Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest.
The third time you share tea, you become family.
The entire place felt like a fever dream. It couldn’t be real. It was too …
something, something that Wallace couldn’t quite put his finger on. He
stopped in front of the display case, staring at the message on the chalkboard,
unable to look away.
Unable, that was, until a dog ran out of a wall.
He shrieked as he stumbled backward, not believing his eyes. The dog, a
large black mutt with a white pattern on its chest that almost looked like a
star, rushed toward him, barking its fool head off. Its tail swishing furiously,
it circled Mei, back end wiggling as it rubbed up against her.
“Who’s a good boy?” Mei cooed in a tone of voice that Wallace despised.
“Who’s the best boy in the entire world? Is it you? I think it’s you.”
The dog, apparently in agreement that it was the best boy in the entire
world, barked cheerfully. Its ears were large and pointed, though the left one
flopped over. It collapsed in front of Mei, rolling over onto its back, legs
kicking as Mei sank to her knees—seeming to disregard the fact that she was
wearing a suit, much to Wallace’s consternation—rubbing her hands along its
stomach. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth as it looked at Wallace. It rolled
back over and climbed to its feet, shaking itself from side to side.
And then it jumped on Wallace.
He barely got his hands up in time before it crashed into him, knocking
him off his feet. He landed on his back, trying to shield his face from the
frantic, wet tongue licking all the exposed skin it could find.
“Help me!” he shouted. “It’s trying to kill me!”
“Yeah,” Mei said. “That’s not quite what he’s doing. Apollo doesn’t kill.
He loves.” She frowned. “Quite a bit, apparently. Apollo, no! We don’t hump
people.”
And then Wallace heard a dry, rusty chuckle followed by a deep, crackly
voice. “Don’t usually see him so excited. Wonder why that is?”
Before Wallace could focus on that, the dog jumped off him and took off
toward the closed double doors behind the counter. But rather than pushing
the doors open, it went through them, the doors unmoving. Wallace sat up in
time to see the tip of its tail disappear. The cable from his chest wrapped
around the counter, and he couldn’t see where it led to.