizes that it's not just each other they're talking to. Several people in other lines or who are brushing by to make their way to the pharmacy are pausing to give the larger man a slap on the back and an enthusiastic hello. He is polite, nodding back and exchanging greetings and meaningless similes on the state of his life at present, watching after them as they hurry away.

"You always this popular?" Chris asks of him.

He turns his gaze back ahead to the line in front of him, his expression as much of a shrug as his shoulders didn't convey. "You'd get popular too, if you retired early after twenty years in the same department."

Chris offers him a darkly cheerful smile. "I don't think I have that kind of potential." The other man raises an eyebrow in question of that, so Chris clarifies. "To last twenty years on a force or to get popular for anything good."

The other man shakes his head with a small smile. "You could say I've lived in this city a little too long. And I've done a little too much. And yet, I haven't done nearly enough." He makes a real shrugging motion this time, moving ever closer to Grace with the rest of the line. "Such is the human experience of community. Can't live with or without it. A funny thing." At this moment, a very boisterous man cuts into the line to slap him on the shoulder and offer him his congratulations on an early retirement. The man shuffles ahead in the line along with them, partially blocking the next register and offending the people ahead of them all in line, who turn to glare. A short man in front growls, "Must you?"

The older man is unshaken, grinning at him. "C'mon, you wouldn't get so mad with a guy like my old buddy J'siah here, would ya?" He laughs and turns to Chris, who has a look in his eyes Grace can't label as anything other than negative and controlled. "Could rip a tree in half, this one. Gotta watch out! Say, you know about that time in Charleston?"

Before anyone can say anything else, Grace calls for the next customer and the friend, who has now been identified to her as a sightly mispronounced version of the name Josiah, pats the man on the shoulder and pushes past him. "Good to see you, Steve... Maybe we'll catch up some time. See you around, alright?" And already he's placing he and Chris' tube of lotion-like medication on the counter.

As Grace rings up the order- which includes that smaller size of Chris' whiskey, but with the addition of a liter of soda- Chris, who has his hands at his sides in a silence that is neither impolite nor welcoming to the crowd around them in line, turns to Josiah. "Charleston, huh?"

The two of them throw down money for each of their halves of the cost, and Grace counts their change in silence. Josiah gives him a somewhat tighter smile than she had seen earlier. "Been known to have a little trouble with turnin' the other cheek."

"Care to explain that a little bit?"

Josiah picks up the bag as Grace passes their change off to Chris, who gives her a nod of recognition to her rushed, "have a nice day!" as they start to back away.

Josiah shakes his head. "If you're so sure about Nathan, ask him, he ought to know."

"Depends on how good his suggestions are."

Josiah holds up the bag, laughing a little. "Guaranteed to do the trick- physically, anyway. Not even Nate's got a remedy for that independent streak of his."

They're moving to the threshold of the store as Chris smiles, shaking his head. "Well, maybe so. At the very least we could use another set of hands to hold him down with."

The bits and pieces of this story are difficult for Grace to process in the stressful moment, and hardly any of her business, but she feels happy to know that her mysterious man in black has a life outside of his brown-bottled liquid for her to speculate on at all, and that he has people to do it with. Maybe he really is finding the life she always wished he had. The idea, though certainly not her place to feel so strongly about, brings her a certain calm to consider.

But he still hadn't wanted a store card.