Cody learns to live

Chapter 15

  Cody was having a good time. He wasn't really focusing on the movie they were watching. Obi-Wan was quite the distraction. He wasn't even doing anything, he didn't have to. Lying on the couch with his head pillowed on Cody's lap was enough to get Cody's attention.

  Obi-Wan snorted at something that was happening on the screen. Cody tore his gaze away from Obi-Wan to look at the screen. By the looks of it, one of the protagonists made a huge mess in the kitchen. The other protagonist came and they started making out in a pool of tomato sauce because of course they did, it was some romantic bullshit. They should've watched something with more action instead.

  "I might try that," Obi-Wan joked.

  "Do that to my kitchen and you're sleeping on the couch."

  "I always sleep on the couch when I'm staying here."

  "Fair enough." How did Cody forget that detail? They were just settling in comfortable silence when Cody's phone buzzed. He reached for it.

  "Just ignore it," Obi-Wan told him.

  "I can't just ignore it, what if the kids ran into trouble?" Cody worried. They should be fine, they were in a large group, Fox was with them to make sure they didn't do anything too crazy and on top of that, ba'buir was shadowing them. But what if something happened? Cody looked at the screen.

  "So? What is it?"

  "Just a message from Fox," Cody answered as he read the message. "He says that they'll bring a surprise but won't tell what it is. I hope it's nothing too bad. And he's asking if we're enjoying ourselves."

  "I think we are."

  "That's exactly what I messaged him." Cody kept looking at the screen for a bit longer as he saw Fox was typing. Fox send him an emoji off an eggplant, then the green icon next to his profile picture turned gray as he went offline. What the heck was it supposed to mean?

  "Good. Now put that phone away?"

  "Sorry. I'm just unable to ignore anything when it's about the kids."

  "Don't apologize. I would've checked it out too if they messaged me. You have every right to be worried."

  "Let's resume in enjoying our quiet evening," Cody suggested as he brushed his fingers through Obi-Wan's soft hair. The other man looked content, he even arched his back slightly, like a giant tooka. "Do you like that, mesh'la?"

  Obi-Wan just hummed affirmatively. Cody took it as a sign to keep stroking his hair.

  Cody expected a lot of things from the kids returning from trick or treating. Excitement, bags full of candy, the seemingly endless energy that kids got from eating sugar... He didn't expect Jesse to shove a tooka into his arms.

  "What's that?"

  "A tooka," Fives informed him. Cody knew that much.

  "And why did you bring it?"

  "It was meowing super loud so I pet it and then it followed us," Kix explained. "We have to keep it, Cody."

  "Kix, we can't just bring home animals we find outside."

  "What if Balls needs home?" Echo asked. Either he mispronounced something, or Cody misheard something, or Echo said something about balls.

  "Did you say something about balls?"

  "That's it's name!" Fives explained cheerfully.

  "You named this tooka... Balls?" Cody had many questions but right now, the main one was: 'What the actual kriff?'.