#hoodos

Utah is a hiker’s dream. The kind of dream that lands you on the surface of the moon and a lifesize version of Candy Land. The landscape is just so beutifully bizarre and wonderful. It’s good to be back.

Four years ago, we visited Zion National Park to hike The Narrows. Late one afternoon, we decided to drive outside of the park to explore the surrounding area. We didn’t realize we were heading…

“We have to paint this whole house?!” “No, Cal. Just the living room and our bedroom.” Calum sighed, picking up a brush and dipping it into the paint. “….for now” I whispered. “What?!” Calum asked in shock. He wasn’t the handy man type of boyfriend, since I almost had to drag him with me to our new apartment to help me with the painting. We recently decided to move in together but the furniture didn’t come for at least a week and a half, so on the bright side, it allowed us, well, me, more time to figure out what colours would best suit our new home.

“Did you expect me to paint this house alone?!” I asked him. “I can’t do this by myself, babe. It’ll take me ages and besides, I need your opinion. This isn’t just my house, it’s our house, Cal” “Fine, but you’ll have to reward me later.” Calum said, smirking cheekily. “Seriously, is that all you think of” ”Well…” Calum said, slightly nodding. “Calum!!” “What? You love me anyways” “And what makes you so sure?” I asked, slowly walking towards him a trying to beat him at his own game. “Is that a trick question?” Calum asked, facing me as he realized what I was doing. “Well…” I said, closing the distance between us. “It depends” I leaned in very slowly, a few centimetres keeping us apart. Calum smirked and I could tell he liked this side of me. Little did he know I had another situation in mind. Just as we were about to kiss, I smudged paint on his cheek, causing him to yell my name in realization of what had just happened.

Before approaching him, I sneakly stoked my brush on my hand, leaving some paint on it. Calum imediatly tried to clean the paint off his ckeek but failed because the paint had almost dried.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop laughing at him and at his groans of frustration and his narrowed eyebrows. Calum looked at me with a serious face, but I could tell he was trying not to laugh. He stared at me and then at the paint on the floor and then at me. “Calum, no.” I said, backing away from him. He walked to the paint and bent down. “No, babe I’m so sorry please Calum no no” but he wouldn’t have it. He stared at me right in my eyes and dug his hand in the paint, covering his skin completely. He then stood up and walked towards me with a devilish smirk plastered on his face. I tried backing away but I hit the wall instead. I then tried fleeing to the door but Calum started running and cupped my cheeks, covering them with paint. “No no no stop Calum!” “You like that!?” Calum yelled and laughed at the same time. I just stood there giving him a blank stare.I pushed the hair that had fallen out of my ponytail out of my face and pushed him to the side, running to the paint. “Oh, it’s on!” I said, taking some paint and smudging it on his toned torso.

“Oh no you did not!” Calum yelled looking at my artwork on his torso. “Oh yes I did!” I said. Calum got even more paint and threw it at my chest. I gasped and threw some paint at him, starting the paint war.

“I surrender!” I yelled as Calum pushed me to the floor and hovered over me. We were covered from head to toe in paint and I was afraid we wouldn’t have enough paint left.  We were laughing our butts off from just our ridiculous appearences alone. 

"C'mon" I said pushing him off. "We have work to do."

"Babe c'mon it'll be fun!" Calum whined, pulling his signiture pout and puppy eyes.

"Calum I... Stop looking at me like that! Don't you dare give me those puppy eyes!" I said, turning around and avoiding his gaze. I hated when I did that. Those damn puppy eyes, I couldn't resist them. Calum walked up to me and snaked his arms around my waist, nuzzling his face in my neck and kissing it sofly.

"C'mon... I know you want to... I know you want to dance with me..." he whispered inbetween kisses.

"Fine! But you'll have to wait for me to get ready because I am not going out dressed like this." I said, escaping his embrace.

"I thought you'd say that" Calum said with a smirk and a wink. "And you can clutch on me for dear life if you decide to wear heels"

"Ha ha very funny let's see who's gonna be tripping and falling by the end of the night" I responded to his slightly sarcastic remark, whilst entering the bedroom we shared. I got ready quickly and made my way to the living room to find Calum on his phone with the tv on like always.

"Ready Cal?"

"Yep" he said, getting up from the couch and turning off the tv. He turned around and looked at me and smiled. "You look amazing" he said, putting his hands on my waist and kissing me. "Not so bad yourself, Hood. Let's go" I grabbed his hand and lead him to the door.

The club was on fire. Not literally. We walked to the bar counter and ordered a shot for each and drank up, feeling the string going down our throats and the warmth afterwards. I grabbed Calum's hand and lead him to the dancefloor and started busting some moves. "The sprinkler" was always our dance move of choice, followed by some other crazy ridiculous moves he both atempted to pull off.

The music started pounding and by instinct, Calum put his hands on my waist and started swaying to the beat of the song and I rested my hands on his chest, occasionaly moving to his neck. It felt like we were the only people on the world. Calum always made me feel like this: carefree and happy and loved; "Have I told you that you look amazing tonight?" He said in my ear. "Yeah" I said kissing his lips. We danced all through the night until the clock hit morning.