3. Hot for Volunteer
Chapter three
Hot for Volunteer
Neil
If it was going to be this easy to recruit all my future volunteers, this job would be a cakewalk. I hadn’t honestly expected the visitor—Sawyer—to say yes to my suggestion to volunteer. I didn’t even know where the forms were kept… or if there even were any. Today was my first day, and I’d only been in the shelter for a few hours, most of that spent with the owner, Arthur, filling out payroll and tax forms. I’d just been heading out for a bit of fresh air when Shane had waylaid me.
“Sorry for the mess,” I said reflexively as I sat Sawyer down in my new office, which really only was a desk in the corner of my boss’s space. Arthur wasn’t here at the moment. Since he’d thought I was on break, he’d gone down to take care of some things around the shelter. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful to be left alone with Sawyer or not.
“I’ve never seen such mayhem,” Sawyer drawled in his California accent as his eyes flicked over the desk, empty except for my beat-up old laptop covered in school stickers and the bare walls above it.
I flushed and flipped my laptop open, focusing on the screen to keep from having to look at Sawyer.
Though Sawyer looked more at ease now than he had in the dog pod, I was now uncomfortable sitting knee-to-knee in tight quarters with such a handsome man. It hadn’t escaped my notice that I was very attracted to Sawyer, and it’d been over a year since my last date. I’d been so busy with my final year and trying to find a job that dating had been very low on my list of priorities.
“What brought you to the animal shelter today?” I asked to break the suddenly awkward silence.
Sawyer hesitated, suddenly bashful as he stared away from me out the window. “Just wanted to see dogs in person,” he mumbled.
“The website photos don’t really do the animals justice or tell you about their personalities,” I agreed. The thought sent my mind spinning into what I could do to better promote online to prospective adopters. Videos of cats always did well on social media. Kittens and puppies, too. Really, my main job was recruiting and managing volunteers, but social media played a large role in recruitment.
Sawyer cleared his throat, making me realize I’d been daydreaming and silent for too long. With difficulty, I pulled my fragmenting attention back to the task at hand. I could write up a social media plan later. Arthur didn’t expect me to get everything done on the first day.
As I talked, I clicked through my files until I found the volunteer form I’d made as a school assignment. If I printed it on the shelter’s letterhead, it would be fine for today’s purposes. I sent it to the printer, then had to stand and move a few steps over to Arthur’s desk to grab it. My leg brushed Sawyer’s as I pushed past him, and I shivered at that brief contact.
I caught Sawyer checking out my backside in the reflection in the window. Nice to see my gaydar was correct. At first, I was flattered and then annoyed with myself for being flattered. If Sawyer knew I was trans, he’d lose interest, I was sure.
I set the fresh printout on the desk before him with a pen. “Fill out your information and the hours you’re available to volunteer,” I told him before retaking my seat.
He picked up the pen and started writing in a stylish, blocky cursive. While he did that, I started going through the form on my laptop and customizing it for the shelter.
“Excuse me, Neil?” Sawyer asked, voice quavering a bit.
I glanced over, not taking my hands from the keyboard. “Yes? Question?”
“One.” He blushed and fiddled with the pen. “I don’t see a place to fill out my job preferences?”
“Just note any restrictions you have at the bottom,” I assured him.
Sawyer didn’t move, so I glanced back, raising my eyebrows. “Does that not work?” I asked.
“I guess I have a question about what I’ll be doing as a volunteer?” Sawyer’s voice lilted up at the end in a questioning manner.
“Ah, right. I suppose I didn’t explain. The duties will vary from day to day, but they’ll be things like feeding the animals, doing laundry, cleaning, and walking the dogs.”
“That makes sense.” Sawyer gave a decisive nod and bent back over his page. A moment later, he slid the finished form back across the desk to me.
“Excellent.” I glanced at his schedule, surprised to see only a few times blocked off as unavailable. I was a bit curious about what he did for work since his availability for volunteer hours was so open, but I didn’t want to pry. I clicked over to my calendar. “While you’re here, are you free Monday for volunteer training?” Volunteer training. Another thing I hadn’t even started working on yet. Sawyer could be my guinea pig.
We arranged for him to come over on Monday. That gave me the weekend to at least outline a training plan. I dropped his filled-out form into my empty “To-Do” basket to deal with later. I still needed to pick a volunteer management software and set it up.
There were too many urgent tasks and not enough hours in the day. Good thing I had no social life yet, being new to the city. Although it’d be hard to build a social life if I was working all the time… One thing at a time. If I couldn’t get this volunteer program off the ground, I might not stay around long anyway.
When I got back to my desk after walking Sawyer back to the lobby, I buckled down and banged out an outline of a social media series I wanted to run to attract more volunteers. Our current staff couldn’t keep up with everything themselves, and we needed to recruit more than just Sawyer if we wanted to keep providing the animals with the best possible care.
I needed to write a training plan, too, but my first task was to learn more about the needs of this shelter. Killing two birds with one stone, I shadowed the staff around the shelter to learn what they did while filming snippets of the staff interacting with the animals to use as recruitment advertisements.
When I had enough, I holed myself up in my office to edit footage and schedule posts. Since I didn’t have the volunteer software set up yet, I had the webmaster direct all volunteer applications to go direct to my email. A knock on my desk pulled me out of my hyperfocus a while later.
“I’m locking up,” Arthur said.
“What?” I glanced at my window to find it was fully dark outside. When had that happened? Shit. Poor Princess Bubblegum. I’d meant to run home and pick her up during lunch, but then I’d been so busy I’d never even stopped for lunch. I’d have brought her with me, but first day and all… Despite it being an animal shelter, I had wanted to get permission from the boss before bringing my dog to work with me. Of course, as soon as I’d arrived, I’d run into Shane walking around with that cat draped around his neck like a scarf, and I felt silly for leaving her at home. I just hoped she wasn’t too angry with me.
I saved my edits and put my computer to sleep.
“Saw your new video on the website. Cute,” Arthur said as he walked me out. He must have meant the new one I put up of Carly, the teenager just out of high school who was one of the shelter’s first volunteers, playing with our latest batch of kittens.
The shelter was dark and empty but not quiet, as dogs barked and howled in the back, the sound echoing in the empty space.
“Thanks. I’ve already had a couple of interested parties, and I have my first volunteer training set up for Monday morning.”
“Already?” A slow smile peeked out from under his mustache. “Impressive.”
I merely shrug one shoulder, uncomfortable with his praise. It wasn’t like I’d been looking for Sawyer. His employee had practically thrown him at me to get out of having to see the dogs.
I did not understand Shane and Sawyer’s lack of enthusiasm about dogs. When I got home, Princess Bubblegum welcomed me at the door, her tail wagging so hard that her entire lower body skidded from side-to-side on the linoleum. I gathered her in my arms, letting her lick my face and soaking in her love.