Author's Note: For the record, Kody is currently 17. He will turn 18 soon though. That quote in my summary is from him later on this year. It's gonna be a big year for him.

Chapter Three

After the show, Kody and all the other performers bowed before the crowd of wolves that had gathered to witness the play. When the curtain finale music stopped, the stage was swarmed by adoring and cheering parents, grandparents, and uncle's cousin's wives that just "happened to be in the area" at the time of the show. Kody, Humphrey, and the rest of the cast found themselves showered with way too much praise from giddy mothers that were "so proud" of their pups. "Where's my paparazzi crowd control?!" Kody shouted out jokingly.

"So Garth, what'd you think of the show?" Humphrey said approaching the big shot alpha.

"Ha! I wouldn't be caught dead with this on my face!" Garth teasingly smeared a finger on Humphrey's blush. He looked at the tip of his finger, which was now bright pink, and shook his head.

Humphrey rolled his eyes. "They made me wear it! That… that she-wolf! Annette! She's crazy! She put three pounds of makeup on the girls and two pounds on the guys!"

"Yeah, it was all her. Bet she put that lipstick on you too!" Garth playfully pushed Humphrey with his muscular arm.

Humphrey pushed him back.

"Okay, knock it off you two!" Kody said as he came between the alpha wolf and omega wolf. "Humphrey, my grandmother has makeup removal wipes if you want one." He held up a pre-moistened white wipe that smelled flowery.

Garth grabbed it. He sniffed it. "Smells as girly as him!" he said pointing to Humphrey.

Humphrey snatched the wipe and ran back to the bathroom to get the gunk off his face.

Garth shrugged. "I was just messing with him."

Kody rolled his eyes and turned around to see another wolf waiting, probably to congratulate him. The wolf had snuck up on him while he was speaking to Humphrey and Garth. The new wolf had grey fur and a strange scar over his left eye. "Um, can I help you?" Kody asked.

"Oh, sorry, where are my manners," the wolf spoke. "The name's Robert. Uh, really kinda liked your character. I mean, I remember when I wanted to run away from home like the guy you were playing did towards the end of the play."

Kody smiled. "Thanks."

"Yeah. You're welcome," Robert said. "Sorry, I'm a little…"

"Shy?" Kody tried to finish his sentence for him.

"Yeah, that," Robert chuckled.

Kody nodded. "So you're… a senior here?"

"Yes, I am," Robert said awkwardly shoving his hand-paws into his pockets.

"Oh. I'm a junior," Kody smiled.

"I know," Robert cut him off. "I mean, I remember seeing you in that surprise 17th birthday party you had at the beginning of the year."

Kody's eyes widened. His first impression of Robert was that the wolf was shy, but now he was starting to think the wolf was a little creepy. It was April and his surprise party was in August of the previous year. The fact that Robert knew him from there but had never bothered to say a word was a little weird, but maybe the wolf was just too shy until tonight. "Oh yeah," Kody contained himself. "Yeah Kierra makes a good cake and throws a nice party. Hey speaking of sugar, I'm headed to Dairy Queen… well, I will be heading to Dairy Queen if my mom lets me. Do you want to come? I'm going to see if anybody else cares to join."

"Sure. When do you want to meet there?" Robert asked.

Kody rolled his eyes. "Well knowing my family, don't plan to be there for another thirty minutes. It's the one at exit 221 off of I-40. It's 10:10 now, so try and be there by 10:40."

"Cool. See you then," Robert said as he walked away from the stage and back into the crowded auditorium.

Kody started heading backstage to take off his makeup, when his mom caught his arm.

"Kody, wait! We want to get a picture with you in your makeup and costume," she said as Kody's three sisters, father, and grandparents stood by.

"Ugh, mom! Can't I just take my makeup off? It's been itching for an hour already!" Kody whimpered.

"Oh suck it up for two more minutes!" Kody's mom said, handing her phone over to Kierra so the whole family could be in the photo.

Kody complied with the photography session. But then of course his grandparents wanted one with him, and his mom and dad wanted one with just him, and then each of his three sisters, Madison, Megan, and Katie, all wanted one with just him, and as if she could sense his suffering, Kody's mom wanted one with just him before finally he was done. Then Kierra grabbed his arm.

"Nope, not yet mister! One more!" she said.

"Oh not you too! What have they done to you, Kierra?" Kody said as he smiled while his father snapped a picture.

"Now with my phone," Kierra said pulling her iPhone from her pocket to hand to Kody's father.

But Kody did not complain for Kierra.

As Kierra checked the picture on her phone, Kody asked, "Kierra, wanna come to Dairy Queen with me and a few other wolves for ice cream?"

Kierra smiled. "I'd love to Kody, but I'm assistant director so I have to stay here and help load all the props and everything back into the trailer so they can have church service tomorrow. But I promise you we'll go to coffee on Wednesday after school, okay?"

Kody sighed. "Okay, coffee works too."

Kierra hugged him and then ran off to go help the prop crew load the trucks.

Before anyone could stop him, Kody darted back to the large closet from earlier to change clothes and take off the ridiculous amounts of makeup he wore! Then he ran to the kitchen and makeup room to grab his hair gel and hairspray before packing up his bag and wheeling it back into the auditorium. Only a fourth of the crowd from earlier remained, and half of that was just the stage crew cleaning everything up. Robert sat in a chair on the front row; he looked like he was playing a game on his phone. Kody had his phone in one paw and his car keys in the other. He strutted up to his family. "You guys ready to go get ice cream?"

"Ice cream?" Kody's mom asked. She looked at her watch. "It's late."

"Only 10:25! Come on mom! I've worked so hard this week with rehearsals every single night. I haven't gone to bed before midnight all week. You knew I wanted ice cream from this morning."

"I don't know. What time do they close?"

"Midnight. I already looked it up."

Kody's mom looked to her husband.

"Oh come on! If I can wait ten minutes through all your picture taking you can at least let me go get ice cream. You don't even have to come, just let me go!" Kody pleaded.

Kody's family finally started meandering to the exit. Kody looked back and motioned for Robert to come on. "So are we going?" Kody asked his family.

His parents kept walking, refusing to answer him. His grandparents stood to the side awkwardly.

Kody waited and waited and waited for an answer. He asked again. Finally he said, "Okay even if you're not going at least give me an answer! Is it that hard?"

"Yes go ahead," Kody's mom said.

"Thank you!" Kody ran off to his car, threw his bag in, and sped off into the night. Whenever his family was trying to decide on something, there was a mind numbing energy that radiated from them. They just could never make a decision! Kody joked about it and even nicknamed it "Decision Disorder - the inability to make a simple decision without excessive time and thought." He was convinced both his mom and his dad had a severe case of it. But getting anything done with them was a ridiculously difficult experience. Kody worried he'd lose IQ points and his mind processing power would slow down if he spent too much time with his parents when they were in that state. That's why he often stormed off quickly, just as he had tonight, whenever he had had enough or got the information he needed.

Ten minutes later, he and Robert were sitting at a table at Dairy Queen. Kody spooned the cold ice cream of a Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzard into his maw. "You know what I don't get?" Kody ranted. "I saw you get in your car after my parents got in their cars. We managed to get here before them, order our food, and start eating and they still haven't shown up yet. Are they that slow?"

"I don't know man! I practically just met you. Is your family always like this?" Robert asked as he licked the ice cream from his cone.

"Yes! It's horrible!" Kody put his paws to his forehead.

"Brain freeze?"

"No! Just a headache from stress. And barely sleeping this past week." Kody sighed.

"Insomnia?"

"No, nothing like that. Just being too busy to sleep is all," Kody answered.

"Wow."

Just then, Kody's mom, two of his sisters, and both of his grandparents walked in. "I better go say hi to them," Kody said as he stood up from the table he and Robert shared and ran across the restaurant to the ordering counter.

"Oh! Here you are!" Kody's mom exclaimed in a cheerful surprise, completely unaware of the anger and unnecessary stress she had caused for her son.

Kody rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you never told me if you were actually coming or not. You just told me to go ahead."

"What do you all want?" Mary, Kody's grandmother, interrupted.

"I've already ordered," Kody said.

"Oh. Well, I was going to buy your ice cream," Mary offered.

Kody laughed. "I don't think you know what you'd be getting into anyway, Grandmomma. I like the five dollar Blizzard treats, and then I like to add on extra flavors into one. It gets pretty expensive." He paused. "But, if you want you can buy me a Dr. Pepper…" Kody pleaded with puppy eyes.

"Alright, I'll get you a Dr. Pepper," she smiled.

"Thanks," Kody said. "Oh, by the way, I brought a friend from school with me. He's sitting over there at the table, whenever you guys want to meet him." Kody took the medium sized cup that the cashier offered him, filled it with Dr. Pepper, and then went back over to sit with Robert. "It'll take them a while to order, just you watch. They're so dysfunctional."

"All I can say is wow," Robert replied.

Kody and Robert watched as Kody's family argued, took forever to decide on what they wanted, and then finally made their way over to the table Kody had saved for them. Yes. They were that family.

As Kody's mom set the tray down on Kody's chosen table, she said, "Why don't we sit over there instead?" She pointed to a table on the other side of the restaurant, identical to the table Kody had chosen.

With a spoon of ice cream in his mouth, Kody cut his eyes and looked at Robert with a glare of Really? You've got to be kidding me. "Fine!" Kody pushed his chair back and strutted over to the other side of the restaurant, ice cream in one paw and Dr. Pepper in the other. Robert followed.

At the new table, which was somehow better than the other one according to Kody's mom, Kody's family managed to eat and introduce themselves to Robert before being told by a restaurant employee that the dining room was closing at 11, but the drive through would remain open until midnight. Minutes later, the wolves all left the restaurant. Kody and Robert exchanged phone numbers before leaving though.

Kody's granddad was in the car with him on the way home, and Kody found himself listening to classic granddad stories about all the crazy things he did on the farm as a young puppy. Kody just nodded and listened, and he was grateful for all the chattering. There was nothing to look at but the black of night and an occasional sleepy streetlight out in the middle of nowhere on the road from Nashville to Lewisville once off the metro interstate highways. If Kody had been alone in the car, he might have fallen asleep.

It had been a long day. Kody's body seemed to thank him a thousand times when he finally made it to bed after getting home. Kody slept without waking up that night.

Author's Note: Hm, seems our friend Kody has some dysfunctional family problems. Oh boy! Tune in next chapter to meet Kate and Lilly in this story! :3 Please leave me a review!