smoke • calum hood

vingt-trois.

twenty three: lucky

"merry christmas!" luke burst into adelin's room before the sun had even risen, because he was still a kid at heart and christmas was his favorite day of the entire year. it was adelin's too, but she was still going to tease him about it.

"not again," calum whined, throwing the covers on top of his head.

calum stayed at their house, just like he did last year. their parents were away again, so adelin wanted him to stay at her house so she could wake up in her bed on christmas morning.

adelin squinted as she looked at the time: six in the morning. "i'm going to kill you, robert."

"come on, grinch!" luke jumped on adelin's bed, almost tripping over adelin's legs while doing so. "we have to go to mali's soon, so let's do presents!"

luke scurried out of adelin's room, she figured to go downstairs and make hot chocolate for himself and calum and coffee for her.

"we should get out of bed, babe," adelin pulled the covers off of calum, revealing him with his eyes still closed.

"i don't know how he has so much energy," calum spoke with his eyes still closed. "it's amazing, honestly."

adelin chuckled as she got out of bed. she tied the strings of her plaid red and white pajama pants, the same ones luke and calum wore, because luke insisted they all wear matching christmas pj's.
he even bought them for her and calum. adelin loved that luke still made them keep their christmas traditions, and that he wanted to include calum in them too.

once calum finally opened his eyes and got out of bed, he and adelin went downstairs and were greeted with a beaming luke, waiting paitently by the christmas tree they decorated together. "i made hot chocolate for us, cal. and coffee for addy," he explained exactly as she predicted. "should we put on a movie while we do presents?"

adelin agreed. "i'm sure it's a wonderful life is on."

luke flipped through the channels, and sure enough, it's a wonderful life was on. luke turned it down slightly so they could all exchange presents without struggling to hear.

"addy, do you wanna go first?" luke asked, practically bouncing up and down. luke and adelin always prided themselves on being good gift givers, so any time they exchanged gifts it was always an event.

that didn't mean she wasn't nervous to give out presents, though. she was always anxious for things like this. she went under the tree, which had only presents for each other - their presents stopped giving them gifts a couple years ago, and just handed them cash - and grabbed two boxes for each of them.

"okay, these are for you, lucas," she handed him a big box that was wrapped neatly with a blue bow and a smaller box with a smaller blue bow. she then handed calum two boxes with green bows on the top.

luke unwrapped the big box first (obviously) which contained a new speaker that luke had had his eye on for a few weeks. "addy, you didn't," he gasped. "oh, my god, our music's gonna sound so good on this, cal!" he cheered, but then his smile fell slightly. "addy, this was so expensive, you didn't have to-"

"shut up and open your other present, lucas," adelin waved him off. luke always scolded her for spending a lot money on him, then somehow ended up doing the same thing. it made her laugh at this point.

luke carefully unwrapped the smaller box, which contained a watch. adelin saw it in the same store she bought calum's gift, and figured it was about time luke got a new watch for his adult job. "wow, addy, this is- wow."