Where to Find You [calum hood soulmate au]

Scarlett

"Holy shit! What is happening?" Brynn shrieked as I followed her eyes to see they were gazing at my hair. I quickly use my fingers to pick up the strand that was different from the others. I noticed the usual black color was no longer there. It was now a bleached blonde.
"Well, would you look at that," Brynn said significantly calmer than she was just moments before. "Your soulmate is alive and well experimenting with their hair. Man, I want to meet them so bad. Anyone who can pull of black hair and blonde has got to be attractive." I smiled to myself feeling giddy at the thought of my soulmate doing something out of the ordinary. I didn't have much time to dwell on the new change they had made in their life that also changed mine since I had to end my break and wait tables.
My Friday night shift ended sooner than I thought since we were dead for a weekend. it gave me time to go home to start writing an essay that I had been putting off for over a month now. it was quite my style to leave things until the last minute, although that didn't always benefit my grade. it was hard to get work done with graduation so close but finishing it meant finishing school work forever. I had set myself up with a December graduation due to testing and credits that I had received before school started.
Carson and Brynn went out on the town to give me quiet time to focus on the essay. as much as I would rather be doing shots at a bar, this paper had to be finished. All it would take was ten pages to end my college career.
The happy couple made their way through the front door not so gracefully around one in the morning.
"What are you still doing awake?" Brynn questioned coming to sit beside me on the couch. She glanced at the laptop in my lap before groaning. "Ew. Schoolwork."
"Yes, schoolwork. I have to graduate somehow." Her head rested on my shoulder with a slight hum leaving her lips. She couldn't care less about anything going on at the moment. She was drunk and happy. Carson had already made his way to their shared bedroom where I could hear slight snores coming out of the open door. I sighed to myself realizing that I should probably get some sleep as well.
"Hey, boo, you have to get off of me and go to sleep." I quickly turned the laptop off, standing up while gently moving her head to the couch seat where I had been. She let out a quiet groan as I let out a quiet laugh. She shouldn't have gotten wasted if she couldn't face the consequences.
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The others were still in the places where I had last seen them. I started a pot of coffee knowing that they would be wanting some once they woke up, and then slammed a few kitchen cabinets to do the trick.
"I fucking hate you!" Came Brynn's voice from the living room sounding like it was muffled in a pillow. I was happy with myself but made sure not to laugh out loud. She would definitely hate me for a while, but she'd get over it after she saw the breakfast I made. Sure enough, she came into the kitchen wielding a glare on her face, but once she saw the french toast, eggs, bacon, orange juice, and coffee on the table, she was in a changed mood. Carson joined in later after taking a shower in an attempt to wake himself up. There was no conversation happening as we ate.
"Do you guys want to go to California?" Carson spoke up breaking through the sound of forks hitting plates and glasses being sat down. I spoke up as Brynn was looking at him unsure of if the question was rhetorical or not.
"I'd love to. Just let me win the lottery first." I finished the thought with a snort as I grabbed my glass to sip some orange juice.
"No, I'm serious, Scarlett. The company I work for works with some airlines. For employees they're allowing us to get up to four place tickets for a steal. I'm sure we could find a cheap hotel," shrugging as he moved a piece of bacon to his mouth.
"Hell yeah. Let's go to California!" I shot Brynn a look at her loud volume and knew she regretted it when her face scrunched up with the hand moving to grab her forehead.
The discussion continued about the trip. I grabbed my laptop to start looking at hotels. We decided that it would be a great way to celebrate my graduation which was only three weeks out. It was a tough call on whether it was a good idea to go. Money was somewhat tight, but dipping into our respective savings accounts would give us enough to celebrate comfortably. We booked the tickets for the day after my graduation after we got approval from our bosses. We would be spending only one week there since it would be the week before christmas which is when we all went our separate ways to spend time with our families until new years. In the back of my mind I was hoping that maybe this was what I needed to do to find my soulmate.
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Three weeks passed by faster than I could imagine. I had to scramble to the mall with Brynn on wednesday evening after work to get a dress. I had successfully left it until the last minute and forgotten about it. luckily, I wasn't too picky and found a simple t-shirt type black dress. It would be under a graduation gown so how fancy did it really need to be?
It was the morning of graduation when it finally hit me: I was going to be a waitress, but at least now I'll have a degree! So much work goes into the piece of paper, yet I had found no one wanting to hire me. As much as I would hate to leave Debbie and the diner, it has to happen sometime. I hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
Brynn helped me with my makeup after I curled my hair. It still made my heart jump when I saw the bleached strand of hair that definitely blended in better than the pitch black. After Brynn finished getting ready we both grabbed our shoes: black-strapped wedges with black and white stripes on the wedge for me, and red heels for Brynn. We then made Carson take many pictures of the two of us before Brynn brought over my cap and gown to take pictures of just me.
Graduation was happening in the early afternoon st the small convention center in town. I didn't have time to find my family before I was being rushed backstage with all the other cap and gown clad people. The faculty gave us a quick rundown of how the event would work before we were ushered to our seats. Once I sat down, I glanced around to find my family in the crowd. I spotted them sitting with Brynn and Carson as they waved when I met their eyes.
Names were called after speeches were given by some faculty and students. It was time for my row of students to stand and walk towards the stage to wait for our names to be called.
Scarlett Sanders
I walked across the stage with a smile on my face as I took the diploma from the university president while shaking his hand. This is it. I'm officially graduated. I listened to the remainder of names being called before we all were congratulated on our successes and dismissed to find our families.
"Mom! Dad! Hey, guys!" I said approaching my family with my arms open wide. I was passed around from person to person in hugs before everyone started taking pictures. All my family deciding to go out to eat together and eat the cake my parents bought before Carson, Brynn, and I broke off to go to a bar. Carson agreed to be the dd which he was nearly every time we went out.
We'd each had three shots and were sipping on margaritas with our dude keeping an eye on us. He rolled his eyes as we placed our empty glasses on the bar next to his Sprite before Brynn was pulling me to the dance floor. The bar was filled with people from my graduating class which wasn't odd considering this was the only bar in town. We were dancing around in the middle of bodies whenever chills went up and down my arms with a shiver going down my spine. I was way too wasted to hear the song playing overhead. 'Say you want, say you want me.' The lyrics I didn't hear. The song I didn't connect to the chills. My hands in the air dancing without a care in the world.
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The hangover was something I anticipated, but didn't prepare for. There was only a short amount of time that I would be able to nurse it before we had to be boarding a plane. This was not a plan that we thought through very well. An aspirin, a glass of water, and coffee that I despised got me to feel a bit more human. I glanced at the suitcases sitting by the front door as I made my way to the occupied bedroom down the hall. The adorable couple was cuddled together but awake.
"Good morning my travel partners! It's time to venture outside the confines of your room since we leave in two hours. Plus, I made coffee." At the mention of the hot beverage, Brynn shot out of bed as quickly as a hungover girl could. She nearly knocked me over in the doorway to get to the kitchen, Carson chuckling as he watched his girlfriend go.
We opted for a drive thru with greasy fast food for breakfast on the way to the airport. We sat outside of security finishing up our chicken biscuits before doing the whole ordeal of checking bags before removing shoes and being searched as we went through security. After that, it was another thirty minutes before boarding started. We sat in the oh, so comfortable airport chairs waiting for our boarding group to be called. In a few short hours we would be stepping foot in sunny California.