My chest does something stupid and painful. I sit there for another five minutes, hand still out, waiting. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at me again.
Barb appears in the doorway. “Don’t take it personally,” she says gently. “He does that with everyone.”
“Right.” I stand up, brushing concrete dust off my jeans. “Of course.”
I drive home telling myself it’s fine. He’s a dog. A dog I don’t need and wasn’t looking for. There’s no reason for my eyes to be stinging.
I go back the next day.
This time I don’t try to talk to him. I just sit on the kennel floor with a book and read. Ruffy lies with his back to me, same as before. But after twenty minutes, his ear starts twitching every time I turn a page.
I read for an hour. He never turns around.
The third day, I bring a sandwich. I eat my half and leave the other half on the floor between us. When I come back from talking to Barb about adoption paperwork—just in case, just to have it ready—the sandwich is gone.
On the fourth visit, I don’t bring anything. No book, no food, no speech. I just sit.
Ruffy turns around.
Not all the way. He shifts so he’s facing sideways, one eye on me, one eye on the wall. Like he’s giving himself an escape route. Like he wants to look but isn’t ready to commit to it.
“Hey,” I whisper.
His tail uncurls. Just a fraction. Just enough that I notice.
I sit there until the shelter closes. Neither of us moves.
On the fifth day—a Tuesday, overcast, the kind of gray afternoon that makes everything feel suspended—I sit down in my usual spot and Ruffy stands up.
He crosses the kennel. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he’s been thinking about this and has finally reached a decision he’s comfortable with.
He sits directly in front of me. Close enough to touch. Not quite touching.
His eyes say:Well? Are you serious about this or not?
I hold out my hand, palm up.
Ruffy sniffs it, considers, and makes his choice.
He leans his entire body weight against my side, nearly knocking me over, and heaves a sigh that seems to come from his soul.
Finally,that sigh says.Someone who gets it.
“Oh,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him. “Okay. Yeah. We’re doing this.”
Barb finds us like that ten minutes later. Her eyes aresuspiciously shiny.
“Five days,” she says. “I’ve never seen him warm up to anyone. Not in eight months.”
“He just needed someone who’d keep showing up,” I say, my voice muffled by his magnificent fur.
Barb pulls out the paperwork. I don’t even look at the adoption fee.
Ruffy takesto the flower shop like he was born there.
I bring him in the next morning, not sure what to expect. He’s only been home one night—a night spent with him sleeping at the foot of my bed like a furry guardian, occasionally lifting his head to make sure I was still there.
But the moment we walk through the door of Petals & Promises, something in him settles. He sniffs the perimeter, inspects every corner, and finally claims a spot behind the counter where he can see the door and the entire shop floor.
