The weekend after her appointment with Dr. Pierce is the one she has chosen to get her friends back in the loop of her life. She doesn't know yet how she is going to tell them that she is getting a divorce because she is gay and that she might be facing a breast cancer diagnose, but she'll burn bridges as they come. She has chosen the weekend because she is organizing an event at the shelter, and afterwards she always takes her friends to dinner, since they always help and never ask anything in return. A talk over some great food sounds like a plan.
See, that's how she makes money. She does not get any benefit from the adopted animals, and in the beginning it was a lot of a struggle, because she does pay for all veterinarian expenses needed, and food, and toys and for having the best infrastructure possible, but she does have one talent. Well, more than one, but one that helps in her career specifically: she could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. She is very well spoken, very persuasive, and with a couple of marketing courses here and there, she can sell anything, whether it is something physical, or an idea, anything. She started offering the shelter for small events, and when people (and psychology) noticed that being around animals was good for the health, everything started peaking. Now she hosts events almost every weekend, she has a company that has business meetings at the shelter every Wednesday to improve the employee's mental health and productivity, and she has more than a couple very generous donors. As I said, she makes a lot of money.
This weekend it's a sports event for children. Santana does have a very big yard behind the shelter, she uses it for dog training usually, and for some of this events too. In this occasion it's a two for one kind of thing. In the morning she'll be hosting football and soccer tryouts for children between 5 and 15 years old, there will be recruiters from all around the country coming, and it will be great. Then afterwards all the children and their families will have free access to the shelter to walk the dogs, play with the puppies, give treats to the cats or chase the ferrets; anything they want to do. They will also have a lunch break, Santana has ordered catering service, as she does for every event. And in the afternoon she and the kids will be hosting an Open Doors Day and an adoption fair. She is a great seller, but who could say no to a begging child with a cute little puppy between their arms asking you to take the dog home? Yeah, me neither. Works like magic. While the kids focus on helping getting animals adopted, Santana can focus on the big conversations to get more donors, or more event projects, or more companies wanting to benefit of the company of the animals. It's a win-win situation for everyone.
The morning starts great. Santana has everything ready when her friends arrive, all on time - which does not happen often - and they start taking chairs and tables outside to the yard so the recruiters and the children's families can sit. All together they also bring out all the material they need: balls, nets, cones, goals. Santana has a lot of stuff stashed. Again, in the beginning of everything she had to buy all the stuff needed for every event, but now, after so many years, it's very rare the occasion when she needs to buy something. She usually has to when something breaks or stops working, but that's about it. Anyway, they finish getting everything ready right when the first set of recruiters arrive.
Santana is dressed somewhere between business-y and casual, since it's an outdoor event after all, and later there will be a lot of running, and playing, and animal fur and paws involved. She is wearing tight grey jeans, black horse riding boots, a grey thermal long sleeved t-shirt and a black blazer. Her hair is neatly tied up in a high ponytail, and for some reason she put a little bit extra effort on her make up this morning, leaving herself with pristine smoky eyes and a red lip gloss that make her lips look bigger and puffier.
She greets the recruiters politely, offering them some coffee or water while everybody else starts arriving. Soon everything is motion. The kids are having words with trainers, the recruiters are observing, the families are cheering, and Santana and her crew just keep moving things from one place to another, only stopping to enjoy the tryouts for a couple minutes. Man, the kids are talented. Those recruiters are going to have a hard time.
When Santana comes out of her office after having to take a phone call, she sees Quinn talking to a blonde woman. She is giving her back to Santana, so she doesn't recognize her immediately, but there is something that strikes the brunette as familiar. Might be those fantastic long and lean legs she is very obviously ogling at.
"Mrs. Lopez!"
That takes her out of her own fantasy world. When she looks up, she turns like seven tones paler than she is. The blonde has turned around and is looking at Santana with that fantastic smile of hers and a little bit of mischief in her eyes. Santana's staring might have been a little too much, a little too obvious.
"Dr. P-p-pierce..." She stutters and mentally kicks her own guts for acting like a teenager. She has more game than that, she swears.
"You two know each other?"
Santana had forgotten Quinn was even there and when she turns her head to look at her, it's so fast and abrupt that she almost gets a whiplash.
"Barely." She quickly answers and hopes that Brittany doesn't say anything else.
When she doesn't, Santana almost sighs out loud in relief as she turns her head again, softly this time, towards Brittany.
"What brings you here, Dr. Pierce?" She asks curiously.
"Please, call me Brittany." She says offering Santana a cute smile as she tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I was just telling Quinn I brought my godson to the tryouts, his parents both had to work today." She explains and Santana nods softly as a sign that she had been listening and not just ogling creepily at her (it felt a little like that). "What about you, Mrs. Lopez?" She asks next.
This time, Santana smirks.
"I'm the owner." She says proudly.
"Oh." Is all she gets as a verbal answer, but she can almost see how Brittany's blue eyes start transforming into a heart shape.
"Santana..." Quinn says with a deep frown. She has watched the whole exchange and has no idea what is going on, but it looks like Santana is... "Nevermind." She adds shaking her head and grabs Brittany by her arm. "Look, Leo is about to go up, lets go watch him."
Soon Quinn is dragging Brittany away from Santana, but the blonde looks back halfway, finding Santana still looking at her and she waves her hand childishly, to what Santana just scoffs before turning around and busying herself with the first thing she finds.