Chapter Text
Martha and Shelby are sitting on the outside patio of a small cafe having lunch. It's a Saturday, and spring is just starting to set in.
"I mean, you know what will happen if I don't get that scholarship," Shelby mutters as she slouches further down in the chair.
The blonde girl is absent-mindedly picking at a couple chicken fingers while she rants, obviously not that hungry.
"I just don't know what to do, Martha," she finishes.
Martha watches her for a moment and takes a sip of her smoothie. "Shelby, I was serious when I told you that the shelter would love to have you. I know you need more volunteer hours for your scholarship to be valid for another year."
Shelby sighs and runs a hand through her hair, sitting up a bit straighter. "We've talked about this. Really, I appreciate the offer more than I can say, but I'm not good with animals."
"You are one of the most caring people I know, animals would be no different," Martha counters without thinking, knowing the script to a debate they've had numerous times before.
"That's sweet," she smiles.
"It's true," she reinforces, "Besides, we could work together. It would be so much fun! All of the girls there are so nice."
Shelby sighs again and pauses before answering. "I'll think about it," she says, knowing full well she won't do it but also knowing that she can't hurt Martha when she's excited.
Martha squeals a little bit even though that's what Shelby always says to end the conversation. She knows she may never actually say yes, but she still has hope.
Shelby looks at her phone and realizes the time before abruptly standing up and saying, "Sorry, I gotta go."
"But you didn't even eat anything," Martha calls after her, sounding worried.
"I'll have dinner," she says as she's hurrying away, leaving a concerned Martha in her wake.
-----
A few hours later, Shelby's promise to Martha is long forgotten as her desk is piled high with different books, homework assignments and her laptop.
As she's clicking through tabs to find the right one for her research paper, her email pings with a new notification.
She switches to her email and checks it, seeing it's a deadline reminder for her scholarship volunteer hours.
Shelby sighs and stares at the screen, mulling over her options and remembering that she really doesn't have all that many.
She groans before picking up her phone and dialing Martha's number.
Martha picks up after two rings, and Shelby cuts straight to the chase in lieu of any formalities, "So, is your offer to volunteer at the shelter still up for grabs?"
The line is silent for only one beat before Martha exclaims, "Wait, are you serious? This is amazing! And yes, of course it is. I have a shift tomorrow and can finalize it with Linh then."
"Thank you, you're a lifesaver," she says, and mostly means.
Shelby's grateful, truly, but she's also not really looking forward to it. She has never been good with animals, mostly because she's never been around any. Truth be told, she's a little scared of them.
But she needed this, so instead of grimacing, she smiles and thanks Martha again.
"It's no problem, really, I'm just excited to have you there."
The next few minutes are spent with Martha gushing about how great it is to work there and how cute the animals are and how nice the other girls are.
And with the topic of the girls comes the topic of Toni, Martha's best friend since childhood whom Shelby has never met.
Toni works at the shelter with Martha, and Martha has spent hours telling Shelby about her, and vice versa, she assumed.
Every time she becomes a topic of conversation, it always ends with a I can't believe we haven't all gotten together yet from Martha.
Shelby guessed that their time was coming, but even though Martha had told her so much about her, she really didn't know what to expect.
-----
There was one little detail that Martha left out when it came to her pitch to Shelby, and that would be that she never actually asked Linh beforehand.
Linh ran the shelter, so she was the one who made all the decisions about employees and volunteers.
Martha thought that she was nice, but they hadn't really ever spent time together outside of work, so she hoped that Linh would be considerate.
She took a deep breath as she stepped through the doors into her office.
"Hey Martha! Clocking in?" Linh asked from behind her desk.
"Yep, but I also wanted to ask you something." She hovered by the door frame.
"Go for it," Linh looked up from her computer.
"So I have this friend, her name is Shelby, and she needs volunteer hours for a scholarship. I was wondering if it would be okay if she volunteered here?"
Linh looked like she was mulling it over before she replied, "I'd love to help out your friend, but I'm not really sure we have room for another volunteer."
"There's always stuff to get done around here," she tried to counter, but her voice sounded defeated. She couldn't go back to Shelby and tell her no after she had borderline promised her a saving grace.
"Yeah, but if I give her some volunteer hours then I would have to take away some hours from the actual employees, Martha."
"You can give her some of my hours, she needs them more," Martha stood a bit taller now, her voice more confident.
"Are you sure?" Linh hesitated.
"Of course! Shelby's one of my best friends, and she really needs that scholarship. I don't mind giving up some of my hours for her."
"That's really sweet of you, but I'm still not so sure this is the best idea."
"There's the first adoption fair of the season this Saturday, what if she worked that one? She could prove to you that she was worth the risk. Look, she's great with people, I bet she could do really well with selling people over to adopt an animal."
Linh sighed, the first adoption fair of the season was always important. The shelter was starting to reach capacity, and they could use all hands on deck for Saturday.
"Alright, you make a good point. She can volunteer for the adoption fair, and if she wins me over then we can look into making this a more permanent thing. Sound good?"
"Sounds perfect! Thank you so much, Linh, she won't disappoint."
"I hope not," she smiled, "Today, can you start with refilling water bowls? Leah's already back there."
Martha nodded before going back to get to work, a bit of a weight lifted off of her shoulder but knowing that she really had to get Shelby to impress, not that that was an issue or a concern of any kind to her. She knew Shelby could do this.
-----
After her shift ended, she called Shelby to tell her the good news from her car.
"So, I talked to Linh," she started, "The first adoption fair of the season is this Saturday. She said you can start there and see where it goes."
"Thank you, Martha, really."
Now that she had thought about it, maybe this whole thing wouldn't be that bad. She could spend time with her friend and get her volunteer hours knocked out all at the same time.
"Of course! I was telling one of the other girls about you today, Leah, and she's excited to meet you. And you can finally meet Toni!" Martha sounded so excited, it was infectious, honestly.
"I'm looking forward to meeting them all. You've told me so much about Toni. What time does the adoption fair start on Saturday?"
"Well, the fair itself starts at 9, but we start setting up at 8. Do you want me to pick you up at 7:30?"
After Shelby says yes, the next few minutes are spent with Martha rehashing the things that Shelby already knows about Toni, and they end the call with Shelby feeling nervous about making a bad first impression on one of her best friend's best friends.
-----
At promptly 7:30 the following Saturday, Martha texted Shelby to let her know she was there.
They chatted about school and friends and the shelter as she drove, Martha once again stating that she was excited for Shelby and Toni to meet.
"The first adoption fair of the season is one of the most important ones because we haven't been able to do them over winter, so the shelter starts to get crowded. We really push it now because it helps get word out about them starting back up again," Martha explained as she rounded a curve. "It's right up here."
The adoption fair was being held in the park next to the animal shelter. It was where they would walk the dogs on days when it was nice weather outside.
When Shelby and Martha pulled up and parked, they could see a girl carrying a table out towards the edge while another girl stood and watched.
"The girl carrying the table is Dot, the other one is Fatin. She's not all that into manual labor, but she's great at selling people on adopting," Martha explained.
Shelby nodded as they got out of the car and walked inside so that Linh could meet her.
"Linh, this is Shelby," Martha introduced.
"Hi, it's so great to meet you. Thank you so much for letting me volunteer," Shelby started, putting her accent on a bit thicker than usual in an attempt to charm her.
"It's good to have you," she shook Shelby's outstretched hand before saying, "Martha can show you what to do today." Then she walked away and began checking something off on a clipboard.
"I would show you around, but we're not going to be in here today. We do need to carry things out, though." Martha led her to a supply closet where she pulled out some caging and handed it to Shelby.
She pulled out some more and walked them both outside through the back door.
There were a few other girls standing in the grass, and Shelby recognized Dot and Fatin from earlier.
Dot was working on putting the table up while Fatin appeared to be instructing from afar.
"I know how to put a fucking table up, Fatin," Dot called.
"You just seemed to be struggling," she replied.
Martha reached where they were standing and set her caging down in the grass. "Guys, this is Shelby, she's going to be volunteering here."
Shelby smiled and waved, a habit she hadn't been able to cut since her pageant days. "Hi, everyone."
Martha pointed to a girl with wavy brown hair standing a few feet away with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "That's Leah."
"Those two are Rachel and Nora, they're twins," she pointed to two girls standing side by side.
"Hey," Rachel said, and Nora smiled.
Martha looked around and back towards the door, "And that's Toni!"
Toni was carrying another table out and wasn't paying attention. When she set the table down and realized everyone's eyes were on her, she looked around. "Hey?" she asked the group, seemingly oblivious to the new girl.
"Toni, this is Shelby!" Martha informed her.
Suddenly the attention made sense to her. "Oh, hey," she smiled
The first thing the blonde noticed were her eyes. A deep brown color that seemed to be able to showcase all of her emotions. Right now they looked like they just dropped their guard a bit.
Shelby held out her hand for Toni to shake, and the brunette looked at it for a moment before accepting it. "Martha has told me so much about you."
"Cool," Toni said before stepping away to set up the table on her own, shooting Fatin a look not to make any remarks about it.
Shelby only faltered slightly at that response, her mouth falling open to speak again before passing it off as Toni just wanting to get work done.
If Shelby could have seen Toni's eyes, she would have seen the guard go back up.
Leah grabbed the cage that Martha had set down and began putting it up in the grass. It was a circular cage without a top so that some of the bigger dogs could walk around in it.
Shelby followed Leah's example and started setting it up next to it.
The rest of the group was headed back inside to start bringing out a few more things, save for Fatin who mostly just trailed along behind them.
"So you're the new volunteer, huh?" Leah asked.
"Yep," Shelby laughed, "I need volunteer hours for a scholarship."
"Oh, cool, where do you go to school?"
"UCLA, I'm a junior."
"Me too," Leah smiled, "I'm a writing major."
Shelby was about to tell her her own major, but then the cage she was putting up fell over. "Do you mind helping me? I don't think I'm doing this right," she laughed.
"Yeah, no problem." Leah showed her where to hook the two ends together and push it down into the ground a bit.
"So do you live on campus?" Leah asked after they had finished and began walking back inside.
"No, actually. My friend Becca and I share a little apartment."
"That's nice, I wish I had my own apartment. I decided to live in the dorms at the beginning of this year, but a month later I started working here and could finally afford one. I want an apartment so I can finally adopt one of the dogs."
"Becca and I were lucky, one of her friends graduated and she gave us first dibs on her apartment. Have you always wanted a dog?" Shelby held open the back door for her.
She nodded and responded, "Yeah, I've always had at least one dog growing up, so coming here was a change, but I'm hoping to get one over the summer."
"It must be hard, coming here and seeing all the dogs then," she analyzed.
"A little, but at least I get to be around them here. What's hard is seeing them come and go so often, even though I know they're getting a better home, I like taking care of them."
They rounded the corner as Leah led them through the shelter. Shelby wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, only to the conversation.
They found the rest of the group and Martha came up to her with her phone outstretched. "Here, take this. This is our website with all of our animals on it. Can you read through and learn a bit about each one in case someone is interested in adopting them today?"
"Of course," Shelby took the phone and smiled at Leah again before stepping off to the side to scroll through the list.
She glanced at the time as she did this and noticed that the fair was supposed to start in half an hour.
The other girls around her were talking about when it would be best to start bringing the animals out when she finished going through them all.
Rachel grabbed a few smaller complete cages from the supply closet and said, "We should take them out soon so they can settle down before people start coming."
The rest of the group nodded and followed her lead, picking up a few cages each and heading back out to put them on the tables they had set up earlier.
When everything else was set up, they broke off into groups to bring the animals out. Leah, Dot, Shelby and Toni were to get the dogs, while Martha, Fatin and Rachel brought out the cats. Nora was left to bring out the rabbits and birds, but there were only a few of them.
Inside the dog part of the shelter, Toni opened up one of the kennels and began to hand Shelby a dog.
Shelby blanched a bit and stiffened, stuttering out, "Uh- I-"
"What?" Toni realized she wasn't going to take him so she just closed the door and carried him herself. "You're not afraid of dogs, are you?"
"Not exactly, no." Her southern accent was thicker now too.
"So what's the deal?" Toni watched Dot leash a dog and walk him out while Leah did the same.
"I'm just not the best with animals."
"Then why are you volunteering at an animal shelter?"
"I need the hours for a scholarship," she explained, leaving out most of the details, as per usual.
"And no where else would take you?" Toni scoffed.
Before Shelby had a chance to respond, Toni picked up one of the smaller dogs and held it out to her, "Gotta start somewhere."
The blonde hesitantly took the dog and followed Toni out to the park, depositing who she recognized to be Jax from the website in one of the cages.
Quizzing herself, she remembered that he was 3 years old and that he did well with most other breeds of dogs except for very large ones.
On their way back in, Toni asked, "Would you rather help bring out the cats? It's really no big deal if you switch."
"No, it's okay. You're right, I have to start somewhere," she said as she opened up a cage and pulled another small dog out. She noticed how soft she was.
"Nala is a beagle mix," Toni said from behind her.
"She's cute."
Toni hummed, and Shelby noticed the whisper of a smirk on her lips.
"What?" she questioned.
"Nothing," she said, and then proceeded to end the conversation by walking out of the room.
Just when Shelby thought they were getting somewhere.
She followed her out and put the dog down. By now, all of the animals that would be out for the fair were, so all that was left to do was wait for people to show up.
The first few people to trickle in consisted of two girls and an elderly couple.
Toni went over to the two girls and started talking to them, it looked like they knew each other.
Shelby watched as the older couple walked around and looked at a few animals. She let them do this for a few minutes, but then she went up and asked, "Can I help y'all?"
The woman smiled at her. "You're very kind. We want a cat, but we can't have one that will run between our feet when we walk. We're not as sturdy as we used to be," she laughed and looked at her husband.
"Right, well I'll help you two out!" Her southern drawl punctuated every word as she led them over to the cats. "This one is Miso," Shelby pulled a grey cat out of one of the cages and held him up, "He's an older cat, so I doubt he'll bother you much. His claws aren't sharp, and he'll lay in your lap for hours."
The woman met her husband's eyes and a silent understanding passed between them. She turned back to Shelby and said, "He sounds perfect. Thank you."
"Alrighty then, if you'll go over to that table," she pointed to the one where Linh was standing and handed Miso to the woman, "she'll finish off the paperwork."
As the two started towards the table, Shelby called after them, "Have a nice day!"
When they got there, Linh gave her a look she couldn't decipher, but it was quickly forgotten as more people started to stream into the park and Shelby went to help someone else.
The day became a blur, Shelby went from person to person and watched as the other girls did the same.
Towards the time when the adoption fair was closing down, a man who looked to be in his 20s stopped by.
Fatin immediately went to the guy, and a few minutes later Shelby looked around and couldn't find either one of them.
Dot came up behind her, "Let's just say he wasn't here for a dog."
A few minutes later, Linh came out and told them that they were going to shut it down for the day, it was almost time to close anyway.
A good amount of the animals were adopted, but in the end they found themselves carrying back in a few.
Shelby carefully slipped a dog back into his kennel, whispering an I'm sorry and then proceeding to wonder at what point the little guy found a way into her heart.
It was sad to see the ones who didn't get adopted, but she noticed that Toni was going around and giving them all an extra treat.
Toni didn't see Shelby watching her do this, but the blonde girl began to see another side to Toni from that.
Shelby shook her head slightly and headed back outside to see if there was anything left to bring in.
As she passed Linh's office, though, she called for her to come in.
"Yeah?" Shelby asked.
"I just wanted to say that you did a really good job today."
"Thank you," she smiled.
"I'll see where I can fit you in over the next week. Can you write down your contact info here?" She held out a post-it note.
"Of course," Shelby quickly scribbled down her name and number, and then added her email just in case.
Linh hummed when she handed it back to her, causing Shelby to ask, "What?"
"The older couple, the one who adopted the cat you showed them, they've been to no less than three separate adoption fairs in the past year. No one else could seem to find an animal to make them happy. Fatin tried, Martha tried, Leah tried. But, in less than five minutes, you convinced them." Linh paused before saying, "You're a natural. We're happy to have you."
Shelby blushed a little. "Oh, well I just tried to find a cat that I thought would work well for their situation, it's nothing." Humble was her default.
Linh nodded and said, "Thank Martha for me."
"Thank Martha for what?"
"She didn't tell you?" Linh furrowed her brow and shrugged. "She totally went to bat for you, she's the reason I gave you a chance in the first place. I didn't think we had room for someone else, but I was wrong."
Martha had most definitely not told her that.
"Oh, well, I'll have to thank her myself then. Thank you, though, for giving me this chance in the end. I really appreciate it."
Linh smiled and stood, slinging a backpack over one shoulder and saying, "Just keep doing what you're doing. Have a good night."
After Shelby reciprocated and waved, she stood in Linh's office for a few more moments after she left.
Martha had fought for her. Linh hadn't wanted her in the first place.
So, all this time, whenever Martha would offer, she was also offering to put herself on the line for her.
Shelby sighed, not entirely sure what to do with this information but knowing that she could never fully repay her.
Martha found her a second later, "Need a ride home?" She held up her keys.
"Yeah, thanks," she smiled a bit wider than usual.
"Hope you don't mind, but Toni rode with Fatin and Dot this morning so she asked for a ride too, and she already called shotgun."
Shelby chuckled, "I don't mind."
It was either that Shelby chose to ignore it or honestly didn't notice it, but she couldn't tell you that her heart sped up a little at that.
Or maybe it was that she didn't know what it meant yet.