It's a cheerful summer evening when the next such encounter occurs. It's been rather dead in the store, as the clerks always phrase it, and they've had time and then some to do the daily tasks that are often neglected in the face of a busy night. With these completed. Grace leans on the counter, staring blankly into space, wondering how on earth it's only been three minutes since she last looked at the clock when it feels like an eternity. The scrape of the sliding doors snaps her spine to attention as fast as she can get it there, and she calls out a greeting to the customers who enter- her eyes widening in surprise, but her professional customer service tone is the catch all of any unexpected emotion she might not want the customers to pick up on when they come into the store.
She's only seen her black-clad whiskey drinker a few times since the one with his mustached friend Buck, and he's always bought the smaller sized bottle. He's also bought those bottles further apart. She's felt happy about it, hoping he's getting somewhere good in life, and now here he is again with a new source of confusion for her: a new stranger is walking in step with him.
This man is definitely younger, and has a longer haircut than his tall blonde friend. He walks in perfect time with Chris and gives her a tiny smile and a polite nod as they round through the entrance. His hands are casually placed in his pockets, and there are currently no words being spoken between the two. And even within their silence, Grace can sense something different about the man in black, something more calm and at ease, a wound bandaged. Chris, for his part, gives her a small smile that means so much more than the blankly polite expressions she's gotten from him for years. She returns it.
As they approach the alcohol isle, a different customer comes up to Grace in search of the ice cooler. Brightly offering to walk her to it, she leads the way there, which ends with the two of them in a position where she can clearly see the isle her regular and his friend have gone into.
The two come to a stop in front of their selection of whiskies and begin eyeing the shelves. She sees Chris reach for his usual, large bottle of the hard stuff, but the quiet man catches his eye and gives him a look. Grace finds the whole thing difficult to read but apparently the blonde doesn't. He rolls his eyes and puts the bottle back. "You're no fun, Vin. Anybody ever tell you that?"
Vin sort of laughs without really doing it, shrugging. "More or less, but not in so many words. How about some beer, cowboy?"
Grace really has no excuse for still being there so, a smile tugging on her face, she turns back to her cashier duties feeling just a bit better about the man in black- especially with two people to watch out for him.