Archive of Our Own ^beta

When the job request comes through on Rover a week before Christmas, Abby almost turns it down. She already has a pretty full list of pets she’s looking after for people travelling for the holidays, and she’d been planning to use some of her downtime to make a dent in her study before the new year.

On the other hand, it’s a fairly simple job. One dog, twice daily walks plus a midday stop to check on her and let her out to the bathroom, and only three and a half blocks from her own apartment. Abby chews her lip, her thumb hovering over the screen for a moment before she finally accepts the job.

Worst-case scenario, she can always rope John into helping her feed Mrs Burgess’ fish or something.

The next afternoon, she trudges through the snow to the address provided for a meet and greet, only to find herself met (and greeted) when she arrives by an extremely enthusiastic corgi and a very harried-looking owner.

“Hi, I’m Riley, thank you so much for coming— Poppy, can you leave her alone for two seconds?” This last comment is directed at the dog, who is now excitedly circling Abby’s feet as she wrestles with her snow boots before finally tugging them off. “I’m so sorry about her, I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

“Oh, it’s fine.” She follows Riley through to the living room, but instead of sitting on the couch she sinks down onto the floor and lets Poppy scramble into her lap, tail beating excitedly as she sniffs at Abby’s face. “Hey, beautiful, how are you?” She glances up at Riley, who is watching their antics with a small smile on her face, and Abby’s breath hitches as she finally gets the chance to really look at her for the first time.

Damn, Riley is gorgeous. Undeniably.

Internally, Abby pinches herself. She’s here to do a job, not to flirt — even if she has been single for almost a year. This time last year she’d just started dating Harper, and she’d thought, for a moment… but anyway. That had fizzled out by the end of spring, and it was back to pouring all her affection into other people’s pets instead. Shoving down the instinct to let her eyes wander, she scratches Poppy’s back absently as she looks up at Riley.

“Poppy’s a cute name.”

To her surprise, Riley rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t actually on purpose.”

“Oh, really?” Despite herself, Abby laughs. “How do you accidentally name a dog?”

“I got her with my ex, and we couldn’t agree on a name. It was literally weeks of arguing, and we called her ‘puppy’ in the meantime, but then she started responding to it and we were kind of stuck.” Riley’s smile gets a little wider, a little more self-deprecating. “Probably should have been a sign as to where the relationship was headed, if we’re being honest.”

“Oh.” Abby glances back down at the pile of gold and white fur between her fingers, and back up. “Sorry it didn’t work out with them.”

From the look Riley gives her, the neutral pronoun does not go unobserved. “Yeah, well. She ran off to Ireland to ‘rediscover her roots’ and I got to keep Poppy, so.” Riley shrugs.

“Sounds like you won that one.”

The smirk Riley gives her borders on dangerous, and despite herself, Abby’s heart picks up speed. “I like to think so.”

A charged silence hangs between them for a moment before Abby breaks it. “So, are you heading home for the holidays?”

Riley sighs, years of family tension incredibly apparent even in that one sound. “Yep.”

Abby decides not to pry.

It’s almost an hour before she walks out of Riley’s house with a spare key, an agreed schedule for Poppy, and an offer for Abby to hang out before or after walking the dog if she needs some peace and quiet. God, I do not miss living with roommates, especially when trying to study, Riley had said. Seriously, make yourself at home. Avail yourself of the Wi-Fi.

It was a lovely offer, and Riley’s not the first pet owner to make it. Abby’s not going to take her up on it, but it was generous of her nonetheless.

They’d talked about everything and nothing: music and academia and the local queer scene and how many pets Abby’s looking after right now. Riley had apologised for the last-minute booking — my friend was all set to look after her, but he decided yesterday morning to go see his parents in Michigan; who goes home at Christmas voluntarily? — and if, as she was leaving, it felt like Riley’s hands lingered for just a second after helping Abby with her coat… well.

She was probably just being polite to the person who’s going to be feeding her dog for the next week.

As promised, she texts Riley the next evening, just like she does with all her clients, to give her an update on Poppy. She’s a well-behaved dog, waiting to eat her dinner until she’s told she can have it — not shoving her head over the bowl like some of her clients’ dogs — and happy to go for a walk even in the snow.

On her third day looking after Poppy, Abby’s not in a great mood by the time she lets herself in Riley’s front door — her attempts to study kept getting interrupted by her roommate’s sudden ska obsession, and she slipped on an invisible patch of ice on the walk over and her hip still aches from the contact it made with the sidewalk. Her mood means the text she fires off to Riley is more brusque than she’d normally be with a client — not rude, but definitely a little short.

Of course Riley notices.

She takes Riley up on her offer, and it helps. The relative peace and quiet lets her focus, and when she needs a break or to stretch her legs Poppy is more than happy to roll around on the floor with her.

For the next two nights, her texts with Riley lasts long after she’s checked Poppy’s water bowl and locked up the house for the night. She hears all about Riley’s parents’ friends, their weird insistence on asking her for medical advice even while making snide comments about her lifestyle. Riley tells her about being forcibly outed by her girlfriend in high school — the same girlfriend she now has to see every year, because their parents run in the same social circles, and how she still isn’t out; privately, Abby is astonished Riley’s kept her secret this long, because she sure wouldn’t have. Abby, in turn, tells Riley about losing her parents, and how hard she finds Christmas now, even with John spending every holiday season trying to cheer her up.

It’s well beyond a professional conversation, and it feels like it could easily turn into something more. Still, Abby doesn’t want to get her hopes up — even as John insists she should do exactly that, when they get coffee together on Christmas Eve.

“You moped over Harper for months.” Abby opens her mouth, ready to defend herself, but John just makes a shushing gesture before he continues. “If a pretty girl wants to bare her soul to you emotionally or whatever, I think you should go for it.”

“It’s creepy.” Abby takes a sip of her drink, letting it warm her from the inside out. God, she can practically see her breath even inside the coffee shop. “I’m, like, in and out of her house; I can’t just be like hey, while I’m here, wanna go out sometime?”

“Well, no, wait for her to come back, obviously.” John shrugs, fiddling with his phone for a moment before looking back up at her with a mischievous smile. “Give her back her key, finish up the job, and then ask her on a date like a normal person.”

Abby shrugs, looking out the window. “Maybe.”

When Abby wakes up on Christmas morning, it’s to a text from Riley.

She does enjoy lunch with John — they get Chinese and watch terrible slasher films on his TV until they’re so full of food it hurts to laugh at them, and then they just lay sprawled on opposite ends of his couch with their legs tangled between them.

And when John tells her again, sleepily, that she should ask Riley out when she gets back to Pittsburgh, Abby is too relaxed to argue with him about it.

Two days after Christmas, Abby walks over to Riley’s for the final time — at least because of this job, she tells herself, trying to be optimistic. She knocks on the door rather than using her key, and when Riley flings the door open it’s with such a wide smile that Abby’s breath is knocked clean out of her lungs.

Somehow she manages to shed her winter layer without making too much of an idiot of herself, and as soon as she’s done that she pulls the key out of her pocket and hands it over.

“Before I forget.”

“Thank you.” Riley hesitates for a moment before curling her fingers around the key, glancing down at her hand before pushing it deep into her pocket and presumably dropping the key there. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“It was no problem.”

They’re standing right in front of each other in Riley’s living room, neither of them moving, neither of them speaking. Abby tries to find the words, but a simple so would you like to go on a date sometime seems to be getting lost somewhere between her brain and her mouth.

And it’s not like she doesn’t have Riley’s number. She could go, text her later, save face if it turns out she’s totally misread things and Riley isn’t interested at all.

But she can’t seem to make herself do that either.

The silence is shattered by Poppy’s bark, and Abby glances down in surprise — she’s not a very vocal dog, usually — to see her staring up at them from Abby’s side. Then she runs around them in an excited circle before running into the back of Abby’s calves hard enough to make her stumble forward, only Riley’s surprisingly strong grip on her arms keeping her upright. They’re almost nose to nose, and Abby should really stand up, mumble out an apology, flee the premises. Before she can do any of that, though, Riley glances down at Poppy with a smile.

“Good girl, Poppy.” Then she’s closing the last inch between them, and Abby lets her eyes fall shut half a second before Riley’s lips meet hers.