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Dan’s job may not be the most exciting in the world, but he certainly enjoys it a lot. He works at an animal shelter, basically doing a bit of everything: he helps people take care of the animals, clean, organize and he’s also responsible for receiving the donations. His main job, though, is helping families to find their pets and the paperwork for adoption in the main desk.
It’s pretty quiet. Unfortunately, many people still prefer to buy their pets, so they don’t really have a lot of people coming over to adopt. “It’s more like people constantly abandoning their pets here,” he thinks to himself, disdainfully. He never understood how people could make a big commitment like adopting an animal and just giving them away like they meant nothing. “Heartless bastards”.
However, he gets to meet some interesting people. The volunteers are all pretty great, they give away their time to help the animals who live there and rescue others. It’s a really noble job in his opinion, and they have some regulars who help to clean and entertain their pets.
It’s funny because the first time Dan saw the tall blue-eyed boy walk in the shelter, he didn’t pay much attention to him. He just went in to play with the kittens for a while and walked back out later. Dan didn’t think he would come back, though. He was young and not really looked like the kind of person who he’d expect to regularly volunteer his time at the shelter.
He was surprised to find him there again within the same week. And this time his eyes lingered in the boy’s multi-colored ones and he got lost in them for a second. Dan found himself stuttering when he answered his polite ‘good afternoon’ and proceeded to make a fool of himself by dreamily staring at the door after him, thinking about sneaking up to look at the boy once more.
When the dark-haired guy came back around again, Dan had already learned his name from another volunteer, a nice old lady called Gladys, who laughed at Dan’s blush when he managed to ask the boy’s name. She was more than eager to help and tell him that he had excellent taste in men, since his mysterious crush was very sweet, according to her.
He wasn’t prepared for Phil to try to make small-talk with him though. He got flustered and made a fool of himself again, cursing his inability to flirt. Phil seemed to think it was cute, though, as he laughed and his tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth. Dan could hardly breathe at the sight, but the boy just left again to play with the kittens before he could say anything else.
This time Dan risked sneaking to the kitten area and observing Phil playing with the little furry things. He was so adorable with all these fluffy little creatures jumping around him, Dan could hardly believe his own eyes. Phil couldn’t be more perfect if he actually tried and Dan was pretty much smitten from the start.
From then on it only got worse. The routine would repeat itself each day: Dan would embarrass himself by trying to sound cool to Phil, who would then leave to play with the kittens. He came more and more often each day and usually stopped to have little chats with Dan, despite the fact that they never could continue much further because Dan always ended up blushing and getting embarrassed and Phil would laugh it off.
Gladys one day smiled mischievously and told Dan that Phil was coming more and more often not because of the kittens, but because he liked him as well. She said life was too short to keep being shy and that he should tell him how he felt and ask him out. Dan smiled politely and pretended he was actually able to do that, but the truth was he wasn’t brave enough.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when Phil came back again, making his usual small talk with Dan at his desk before leaving to play with the kittens. Dan, as usual, went to watch him from afar. He had no intention of actually talking to Phil that day, but it just happened.
As Phil got up to leave, Dan could see he was having some sort of trouble. Torn between remaining hidden and actually helping the guy, he realized that Phil was wheezing, breaths straining. He didn’t even hesitate anymore: Dan just marched up to the boy, despite not knowing how to help.
“Hey, Phil, are you alright?” He asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah… I just… I need to.. get out for… a minute” He said between heaving breaths, shoving his way past Dan back to the front of the shelter where his desk was.
“You can sit down on my chair. I’ll get you some water,” Dan said, trying to hide how nervous he was. He was not only talking to his crush, he was also terrified that he was going to collapse and die on him or something. He rushed off and got back with a glass of water, “here you go! It may help.”
“Thanks” The other answered, sipping the water slowly. His breathing sounded a bit better, but you could still hear the slight rattle of his chest.
Dan awkwardly waited for the boy to compose himself, nervously staring at him.
“Do you have asthma or something?” Dan asked, worriedly.
“No… I’m just allergic to cats” He answered, matter-of-factly.
“WHAT?” He couldn’t help but be loud, “what do you mean you’re allergic to cats? You’ve been here so many times!”
“But I really like them,” he answered, looking up at Dan, “and I can’t have one, so I come here to play with them.”
“Phil, you can’t just risk your health like that! What are you thinking?” He was actually angry that his crush was being so reckless, “Look, I can’t let you come play with the kittens anymore now!”
“Nooo, Dan! Please, I really like all of them!” He begged, shiny puppy dog eyes staring right at him, pleadingly.
“No, I can’t let you do that!”
“Ok,” he sighed, sadly, “I guess I shouldn’t have pushed it so much. If I hadn’t come here so often I’d be okay now and you’d never know.”
“Why did you do it if you knew that it would happen anyway?” Dan asked, curiously.
“Well, it wasn’t entirely about the kittens,” He answered, staring pointedly at Dan.
“What do you-” he stopped, suddenly realizing what he meant and blushing bright red, “oooohh, I… I…Huh…”
“You’re really cute when you get all flustered,” Phil laughed, tongue showing up again.
“I… Uhhh…” He tried to articulate again, but his mind was coming up blank, “I really hope you’re not hitting on me just to get more time with the kittens again”
Phil laughed at that. A full-on laugh that made him wheeze even more. Dan joined in, happy to have made him smile so much. Phil pulled out his cell phone, handing it to Dan.
“Can I have your number? Maybe we could go out for a coffee or something?”
“Yeah, I’d love that, actually,” Dan smiled, inserting his number and giving the phone back.
Phil got up from the chair and left a little while after that, waving rather awkwardly. Dan dreamily stared after him, not believing the turn of events. His phone buzzed a few seconds later and the message read:
“You’re even better than kittens ;3 Starbucks tomorrow? Phil xx”
He didn’t even think before answering yes.