2. From Terror to Flirt in 30 Seconds
Chapter two
From Terror to Flirt in 30 Seconds
Sawyer
“Sawyer, you’re ready.” My therapist, Ms. Lozano, looked at me over her steepled fingers.
“But, but…” I sputtered, my hands shaking. I twisted them in my lap. “This is too big of a step.”
“You’ve been putting this off. Each week, you’ve eloquently told me how much this fear of dogs interrupts your life.”
I rubbed my hands down my face. “Is it my fault that practically every person in Gaynor Beach owns a dog?”
“You told me that before the accident, you went to the beach every day.” The sun glinted off the water through the window behind her head. A pang of longing went through me. I missed going to the beach.
“Watching Air Bud and the live action Lady and the Tramp is not the same as touching a real live dog,” I said, jutting my chin. I knew she was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“How about this? For a first step, you don’t even need to touch the dogs. Just walk through the pod. The dogs will all be in kennels, with bars between you and them.” Ms. Lozano’s phone beeped. She tapped the button to turn off the alarm. “Think of this as a blind date. Write down your thoughts after your visit, and we’ll discuss it next week.”
I mumbled my assent.
“Stupid CBT therapy,” I muttered after I’d left the building. Watching a dog on the screen wasn’t the same, but she also had a point. Just the thought of the dogs right there next to me made me shudder. At first, I hadn’t even been able to watch movies with a dog in them, and now I could do it with only mild anxiety when the dog was on screen.
I had no other meetings this afternoon after my therapy appointment. I knew from experience I was usually pretty shaken up afterward and had quickly learned to keep my calendar clear after to let me decompress. I was afraid if I put it off, I’d work myself into an anxiety attack.
The shelter was south of downtown Gaynor Beach across the river, opposite where I lived in Oakdale to the north. It was a detour, but it would be no matter when I went; I never had a reason to go to the south side.
I’d stop by, dash through the dog pod, and get it over with. Then, I could go back to pretending dogs didn’t exist until my next weekly appointment.
Middle of the day during the week, the shelter’s parking lot was empty, so there was no one to judge as I sat in my car, psyching myself up to go inside. With my windows rolled down to let in the tang of salt from the nearby sea, I could hear dogs barking from inside.
I stared at the entrance. A large blank spot overtop just begged to be painted with a cool mural. Something animal-themed, of course. I tore my eyes away from it. Obviously, I would not be the one painting it, not with every bark from inside making me flinch.
It was fine. I could do this. The dogs would be behind barriers. No different than seeing them on the television screen. I kept repeating that silently to myself as I got out of the car and marched up to the shelter doors. Before opening them, I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders.
A lean man with dirty blond hair greeted me from the reception desk as I walked in. Despite the yapping dogs, the interior captured my attention. This was an animal shelter? Marble floors, a crystal chandelier? Swankaayyy.
“Welcome to Safe Haven Animal Rescue. Are you looking to adopt today?” The man’s voice broke me out of my reverie.
“Just browsing right now,” I told him, clenching my fists in my jacket pockets to hide how much they were shaking.
“Cats or dogs?” he asked.
Cats were visible through the glass door to my left. I stopped and watched a trio of black and white kittens rolling around on the floor after a catnip ball—cute little furballs. Huh. Maybe after seeing the dogs, I’d come back and adopt a cat. Working from home could get a little lonely sometimes, and the idea of fuzzy company appealed to me. It could be a little treat for surviving walking through the dog pod.
“Both. Or, rather, either?” I took another cleansing deep breath—a mistake as the scent of cat piss and wet fur was still perceptible over the stinging tang of bleach—and pivoted on my heels. Before I could reconsider, I marched towards the swinging doors from where the barking echoed.
“Cool, cool.” The blond guy bobbed his head like I hadn’t just said something stupid. “Let’s start with the cats. Once you see these babies, you’ll fall in love.”
“Actually, dogs—” I said, then stuttered to a stop as another man came walking out of the staff-only door.
What I saw had my heart in my throat and made me forget where I was. He had dark hair, almost black, cut in a longer floppy style that fell over one side of his forehead. He grinned at me, revealing a dimple on just one cheek. This was the kind of guy that, if I saw him at a gay bar, I’d definitely be flirting and buying the guy a drink.
But since I wasn’t expecting a handsome man to pop up here, my brain was in the wrong gear. While I struggled to pop the clutch of my mind from “terror” to “flirtatious,” one of the beasts in the back let out a series of high-pitched yaps that had me cringing. But the pull of a hot guy was stronger than my fear.
“Dogs,” I repeated, my brain stuck like a scratched record, repeating the last thing I’d said.
“Neil, buddy!” The blond worker flopped back down in his seat behind the desk. “Want to take this guy to look at the dogs?”
“Me?” Neil asked, touching his chest.
“You need to learn the layout of the place.” The blond man waved a hand toward the right, then turned his attention back to me. “When you’re done, come back here, and I’ll show you the cats, yeah?”
Neil, flustered, ran a hand through his hair. “Or if you want to adopt one of the dogs, Shane can help you with that too,” he told me.
Shane snorted. “No way. He looks like a cat man to me.”
“Right then, shall we?”
Neil pushed open the employee-only door he’d just come out of, and the dogs behind it went nuts again. But I hardly heard them, so focused on Neil and his backside that I gladly followed him into hell. Hot guys—better than a year of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for getting past your fears.
The pod was circular, the entrance and exit being the same door. Concrete kennels lined the interior of the space, and safety glass separated the dogs from the guests.
A golden-furred dog that reminded me of the dogs from the Air Bud movies barked at me from the first cage just inside the doors.
My heart racing, the reality of where I was came crashing back down. The smells and the realness were so much more overwhelming than a dog on a television screen.
While we circled the cages, Neil kept up a steady stream of chatter about the benefits of this dog breed or that one. I nodded along, pretending I was listening, occasionally letting out a muttered response.
We were almost all the way around when I caught sight of a dog that looked almost exactly like the ones that had attacked me a year ago. A tiny black-and-tan beast no bigger than my hand furiously wagged a thin tail as I came into view. I gasped and froze, unable to tear my eyes away. It stared at me through the glass, jumping up and down like a demented jack-in-the-box.
“He caught your eye, I see.” Neil’s cheerful voice cut through the din like a life preserver thrown to a drowning man. “Not the best choice for a first-time dog owner, however.”
I clung to his words and let them drag me back from the edge of my panic attack. Breathe. I needed to breathe so I could answer the handsome man’s question. “What makes you say that?” I asked, my voice quavering. I wasn’t sure what had me more flustered at this point, the dogs or realizing I was making a fool of myself in front of Neil.
Laugh lines crinkled up around his eyes as Neil grinned at me. “That he’s not a good choice or that you haven’t had a dog before?”
“Both,” I said, still cringing.
“That reaction, for one, told me you’re probably not used to being around dogs.” Neil shot me a wink and kneeled down to give the yappy monster a treat. “But also, Chihuahua mixes like this one tend to be more aggressive than bigger dogs.”
I nodded since I knew this from bitter experience.
“For a first-time dog owner—” Neil led me around the corner to the first dog, “—a dog like this golden retriever is a good choice. They’re friendly, loyal, and eager to please. This one is even already trained; his owner was an older gentleman who unfortunately died.”
The door to the lobby was right at my back, but my feet were rooted to the ground. I focused on Neil, studying him to help push back my panic.
From the paleness of his skin, he either didn’t get out much, or he was new in town. His wavy, dark hair was meticulously styled, gelled in that artful way that looked effortless and casual, yet I knew it took a lot of work from trying and failing to do the style on myself. And he wore glasses, swoon.
“I wasn’t planning on adopting today.”
“I noticed you seemed a bit nervous.” He gave me a sympathetic half-smile. “One way to get more comfortable with the dogs would be to volunteer here at the shelter.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“I’m the new volunteer coordinator, Neil Lovelace.” Neil offered me his hand.
The shifter of my brain popped from “terror” to “flirt” so suddenly my thoughts veered off the road and crashed into a ditch. All I could think about was spending more time with this handsome man.
“Sawyer Tirrell,” I said automatically, shaking his hand. “So if I volunteer here, does that mean I’d get to spend time with you, too?” I winked.
Neil chuckled along with me. “I suppose it does.”
Good god, he was adorable. What the heck? I couldn’t resist the lure of those ocean-blue eyes. The possibility of spending more time with him was a treat too juicy to pass up. I’d just volunteer to do something with the cats; being around the sound of barking dogs a few times a week would be good for me. “Sign me up!”