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Alright, here it is! My first attempt at a love story! Please enjoy!

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"Hey Cody, you awake?" he heard with a shake to the shoulder. Cody opened his eyes and looked over at the driver's seat. His friend Hobbes was laughing at him. "How are you doing sleepy head?" Cody wiped his eyes and stretched out his arms.

"I was doing fine until you woke me up you stupid tiger. Where are we anyway?" he asked as he looked out the window. He saw only one car in front of them and a whole lot of corn and bean fields.

"Well we're still in Minnesota on I-90 W. We should be getting to Worthington soon." Hobbes explained. Cody slumped back in his seat and sighed.

"You mean we've only been on the road for two and a half hours? It feels like we've been driving forever."

"Says the one who slept for the past two of those hours." Hobbes snickered. "So did you have a dream of some sort?" he asked, trying to make conversation. A look of confusion wiped Cody's face.

"What? Since when do you as something like that?"

"I don't know. Just bored I guess. Like, what do foxes dream about? What do you think about? " Cody chuckled. This was weird.

"I'm being asked what I think about by the guy who was named after a comic strip character?" Hobbes smiled and gave Cody a punch on the shoulder.

"Come on man, you know my parents love Calvin and Hobbes. It was one of was they learned English." Hobbes was a South China Tiger. His parents had come to the U.S. from China in the late 80's and had Hobbes later. Cody loved seeing Hobbes' parents, they were tiny little cats compared to Hobbes, who was about 6'3" and had muscles the size of China itself.

A chime sound began to ring from the glove compartment. Cody reached in and pulled out Hobbes' cell phone. He read the caller ID, it was their friend Jack.

"Hey Jack, what's going on?" he asked when he answered it.

"Hey Cody. Tell Hobbes we need to stop in Worthington, Eric has to go and Kevin wants something to eat."

"Alright, we'll see you there." Cody hung up and turned to Hobbes. "Jack says pull over in Worthington, Eric's got to go." Hobbes sighed.

"Again? I told him he shouldn't have gotten that 64 oz pop."

Hobbes pulled up into the Worthington truck stop. Eric pulled up behind him, parked, and leaped out of the car screaming 'TOILET! TOILET!' The locals couldn't help but stare. It wasn't everyday they saw a husky running around screaming 'toilet'. The guys all laughed at him, he was usually the one to make a fool of himself. Everyone else got out of their cars and walked into the truck stop. Jack came over to Cody.

"Hey there. You doing alright? You sounded out of it over the phone." The timber wolf implied. Cody put his hands in his pockets and kicked at the ground.

"Yeah, I had just gotten up. The dream I had didn't make things any better either." Jack nodded.

"You dreamt about her again, didn't you?" He asked, even though he was almost certain. Cody looked down slightly and nodded.

"I can't help it man, she means everything to me." His ears pointed back and his head dropped lower. Jack put his hand on Cody's shoulder. Cody acknowledged it with a small glance.

"It's alright man. We all know how you feel about her. So why haven't you asked her yet?"

"Well..."

Kevin walked up unexpectedly, carrying some jerky sticks.

"Hey guys." The coyote said "Here, I got us all some jerky. Don't say no cause I already paid." He joked. Cody and Jack laughed as they took their sticks.

"Thanks cous. Are you heading back out?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, I think we all should. Hobbes is already in his car and I think Eric is finishing up." Cody and Jack nodded. The three walked outside when Eric came out the doors carrying a root beer. Hobbes leaned out his window and yelled to him.

"Are you serious? When are you ever going to learn?" he joked. Eric just stuck his tongue out with a wink and got into his car. Cody started to make his way back to Hobbes when Jack put his hand on Cody's shoulder.

"This conversation isn't over bub." Cody gave a faint smile and continued walking. Hobbes revved up his engine and away they went, Eric and the others following behind.

A large white sign with Mount Rushmore on it read "Welcome to South Dakota". Sioux Falls was only about another 15-20 minutes away.

"Alright, we're almost there!" Hobbes said with a clenched fist. "Are you ready for this, bud?" Cody nodded with a smile.

"You know it."

The phone rang again and Cody answered it.

"Yo, what's up?"

"Hey Cody." It was Eric. "Can you ask Hobbes what our plan is when we get there? He never told us what we were going to be doing about lodging." Hobbes heard this and yelled so he could be heard over the phone.

"We're going to be staying at an American Inn. My parents booked us two rooms, so we can just divide up how we want."

"So two in one, three in another?" Eric asked.

"Yep." Cody could hear laughing on the other end. Eric silenced it and continued.

"Alright, thanks guys." He finished before he hung up. Cody put the phone away and sat back looking at the sky out the window.

"This trip is going to be awesome."

Both cars pulled into a large -and very full- parking lot in front of the Augustana College.

"Here we go." Hobbes said as he put on his red bandana. Naturally he had cut holes in the bandana so his round ears stuck out of it at the top. This always made Cody laugh.

"Dude, I think you just might like that guy a little to much." He said with a giggle. Hobbes gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder.

"Come on man! Lupine Assassin is totally awesome!"

"Yeah, but there's a distinct difference between his ears and yours in that bandana."

Hobbes got out of the car and opened the trunk. Cody followed to grab his cases.

"I don't know why you insisted on bringing both of those." Hobbes questioned.

"You never know which one you may need. Just be thankful I left the barri at home."

"Yeah I guess you're right. But if you only played one instrument like me you wouldn't need to worry about that."

"Hey, a trumpet's one things but if you know how to play one sax, you know them all."

Cody and Hobbes looked around and found were the others had parked. Jack was getting his trombone case out of the trunk when Kevin spotted the two coming.

"Hey, there they are! Glad to see you could make it!" he played. Eric saw Cody's cases.

"You brought your alto AND tenor?" he asked.

"Yep, just to be safe."

"Well," Jack started "Shall we make our way inside?" They all nodded and began heading for the door. Cody started to fall behind with bearing the weight of his instruments. It wasn't all that much to carry, but he was a small fox. Eric came up from behind and snatched the tenor sax.

"Looks like you could use a little help." he said with a wink. The boys started to race, seeing who could get there faster while carrying the weight of their instruments. Kevin won of course because he wasn't carrying anything.

The inside of the frontal lobby was packed. People everywhere were carrying their instruments, food, or just standing around talking. A large banner hung from the ceiling, it read: "Welcome Jazz Artists". They made their way to the front desk were they checked them selves in. The lady at the desk said their school wasn't expected until tomorrow, so they could just watch the other groups today.

"Tomorrow?!" Eric whined as they walked back to their cars. "I thought the whole point of driving our selves was so we didn't have to ride that bus not get here a day early!"

"Eric calm down." Jack said. "It's good we got here early, now we've got a day on the town. Sioux Falls is a pretty interesting city."

"Yeah well could we at least check into our hotel? I'm kind of tired." asked Kevin. Hobbes scratched his chin.

"Well, they're not expecting us until later, but I don't see why not." Eric wagged his tail and began to run to his car.

"Hotel bed here I come!" The boys all laughed, he was the one you just had to love.

They all arrived at the hotel with almost no problems -beside the fact Hobbes got lost on the way there, leading them out of the city- and checked into their rooms. It was decided that Eric, Kevin and Hobbes would share one room and Cody and Jack the other. The two rooms were right next door to each other and were connected by an in-room door. Cody set his bag and instruments at the end his bed and plopped down onto his back.

"Oh what a long day!" he said as he buried his face in his hands. Jack chuckled as he set his things down.

"Long day, huh? I heard you slept most of the way here." Cody smiled and exposed an eye.

"Yes, but when you sleep, you dream."

"Aye? And what exactly did you dream about?" Cody covered his eye again.

"I knew you were going to ask that." He let out a small sigh and sat up. "I dreamt about her."

"Well that much is obvious, what specifically?"

"You know, just, HER. That's all there is to it. Seeing her, being with her, just her. I know it sounds stupid but I'm just going crazy over her."

"So... do you think you're in love?" Jack asked, not sure what to say.

"You know, I think I am. I know we're only 18, but I think I understand it." Jack sighed as he sat on his own bed.

"So why haven't you asked her?" Cody sat on the edge of his bed; he looked down at his folded hands. His ears were pointed back.

"I don't know how. I've never asked anyone before. I've never had a girlfriend, never even been on a date. You can't expect me to just ask out of the blue."

"You're right, I can't. But you can't just keep putting it off all the time. Things can happen, Cody. She's an attractive young fox; someone could snatch her up before you know it. And you know, she's really into you too." One of Cody's ears rose. "I've talked to her, she likes you too. A lot. She's just as surprised as the rest of us. You've both been great friends since middle school. We all know that, we've watched you grow over all these years; we can tell you both grew increasingly close." Cody looked over at Jack with a blank face. This wolf knew what he was talking about.

"You're right; we have been friends for a long time. When high school started we just kind of started liking each other that way. I don't know what happened, it just did. I'm just such a coward. I don't know where to start, or where to go with it. I don't feel like I'll be able to give her what she needs." Jack knelt down in front of Cody.

"Whatever you choose to do Cody, she will still love you. It doesn't matter if you're the biggest screw up in history, or the worst man on the planet, she will still love you. You could be ugly, handsome, rich, poor, it doesn't matter." Jack put his hands on Cody's shoulders. "Once you realize this, you will be ready." Cody looked deep into Jack's eyes. He knew Jack was trying to help. He knew they all were, but they just didn't understand. They never would. They couldn't.