Chapter Four

4:15 a.m. Wednesday. Kody stumbled out of bed and slid the virtual button across the screen of his iPod touch to silence the screeching alarm. Why were alarm clocks always so much louder when you were dead asleep? The teen wolf tiredly groped around in the dark for the light switch. He flipped it on, flooding the long bedroom with light. Squinting and still groping about as his eyes adjusted to the light, the wolf grabbed his phone, a red Samsung Galaxy S3, and turned it on. There were no new text messages. But what crazed wolf would be texting between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., the time Kody had been asleep last night? Or rather, this morning. On one too many occasions, Kody did not really sleep, he just napped. Usually, it was because he had a lot of homework and had not had time to do it during regular waking hours because of a busy week. And the week before had indeed been very busy.

Kody typed a text message to Robert: Hey man, we should hang out after school today. Since drama is over, my last class ends at 1:00 p.m. Wanna get coffee? I think me and Kierra are going to get some wolves together for coffee, since all the drama kids will have an hour with nothing to do now that the play is over.

Kody then showered and trimmed the fur on his face. As he stood in front of his small bathroom mirror trying to think of what needed to be done before he slipped into his clothes, his phone vibrated. Robert had replied: First off, what the hell are you doing up? It's 4:00 a.m! Second, yeah but I should warn you I'm not too big of a coffee drinker.

Kody looked at the clock on his phone. Robert had exaggerated on the time to draw out the absurdity, but it was not yet 5:00 a.m., so technically he could be considered correct. With a smile on his face, Kody mockingly typed back: First off, I always get up this early on class days… it takes me a while to get ready, plus I have to leave at 5:45 to avoid Nashville traffic. Second, dude I'm in love with coffee! So is Kierra! You might be in with the wrong crowd. ;)

Moments later, Robert replied: Oh right, you live in Lewisville. Quite the drive for school. Anyway, yeah I'll go to coffee, but right now I'm going back to sleep. See ya at school. Don't text me, I'll text you. :P

Kody rolled his eyes, then made his bed and pulled on jeans. He then slid on a green plaid button down. This shirt in particular he was not crazy about until Kierra mentioned she thought it looked cool on him. Now Kody wore the shirt as often as he could around her, without looking suspiciously repetitive. Feeling more attractive than usual, Kody left a few extra buttons undone at the top of the shirt, showing off some of his chest fur. Subtle, but attractive if done right, he thought.

Downstairs, Kody set his backpack on the table, made coffee to go, and grabbed a quick bite of fruit and some oatmeal that his mom already had made for him. Usually, Kody hated his mom making food for him because he liked to be independent. But on school mornings, he needed all the extra time he could get. He thanked his mom, who then went back to bed, then he grabbed his lunch and backpack and coffee and dashed out to his car. He threw his phone in the passenger seat, hooked his iPod up to the stereo, put his coffee in the cup holder, threw his backpack and lunch in the backseat and drove off to Nashville. 5:50 a.m.

Later that morning during his 8:00 literature class, Kody sat next to Kierra and Robert. He leaned over to Kierra, "Robert wants to come to coffee later during the drama class hour. Do you want to come?"

"Sure," Kierra whispered. "I'm going to ask some more wolves during lunch. Maybe we could fill both our cars up."

Just then, the literature teacher, Ms. Sydney, squirted Kierra and Kody with her water spray bottle, which she used jokingly when students were not paying attention or were talking in class. Kierra squealed and squirmed and Kody jerked upright. "Mr. Wolfner and Ms. Kelly. Would you two care to join in on our discussion of Frankenstein or is whatever you're discussing more interesting? Perhaps you'd like to share it with your classmates."

Kody and Kierra shook their heads, both smiling sheepishly with droplets of water on their faces. "We're good," Kody smiled.

Two other students across the room snickered and Ms. Sydney promptly squirted them both with her water gun. But this of course made other students start giggling and snickering and before long everyone in the class had their chairs moved at least six inches and droplets of water in their fur. When Ms. Sydney tried to squirt a male wolf that had hidden under a table, she realized she had run out of water. "Oh darn it. Well okay then," she said as she sat back down at her desk. "Moving from… hehe…. well, moving from one monster to another… let's get back to our story." Wolves giggled at her corny joke as everyone re-adjusted their chairs and opened their books of the Frankenstein monster back to the appropriate pages.

"She's crazy," Kody mouthed to Robert.

Robert nodded.

During his "study hall," which was really just an hour and a half during a science class that he did not need, Kody sat in the lunch room typing away at his computer. He was emailing Annette, who, eccentric as she was, had become somewhat of a mentor to him over the past two months. "It's been three weeks since I first emailed Music City Talent," Kody typed out. "Would you recommend calling their office to show I'm genuinely interested in signing with them? Or should I just start looking at some other places? -Kody Wolfner"

Natasha jumped up behind Kody just then. "Boo!"

Kody jolted nearly spilling the bottle of water he had next to his computer. "Holy crap! What the heck are you doing?"

"I asked Ms. Sydney if I could go 'to the bathroom.'" Natasha replied. "Actually I was just really, really bored."
"You're a mess," Kody shook his head and sipped his water.

"I know," Natasha laughed. "What are you doing?"

"Work stuff, I guess. I'm trying to get a meeting with some talent agency, any talent agency at this point, in the Nashville area. Nobody's emailed me back though, probably because I don't have any professional experience."

"Ah," Natasha said, which is what she usually said when she wanted to sound like she cared when she actually did not.

Kody changed the subject. "Are you going to just skip class?"

"Nah, I'll probably go ahead and go back so she doesn't squirt me with her spray bottle later." Natasha said as she scurried off.

Kody shrugged and then turned back to his computer. Annette had emailed him back. "Absolutely. Give Music City a call, but go ahead and call/email a few other places. Let them FIGHT over you. ;) Been hearing lots of good things about Williams Talent Group lately. Might want to check them out. I hear they're FAITH BASED. Also, Cheryl is an old friend of mine and as far as I know, she still works there as one of the agents. Of course there's always my agent, Talent Trails. ;) Regge would love you. -Annette Smith"

Kody shook his head. He thought it was funny how Annette randomly capitalized things she wanted to emphasize. He had no idea who Cheryl was though. Or who Regge was, for that matter. Might as well try a few places, Kody thought as he closed his laptop and grabbed his cell phone. He walked out to his Jeep and sat in it. It was way too noisy to make a "professional phone call" in the school and there were a lot of immature wolves who had no respect for when someone was on the phone. After calling Music City Talent and Williams Talent Group, Kody found that Music City Talent would email him if they were interested and his call to Williams Talent had gone straight to voicemail. Gosh, this is like job hunting! You have to make twenty phone calls just to get an entry level position! Kody rolled his eyes and checked the clock in his car. It was almost time for the science class to end and that meant it was almost time to go to coffee! Kody's tail wagged as he hopped out of his Jeep, leaving his laptop safely inside his backpack in the locked car.

Back in the school, Kody found Kierra. "Hey, you still want to go to coffee?"

"NO! Gosh, Kody, no I don't want to go to coffee!" Kierra yelled, but she had a suspicious smile on her face.

Kody stared at her, waiting.

"I'm kidding. Of course I do. And my older sister, Kate, wants to come too. So does Garth, and you already have Robert coming. That makes five. Let me put my books away and then we can all just go in my mom's car if that's okay."
"That's fine. Five wolves in my Jeep is kinda cramped anyway."

Later, Kierra sat behind the wheel of her mom's Buick Enclave. Kierra had told Kody that her family called the Buick "The nice 'un" jokingly, since it was the nicest car they owned. Kody was in the passenger seat, Robert in the middle, Kate beside Robert and Garth was in the back.

As Kierra turned up the Christina Perri CD Kody had given her for her birthday, Garth spoke up from the cramped third row, you know, that tiny seat in the back of SUVs that's advertised to fit two or three full sized adults but actually barely passes as a seat at all for any sized wolf. That seat. "Okay, how did I end up in the very back? I'm six-foot-three and the rest of you are five-foot-nine or shorter!"

"Hey! You were the last one out here!" Kierra laughed over the music.

"I was fixing my mane!" Garth argued.

"Hey I understand that," Kody said giving Garth a thumbs up. He and Garth were always both very well groomed.

Robert sighed. "Keep your shirt on, I'll sit in the back when we head back to school. I'm only five-foot-six."

"No, don't keep your shirt on, take your shirt off!" Kate yelled out teasingly, giggling.

Garth shrugged and lifted his T-shirt up enough to show his almost eight pack abs and part of his pecs. Kate swooned and Kierra giggled eyeing the sight from the rear view mirror. Robert and Kody both rolled their eyes. "Girls," Kody said.

At the coffee shop, the wolves ordered their beverages and sat in lounge chairs sipping them. Kierra had a green tea frappe, Kody had an iced mocha espresso, Kate had a skinny mocha latte, Garth had a chocolate banana smoothie with two scoops of protein powder, and Robert had hot chocolate.

"We should make this a regular occasion. Like at least once a month," Kate suggested.

"Yeah, but there's only a month left of school," Robert added.

"What's everybody doing for the summer?" Garth asked. "I'm going to get a job so I can pay for a personal trainer."

Kate laughed. "You would do that, wouldn't you?"

"Well my parents said if I have a job and pay for it myself, they'll pay for half of it," Garth smiled.

"That's nice!" Kierra said, sipping her frappe.

"I'm going to work with my dad off and on at his company. And of course take care of the house and yard while he works." Robert said.

"What's your dad do?" Garth asked.

"He designs and sells weapons to the military, CIA, FBI, and the TBI (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation)," Robert proudly stated.

"Dude, that's awesome! You gotta let me see the facility sometime!" Garth wagged his tail getting excited.

"I'll ask him, but some of it is top secret. He won't let me in on some of the latest stuff," Robert said.

"Kate and I are going to be traveling basically every other week," Kierra sighed. "As usual. We have to attend a bunch of conferences all across the nation to help our mom promote her company and sell her stuff. It can be fun, but it gets exhausting."

"Don't you guys ever just fly to the stuff?" Kody asked.

"We could but we wouldn't have the trailer to pull all the literature and it gets expensive to fly seven wolves all over the country all summer long. Plus we would have to check extra bags full of books! It just cuts into the profits too much," Kierra replied.

"Ugh, I can only do so much driving before I get sick of it. We haven't had a family road trip in four years!" Kody said sipping his coffee.

"Our last one was like… two weeks ago," Kierra giggled.

"What are you doing this summer, Kody?" Garth asked.

"Uh, gee I don't know. I'm trying to get an agent still. I kinda hope that happens and then I can start auditioning for some tv roles. That would be cool," Kody replied wishfully thinking. "Cool if it happens but there's no guarantee, unlike pretty much everybody else's plans."

"You'll get one," Kierra said. "I mean, I hardly know anything about it but I have a feeling you'll find one soon. You've got some talent."

"Thanks," Kody smiled.

As the wolves got out of the Buick back at school, Kody's cell phone rang. "Hey, this is Cheryl from Williams Talent Group. I'm looking for someone named Kody Wolfner…"

Kody's tail started wagging as he listened to the voice on the other end of his phone.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay guys. My friends invited me to go to the beach with them kind of last minute "Like hey you wanna go? Cool we leave in three days." So yeah. There was a lot to do and turns out I have the best car for a road trip to the beach, a Jeep, so I had to make sure that was mechanically sound and pack while working two jobs. But hey, I made it work cause that's what I do. :D Also yay for having savings and being able to afford that! Now to just keep my tan...

Oh! My second agent from out of state finally got me an audition. So I have the first audition for them that I'll be taping this week. So yeah. That happened too. In state agent: 20 auditions. Out of state agent: 1. Yeah...

Speaking of agents, looks like Kody's got a nibble on his bait! :o Stay tuned.

Also, since Kate is now Kierra's sister, that technically means Lilly is their younger sister and Eve and Winston are their parents. I think that's how I'm going to leave it but I wasn't 100% sure so I just kept Lilly out of this chapter.

Since Abby's mom has a Buick, I can't resist. Has anyone else seen that commercial where the black lady goes "That's not a Buick!" and then the old granny type lady goes "Thaat's what I toooold hiimm!" It's what me and my friends say whenever we see a Buick now. Ha.

Yay for putting Garth in the back seat though. Humor. :3