REMEMBER // Calum Hood

Fifty // christmas

"Merry Christmas, sis" Aaron pulled me in for a bear hug as soon as I got out of the car with Duke in my arms "Pretty early, isn't it?"

It was. It was 6 in the morning but it was Christmas morning and I've always loved Christmas mornings, so I refused to wake up in Calum's silent house all by myself. It had been a drunk decision to drive to my brother's apartment at 6a.m. but it sounded like a brilliant idea when I discussed it in my head. That was until I got there. I had to call my brother to open for me, obviously waking him up and surprising the hell out of him for showing up unannounced. Thinking about it now, I should've gone home. Or stayed at the campus apartment where I could've gotten some sleep. Why didn't I think about that?

We had had a Christmas Eve dinner at the apartment the night before and everyone attended. Drew, Eric and Lis cooked dinner - Drew has been teaching her how to cook a dish or two -, Alec and Nate brought dessert and Jason and I took care of the drinks. It was so much fun and even Duke had a good time. I had to take Duke with me, even though it's against the campus regulation, cause it felt too wrong to just leave him by himself in the house. Especially because he looked extra cute in the Christmas jumper Calum bought him.

I still remember the first time I saw the jumper. Calum had just adopted Duke and got it at the store he bought the puppy's things. It was the last week of September and I remember thinking it was too early for him to be buying a Christmas sweater for the dog. Things went by in a blink of an eye afterwards so I guess it wasn't that early after all. It's funny when I think back to that day because I was so mad at Calum that I didn't want to see the image of him in front of me. But that soon changed when he showed up at my work to introduce me Duke.

"Oh, you brought a dog too" My brother commented while leading me inside the building "You do know it's 6a.m. right?"

"This is Duke" I introduced the two of them "Duke, say hi to Aaron"

My brother shares a small apartment with Tara in the heart of L.A., nothing too fancy but the locations is perfect. Before I moved to the campus apartment with the boys, I used to crash here a lot after late classes or parties. Aaron gave me the keys five times and I lost it all five of them, in fact, at one time I had to drink tea with Mrs Carlile for three hours until Aaron or Tara came home to open the door for me. It's all happened only 3 years ago but it feels like a whole lifetime - when I was nothing but an intern at Plus CO and Calum was just a bassist in a band.

"Try and get some sleep, sis" Aaron told me while he set a bed for me on the couch

"I'm a pro at sleeping on the couch now, don't worry about me" I said when he looked worried I might not be comfortable enough

"Still not sleeping in the bed, huh?" He concluded and I didn't have time to protest "We're going to mum and dad's around 10a.m. I'll wake you up then"

My brother gave me one of his T-shirts and I changed in front of him, immediately missing Calum's smell exhaling from the fabric. I made myself comfortable on the familiar couch, a place I have slept countless times before, and pat the space next to me so Duke would come lay with me.

"All good, sis?" Aaron asked before heading back to his bedroom

He was oddily in a good mood for someone that was awoken this early but I assumed it was the holiday spirits getting to him. I offered an excited nod before thanking him one more time. Aaron disappeared into the corridor and I closed my eyes, as an attempt to get some sleep. Duke was quiet beside me while I pat his fur and my mind drifted off to Australia. Christmas hadn't even begun for me but it was almost over for Calum. How crazy was that? He'd sent me photos of the gifts he got and also a very cute selfie of him and Mali wearing matching sweaters.