Holiday in Holly Oaks

Chapter 6

The bell above the music store's door rang loudly as someone zestfully pushed the door open. Tallie looked up from her spot behind the cash register and smiled when she saw Case.

"I need new guitar strings. Are they still on the back wall?" He didn't wait for an answer as he walked purposefully towards the back wall.

Tallie returned to the supply order she had been working on. The strings were still on the back wall.

She expected him to join her at the counter once he found the strings, but after five minutes, she looked up, searching the store for him. He was still at the back wall, examining something.

She left her order and wandered out from behind the cash register, curious what had caught his attention.
When she joined him at the back wall she found him comparing guitar strings.

"You always get the Elixir Phosphor Bronze," she told him.

He looked up, four different boxes of strings in his hand. "That's what I thought, but I saw these different ones and they looked interesting."

She smiled as she took the three different options out of his hand. She held up the first box. "You said these were too tinny," she held up the second, "these were too sharp, and these," she said, holding up the last box, "were too rough."

He looked at her suspiciously. "Are you sure?"

She laughed and began to put the boxes of strings back on their shelves. "One-hundred percent. Those are your favorite." She tapped the box still in his hand.

Not convinced, he remained at the back wall examining strings for a few more minutes as Tallie returned to the front counter. But he eventually made his way towards the counter with only one box of guitar strings in his hand.

"I need these so desperately. I was trying to remember the fingerpicking for Young and Dumb, but the buzzing strings were too distracting."

Tallie looked more closely at Case's appearance and noticed his hair was sticking up at weird angles, he was wearing the same sweater from the night before and she realized he had probably done nothing other than sleep and play guitar since they had left the Christmas Tree lighting the night before. That was definitely a high school Case move.

"Do you still have your tools to put these on?" she asked, holding up the strings.

He squinted in thought. "Yes... but I don't know where my mom put them. She turned my room into an exercise room/nursery for when my sister visits," he said in disbelief. "Thanks to Janie, I'm sleeping on a pullout bed in my own room."

"I know," she chuckled. His mom had shown the whole town step-by-step pictures of the room makeover. "If you want to bring your guitar in, you can use the store's tools to put the strings on."

"That would be great," he said.

He started walking towards the door and she called after him, "do you want your strings?"

"I'll pay for them when I get back," he called back as he left the store, and she realized he was going to get his guitar right then.

Tallie smiled as she went back to filling out the supply order. She had forgotten the manic energy Case got when dealing with anything guitar related.
She finished the order and helped a customer before Case turned in his flurry of energy, his guitar was strapped onto his back.

"Over here," she said, leading the way to a side table where she did all the restringing. She pulled out the tools he would need and set them on the table. He set his guitar on the table and picked up the tools, looking at them like they were a distant memory he couldn't piece together.