Greer came in to see Luce looking at what to make for dinner. She came up and smiled, holding a small bag. “Hey Papa Bear, whatcha makin’?”
Luce looked back. “No clue yet. How’s the phone coming?”
Greer sat down with the bag. She had just come back from the store to see if they were able to recover anything from her phone. Officially, that model had apparently started having overheating problems and were being recalled. “Well… everyone in the world has to get a new one, but since mine caught on fire I apparently will be getting free phones for life. So will Ma. She’s happy because that means she can get the fancy one she wanted.”
Luce looked over and saw she had some sort of box in a bag. “Then what’s that?”
Greer smiled and pulled it out. “The result of me poking around in the fancy cooking tools store while I waited for Ma to stop arguing with them. Saw something I thought you’d like.”
Greer took it out of the box. It was an odd looking cylinder, silver top and bottom with a clear center. There was salt crystals on one side and peppercorns on the other. She proceeded to grab a plate. “It grinds them up look.”
Luce sighed. “I don’t want one that grinds them both at the same time though.”
Greer shook her head. “Nonono, look see.”
She first turned it to the right and small bits of ground up salt fell onto the plate. She then turned it the other way to like little black and brown flakes fall like snow. “See? It changes depending on how you turn it.”
Luce went over and picked it up, trying it himself. He heard Greer speak up as the bag rustled. “I got one for you and one for me, Papa Bear.”
Luce looked to her. “Why? You live here with us.”
Greer nodded. “Yeah but… you probably don’t want me taking yours apart. And I know you want to know what makes it work too.”
Luce smiled a bit and took his grinder to the kitchen. “Maybe chicken tonight… everyone wants to add more salt and pepper that I like…. And then I can show off the ginder you got me, Baby Bear”
Greer smiled more and went to get a screwdriver so she could set to work on taking hers apart while they talked. By that evening, Luce’s had a place of honor on a kitchen shelf so he could show it off.
***
Greer and Blake were coming home, once again, with more groceries than planned. Blake had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Greer to do two things. First was to stop putting so much money towards the food. Second was calling the officer so she could at least get it over with.
“I’m telling you Blake, he is going to think it’s bad that I haven’t called at all in like… a week.” She set down the bags in her arms and proceeded to start taking the backpack off.
Blake rolled his eyes. “And what if he’s thinking the same thing? Or he’s just been busy because he’s been working nights?”
She started taking the meat out of the back pack and started to put it up. “Well, I can’t call him right NOW if he’s been doing nights can I? He’ll be asleep.”
Blake threw up his hands as he started putting away the milk. “To think we found someone worst at romance than any of us!”
About then, Luce came in and saw the amount of food. This had been going on for weeks, where the cost of the groceries had gone down from what it should have been while the amount of food had gone up. The cost coming out of things was too low to be correct. “Alright…. Show me the receipt. I want to check it this time.”
He was eyeing Greer as Blake slowly handed it over, mouthing to Greer ‘sorry’. Greer just smiled. “What’s the problem Papa Bear? We haven’t been going over budget.”
Luce looked at them both. “Look I know Blake is spending less money than he should since you got here.”
Greer shrugged. “I’m putting in what I should.” She grabbed some chickens with big manager special stickers on them and put them in the freezer. “And I never gave Blake any money, did I?”
Blake shook his head. “She didn’t. Greer gets in front to handle coupon hand off while I load the belt, then she goes to help load the back packs and prep the bags while I pay.”
Luce looked down at the receipt and noticed what he suspected, a cash payment and a card payment. “Why did she put $20 towards the bill in cash, Blake?”
Blake looked to Greer, seemingly in shock. “Greer! I told you that first time only because you felt guilty when you first got here.”
Greer stood next to Luce while Blake kept putting things away. “Now now… the answer to that is in this bag.” She held up some particular to her products. Luce looked a bit surprised.
Greer just continued to go back to putting things away. “I had to get these and had the cart. I was asking Blake if he knew if Destiny needed any and he wasn’t sure and then I started asking if anyone needed… ah shall we say… protection.”
Blake groaned. “She said it loud enough for everyone to hear.”
“He quickly decided the best thing to do was to split up while I hit the pharmacy section. I meant to do a separate transaction but it kind of got all mixed together and I had the coupons. Proof of which is at the bottom.”
Luce took a look and it was true, most of the items were sale items. And she used some coupons with them as well. He went and looked back at what were some of the traditionally more expensive items. “Alright, well how did you get all of that stuff?”
Greer looked. “Oh, I offered to help the meat department manager with some car trouble last month and he told me the time they put out the manager specials each day in each department. He even sends me a text if there is something really good since I saved him some major cash. Look at the pork butt! We got it 75% off the SALE price.” she looked in the freezer again. “Maybe we should cook this… make for good lunches this week.”
Luce looked between them, Blake shrugged. “I mean, it’s helping us out and she isn’t adding that much money to the budget right? Like you wanted?”
Greer finished putting things away and smiled. “I’m going to work out. Come on Blake! I thought you wanted some pool time.” She quickly dragged him off before Luce could question them. Luce looked at everything again and sighed. He wasn’t going to win this one, was he? If he pushed more she’d just buy them when she knew no one else was going to be home. For now… he needed to decide what recipe to make for dinner since apparently he was slow cooking some pork.
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