AN: Thanks for all the love! I'm really glad y'all are liking it so far. so this chapter is all Arizona POV, but our girls are meeting! this chapter is all about Arizona teaching Callie the ropes, kind of a filler chapter. I'm about halfway done writing the next chapter so hopefully it will be up by the end of this week. remember guys, first time writer, so be gentle! if you have any suggestions please feel free to pm me. let me know what you think.
Disclaimer: all characters belong to Shonda Rhimes and ABC.
Arizona's POV
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
I roll over with a groan and hit my alarm. With a yawn, I get up and stretch my arms above my head. I look back to the bed and see Daxton, My Great Dane, stretched across my whole queen size mattress.
It's Monday, and after a stress free, alcohol filled weekend, I'm ready to get back to work. I grab my phone off the nightstand and walk down the hall to the kitchen to start up my coffee pot. I sit down at the breakfast bar and start going through all my emails, when I get to one that catches my attention, I open it up and begin to read:
COMMUNITY SERVICE APPLICANT: TORRES, CALLIOPE
CHARGED WITH: CLASSIFIED
HOURS REQUIRED: 250
STARTING DATE: MONDAY, JUNE 5TH 2017
Ms. Robbins,
We have assigned Calliope Torres to complete her community service at Puppy Love starting today at approximately 9 a.m. feel free to work out the schedule as you see fit. Below we have attached all of Ms. Torres' contact information as well as the contact information of her assigned Probation Officer.
Thank you for opening up your business to us and the community,
Judge Anthony Chambers
Hmmm, that's really odd, I've never received one of these emails where the charges against the person are classified, I hope this isn't some crazy chick.
I put my phone down and pour myself a cup of coffee, then head into my room to get ready for the day.
It's a little past 8 a.m. when Dax and I pull up at our home away from home. I swear I spend more time at the rescue than I do at my house. I'm becoming the crazy dog lady! After setting Dax up in my office, I go about my usual morning routine of pulling out everything needed for the morning jobs. Teddy comes in and helps me some days but today she had other obligations, so it'll be just me, Dax, and new girl.
I glance at watch and notice that it's almost 9, so I head back up front and unlock the front door.
I'm sitting at the front desk looking over some paperwork when I hear a car pull up outside. Looking up, my eyes just about bulge out of my head when I see a blacked out Range Rover being backed into a park.
"Oh great, I can just imagine all the whining and complaining I'm gonna hear from this one. Spoiled rich brat, living off Daddy's money." I let out a sigh and roll my eyes. Standing from the desk, I walk towards the door so I can greet my new worker.
What happens next, almost makes me hit the floor.
The woman that is stepping out of that very sexy Car, is the same very sexy woman I couldn't keep my eyes off Friday night at Joe's.
"Shit, it's my lucky day" I mumble to myself as I quickly glance at my reflection in the glass of the door to make sure I look at least half decent.
What am I thinking? This woman is here to work off a debt she owes for committing a crime, she's not here to get your number! Snap out of it Robbins '
I watch her as she walks through the parking lot. She's looking around as if she is trying to find someone. She doesn't look like a trouble maker. That classified charge is seriously peaking my curiosity.
Opening up the door just as she is walking up the last step, I smile my best dimpled smile and say "Hi! You must be Ms. Torres. I'm Arizona Robbins, manager of Puppy Love."
Startled out of her thoughts, she looks up to me "uh, yeah. Please, call me Callie, nice to meet you Ms. Robbins"
Smiling back at me, she reaches out her hand and I take it onto my own to shake. So soft. So strong. What I would do to feel that hand on oth- NO! Down girl!
"You can just call me Arizona. So, Callie you ready to get started?"
"Ready as I'll ever be.. Oh! My probation officer gave me these forms for you to fill out. She said that you would know what to do with them." Callie pulls a yellow sealed envelope from the bag across her shoulders and hands them to me.
"Oh yeah, thanks. They're just time sheets and all that. I just have to put down the hours you work each day and sign off on it before you leave, basically a time card. We can go into my office and take a look at all this before I show you the ropes, how's that sound?"
"Sounds like a plan." Callie says with a small smile.
"Super! Just follow me."
I turn to start walking to the back, when a thought crosses my mind. Turning on my feet to face the beautiful Latina...wait, was she just staring at my ass?! Awesome!
Clearing my throat, I ask "you aren't scared of dogs, are you?"
Giving me a chuckle she replies, "I love dogs, always wanted one but my parents didn't want pets, wouldn't even let me keep the goldfish I won at my school's Spring Fling when I was 10."
"Well, that's unfortunate, dogs are amazing pets to have. My boy, Dax is my best friend. Come on, let's go so you can meet him!"
I turn back around and continue down the hall with Callie by my side, as I reach the door I say, "just to warn you, he's a big boy."
Nodding her head, I watch as her eyes go wide as she sees my giant baby sleeping soundly on my couch.
"whoa! You weren't kidding, he's huge!" Callie says as she makes her way towards my boy. Dax wakes up to the sound of voices and jumps off the couch, meeting Callie half way wagging his tail. I barely hold back my laugh as he lifts his head and gives her a big sloppy kiss right across the face.
"Hey boy, you're a sweet thing aren't cha?" Callie says laughing and wiping slobber off her face.
"He's definitely a sweetheart, but he scares the living day lights out of the lawn maintenance crew every. Single. time."
Finally, Dax has had his fill of loving from his new friend, and trots over to his bed in the corner of the room, with a sigh he's settles down and continues his nap.
"Alrighty, Callie let's see what we have here. Please take a seat." I say as I sit at my desk and open the envelope. "okay, so it says here that you have to complete 250 hours, but it doesn't have a timeline."
Sitting in the chair in front of my desk, she replies with "yeah, they didn't give me any set time to do the hours, but I would like to get them done as quickly as possible. The only demands the judge made was that I have to have them complete before I can start my internship for my new job."
This peaks my interest. "Oh? Where will you be working?"
"I'll be working at Seattle Grace Mercy West. I just finished med school and I was placed in their Surgical program."
"Oh wow, that's awesome! Have you picked a specialty yet?"
My question is met with a megawatt smile. Wow she's beautiful when she smiles.
"I have! I'm planning to go into orthopedic surgery, bones are badass!" realizing her choice of words she blushes and mumbles a "sorry."
Laughing I say "It's okay, trust me. You'll be hearing quite a few dirty words come out of my mouth, if you stick around... I've heard most people go into their Surgical internship not knowing what specialty they want, so it's pretty awesome that you know already."
"Yeah that's true, but I'm very confident in where I want to end up. Bones have always amazed me. Did you know, without bones our body wouldn't have shape? They support and protect our organs. Our skull is like a natural helmet that protects the brain and our spine protects the nerves in the spinal column. The ribs make a shield to protect our lungs, heart, and liver. it's all very fascinating how they all come together to make up a sort of armor for our body…."
Callie is sat her rambling on and on about things that I don't understand, but I can't stand the thought of interrupting her. Her eyes are lit up, hands are moving, and that gorgeous smile is still on her face-
"Crap! I'm so sorry Arizona, you probably could care less about all this." she says as a blush make its way onto her face.
"It's alright Callie, it's nice to see someone with so much passion following their dreams." I say smiling. "As much as I'm enjoying the small talk, we probably should get started though" I say glancing at my watch to see it's 9:45. "Alright, so our open for adoption hours are 1-4 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We take a select few rescues out to a booth we have set up right outside of Pikes Place, every other Saturday. Now, I am here Monday- Friday and even some weekends. I'm usually here by 8 to prepare for the day but the earliest we accept our Volunteers are 9 a.m. we usually take an hour and a half lunch around 12, then we're all here until at least 5 p.m. since you don't have a set time to finish your hours, I'm going to let you pick when you would like to come in each week. It's totally up to you as long as you're here at least 4 hours at a time." I say as I'm pulling out my set of keys from my desk drawer.
"Okay, sounds good. I'll probably be here more often than not. I want to get this done as quickly as I can so I can't start my internship." she says.
"Great, I'll warn you now, this is not an easy job. Of course it can be fun at times, but it's a lot of work, and you're going to get dirty." I glance down and see she is wearing a pretty nice pair of sneakers and say "nice shoes. You might want to invest in some rubber boots and a cheap pair of sneaks."
Laughing she replies with "good to know. I don't mind getting a little dirty though." she ends the statement with a smirk.
Is she flirting with me? No. No way is she flirting with me. She's probably not even into women.
Shaking my head to clear it, I stand from my desk "okay, if you'll just follow me" we're walking down the hall and I stop at the first door I get to and walk into a room with a wall of lockers, a couch, and a table with chairs. "This is the lounge, you can find a locker for you to put your things in, make sure to bring a lock in with you next time, so you can lock up all your belongings. It's just you and I here today, so your stuff will be fine."
Looking around the room, the brunette says, "okay sounds good to me." and opens up the first locker she gets to and places her bag in it, then turning to me with her hands on her hips she jokingly says "alright, what now boss lady?"
Chuckling at her I say "Now, I'll show you the ropes and we'll get all set up for morning duties." I hold the door open for her to walk out of the lounge and then lead her down the hall to another door.
"Okay so this is where the Kennels are, we call them runs." I say as I open the door. "They're inside/outside runs which means each run is half inside and half outside, separated by a doggy door." she follows me as I walk to the first kennel and point to the red numbers painted on the doors. "They are all numbered. Then Even numbered runs are on the left, odd on the right."
Callie looks down the row of kennels absorbing the information I've just given her, "does it matter what side I start on?"
"Not really, no. But generally, I like to just go down the left row and work my way to the very back then start on the right and do the same. Your welcome to do it however you like."
"okay, got it what's next" she says then turns to face me
sticking my hand through one of the holes in the chain link door, I pet the dog inside as he jumps up to get some attention. "Callie, meet Charlie. Charlie, this is our new friend Callie, so play nice okay?" I get a chuckle from the brunette and a playful bark from Charlie as a response.
Callie reaches out to rub behind his ear and says "nice to meet you charlie! You're such a handsome boy!"
Laughing I Pull my hand out to reach for the tethered wire cord at the top of the cage and pull it down to open the doggy door. "At night time we shut all the dogs inside, so the first thing we do in the mornings is open the runs up and shut them on the outside part of the run, that way we can clean the inside and put fresh food and water down for them" I explain while watching the hyper pup run through the doggy door and then I shut it."
"What do I do if they won't go outside?"
"most of the time they will, but if not, close the door, then you just put a leash on them and walk them to the outside half. Just make sure you put them in the correct run."
We walk over to the wall beside the doorway and I turn to face her.
"After they are all shut out, we'll take each of the dogs out on a leash into the fenced in grass area so they can take care of business, then put them back in the outside part of the run." I grab a leash from the wall behind me and motion for Callie to follow me through the door to the left. I walk to the gate leading outside and pull the keys out of my pocket to unlock it. Turning back around and walking to the first kennel I unlatch the gate. "Alright so if you'll just take this leash and loop it around this sweet boy's neck, I'll let you walk him out." I say handing her the leash. I watch as she opens the door and bends down. Mmm, that ass is just a nice as I remember.
Tearing my eyes away from the sexy site in front of me as Callie looks over her shoulder, but not in time for her not to catch me checking her out. I blush and she raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. Standing back up, she waits for me to say something.
Clearing my throat, I say "okay, now just walk him through the gate."
I follow Callie outside into the open area and stand by the door as she walks around with Charlie. I can't help but admire her from a distance. She's so beautiful. She's wearing a plain black V-neck T-shirt with blue jean Bermuda shorts that makes her ass and legs look amazing, finishing off her outfit with a simple white and green pair of Adidas' her beautiful jet black hair is pulled up in a bun on top of her head. Even dressed down, she's simply stunning. I'm brought out of my admiration when she begins speaking. She's looking out past the fence to the open fields and tree line.
"this view is amazing! It's so beautiful out here."
All I can think is 'Not as beautiful as you…'
Keeping my eyes on her I reply "yeah, the view from here is magnificent."
"I would love to see the sunset from here one day." she says as she's walking back towards me.
Smiling I say "yeah, it's a pretty amazing thing to see. Maybe one day we can come out here and watch it."
Giving me a shy smile and looking towards the ground, she says "yeah, I would that."
I would love it. Snuggle up under a blanket, little bit of kissing and-NO!
fuck! What is this woman doing to me? Work. She is here to work. Let's work.
"awesome!...okayyyyy, so now just go ahead and take Charlie back to his run."
She heads back through the gate and puts Charlie up.
"Always make sure you lock the run doors back after you put the dog back in the run, sometimes they can jump on it enough to undo the latch if they aren't locked"
"gotcha, want me to let the next one out?"
"yes ma'am! You stay out here, and I'll run back inside and shut the rest outside."
About 45 minutes later, all the dogs have been let out, so we walk back inside and start pulling out the hose for the power washer.
"Now that all the dogs are let out we'll come back in, and start cleaning and feeding. We use a power washer to power spray each run with special cleaning solution, I'll show you all that in just a minute. Then we squeegee each run and get as much water out as we can and dry what we can't with towels afterwards. After that's done, you get a clean bucket from that shelf over there" I say pointing to my left, "and fill it with water, and that shelf over there" I point to my right, "has the food bowls. Now most of our dogs all get fed the same basic dog food, but some have special needs and require special food or meds to be given, all the information like that will be written on the kennel card on the front of each run. All of the food is stored in airtight containers in the room at the very back of the kennel, that's also where you will take the used buckets and bowls so they can be washed and sanitized. After everything is clean and all the food and water has been put out, we let the dogs back in, and then we power spray the outside part of the runs. Once that's done we let the dogs run in and out for the day, unless it's extremely hot."
I'm watching Callie in amusement as she tries to take in all the information I'm giving her. She looks like she's about to blow a gasket. I chuckle to myself and continue "It seems like a lot, but after a few days you'll be able to do all this without even thinking, and sometimes we have more than one volunteer, so the work will be divided up. You and I will do all this together for the first couple of days to get you familiar with everything."
Shaking her head, "yeah it's definitely more than I expected it to be, but I think I'll manage… So, you do all this every day?"
Nodding the affirmative I say "Yep, every day. The morning routine is the most demanding, after all the cleaning, it's mostly a pretty chill job. You got lucky though, we only have about ten dogs right now, so it'll be pretty easy going. At times, we have up to 60 dogs back here." I say, trying to hide my amusement at how big her eyes just got. "So, now that I've explained everything, we can get down to business. Do you have any questions?"
"do you have a lot of people work here?"
"Well we have volunteers that come in a few times a week, and other people who have community service hours to complete. But other than that, me and a few of my friends are the ones who are usually here. The owner, Ms. Rosa, comes in from time to time, to oversee things, but she can't get around like she used to, so she leaves all the dirty work for us."
At this Callie starts fidgeting. What's that about?
"So, this Ms. Rosa woman, does she come here often?"
"she usually stops by a few times a week. Don't worry, she's a sweetheart, you'll love her!"
"I'm sure I will" Callie says with a smile.
After a short pause in the conversation, I flick the power washer on.
"alright, let's get moving. I have leftover lasagna in the fridge that is calling my name!"
"let's go then, wouldn't want to keep that lasagna waiting, now would we?" she says with a laugh. That laugh is music to my ears...
"Nope!" is all the response I give as I turn to start working.
I'm in some serious trouble
