Two days later, Jace was showing last night's dalliance out to the hallway at the same time that the mousey-looking boy who helped Clary move in, was knocking on her door. The boy pushed his glasses up his nose and openly gaped at the gorgeous brunette now making her way down the stairs. "How…" he trailed off. Jace simply smirked, crossing his arms and leaning against his doorway.
Jace straightened up quickly when Clary opened her door, and she glanced from the girl rounding the landing below and back to her drooling friend. After a minute, when he still hadn't torn his gaze from the brunette's direction - even though you couldn't see her anymore - Clary pointedly cleared her throat. "Good morning, Simon. Jace," she nodded in his direction.
"Good morning, Neighbor," Jace greeted cheekily.
Simon finally seemed to snap out of his daze and rushed forward to embrace Clary, though the hug lasted a bit longer than Jace thought was necessary. "Sorry, morning Clary," he mumbled as they broke apart.
Clary turned back toward Jace, and as he took in her tight, black leggings, tie dye shirt, and messy ponytail, he couldn't help but think that Simon was an idiot for directing his gaze elsewhere. There was a sort of easy, natural beauty about her, that was hard to find amongst the high-fashion model-types of the city. Maybe it wasn't the "look" magazines went for, but something about her was the kind of pretty that was just mesmerizing, and had a warmth that felt a lot like home. Unfortunately, he spent a little too much time admiring said beauty, and not enough time listening, as she was now staring at him with her eyebrows raised, an expectant look on her face.
"Sorry, what," he asked, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
He almost thought he saw her looking at the bicep of his raised arm for a moment, but he blinked and she was just smiling warmly at him, shaking her head, so he figured he must of imagined it. "I was just asking if you wanted to cash in that rain check for breakfast? Though we're dining in this time."
Jace gave her a teasing grin and looked her up and down suggestively, "That depends. What's on the menu?"
Clary pretended to think this over, bringing her hand to her chin and furrowing her brow. "Hmm, well, I was going to offer French toast, bacon, and coffee," she trailed off momentarily before smiling sweetly up at him," but if you're concerned that it might not be up to your standards, I could always go consult Mrs. Tripler. You know, see if she has any other recipes for me to try?"
Jace put his hands out in supplication, "French toast and bacon sounds GREAT! Perfect, really." Clary laughed and gestured him and Simon into her apartment. Jace followed, muttering under his breath about evil women, and something about a permanently bruised shin.
Fifteen minutes later, they were all gathered around Clary's small kitchen table and the silence probably should have felt at least a little awkward, but Jace couldn't bring himself to care. He was too busy restraining himself from actually moaning aloud, as he took another syrupy bite of the French toast. Jace couldn't remember the last time he sat down and ate a real breakfast, as opposed to grabbing a coffee and some jerky on his way out the door to the station, but he didn't remember French toast being this good. He vaguely registered a soft ding and Clary getting up from the table to get something out of the oven, but his mouth dropped open, a bit of syrup dribbling down to his chin when the smell of freshly cooked bacon wafted over to him. Simon scoffed at him. "The way you're drooling, you would think you've never had breakfast before," he said, giving Jace a condescending look.
Jace quickly wiped his mouth, but raised an eyebrow and pointedly stared at the large syrup stain on his gamer t-shirt, until it registered with Simon, and he flushed red and returned to stabbing at his breakfast while staring angrily at his plate. At this, Jace leaned back in his chair, smirking over his cup of coffee. "The way you were drooling at what I usually have in the mornings indicates that we have different routines."
Simon choked a bit on his food and hastily reached for his coffee, trying to soothe his throat. Clary was setting down the bacon on the table, but slapped Jace's hand away as he reached for it. "Play nice," she admonished.
Jace quickly snatched a piece before she could slap his hand away again. "I think you like it better when I don't," he teased.
"Jace," she warned.
"No Clary, it's okay," Simon chimed in, greedily scooping up half of the bacon causing Jace to glare at him. "Really, I'm just impressed that girls will actually walk up five flights of stairs to hook up with such a giant ass."
"You're right that I'm rather impressive, but I think you'll find that's not the body part that they refer to as giant," Jace retorted.
Clary let out what sounded like a short yelp before hiding her face in her napkin, and Jace knew his smile was smug, but couldn't bring himself to care as he watched her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
That Tuesday, Jace was back at Clary's to start the movie marathon she had promised him the night of the blackout. Luckily, he wasn't on call this Halloween, so he had the entire day to relax, or in this case get an education (a "Hallocation," as Clary called it) in Halloween movies. He didn't think it was strictly necessary, but he really didn't have anything else to do, and he knew from the three years that he had lived in this building that there would be no trick-or-treaters to worry about. Apparently, kids didn't want to walk up 5 flights of stairs for their candy. Jace didn't blame them and honestly thought it was part of the appeal of his apartment.
According to Clary, Simon would be joining them later that night when he was done with his classes. Jace asked Clary if she had any classes that day, remembering the NYU t-shirt she had been wearing when she moved in. A weird look he couldn't decipher crossed her face, but then she just shook her head and went back to trying to decide which movies they would need to see. If she had her way, they would have started the movie marathon with breakfast, but despite the pleasantness of last Thursday, Jace insisted that any day off where he was up before 10:30am was a waste of a day off. After arguing the point for a few minutes, she finally seemed to realize that Jace was not going to prioritize Halloween movies over sleep and agreed to start at noon. Though she did threaten, since they were starting "so late" and he would have no excuse with living next door, that if he was even a minute late, she wouldn't share any of the snacks with him. Jace rolled his eyes at that, but found himself knocking at her door at 11:55am. Clary could eat a surprising amount for her size after all.
Clary opened the door almost immediately, but then paused and seemed to scrutinize his appearance. "That's what you're wearing for a movie marathon?"
Jace glanced down at his jeans, sneakers, and fitted black t-shirt. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"Jace, we're going to be watching movies all day. Don't you want to be comfortable?" Jace glanced at her, registering that she was wearing flannel pajamas and those fluffy slipper socks again, with her hair piled on top of her head, a large clip just barely holding her thick mane of curls in place. "Go change." He nodded slowly. "You have 4 minutes before I keep all the snacks for myself, Herondale!"
"That threat's getting stale," he retorted, but he was already opening his apartment door. Exactly 3 minutes and 40 seconds later, he was back at Clary's apartment and she smiled approvingly at his sweatpants, loose t-shirt, and wool socks. In the interest of making his deadline, he didn't bother with shoes again for the 6 foot walk in the hall. Jace was pretty sure that wasn't too gross considering Clary and he were the only apartments on the 5th floor, but then again he couldn't remember the last time that the hall carpet had been vacuumed, and he really didn't want to think about this too much.
This time Jace moved into the apartment a bit more confidently, automatically heading toward the small olive-colored sofa where he could see the throw blanket already spread out and a bowl of popcorn on the now clean coffee table. He saw a pile of dvds there as well, staring at the one on top with the big, red lips that he remembered from the night of the storm. Clary ambled in a moment later, 2 beers in hand as well as what looked to be a giant bag full of candy in her other hand. Jace moved to take the beers from her and quickly set them on coasters while she unceremoniously dumped the candies out on the table. "And here I thought you were kidding about the snacks."
Clary smiled and grabbed the remote, having apparently already loaded the first DVD before Jace arrived. "I don't kid about snacks, Jace. This is only round one." Jace hummed appreciatively, eyeing the candy, but ultimately grabbing the large bowl of popcorn, settling it between them on the couch as the opening credits began to play. At first Jace struggled to focus on the movie playing in front of them. He was trying really hard not be awkward about the popcorn, after having touched Clary's hand a couple of times reaching for some, but it seemed that they just kept reaching in there at the same time. He didn't remember ever caring this much about brushing against someone's hand or eating popcorn being this complicated.
The awkwardness quickly faded away as the movie captured his full attention, his jaw dropping at the debut of a very flamboyant Dr. Frank N. Furter. He sat through the rest of the movie, fully enraptured, but with his mouth hanging dumbly open. It wasn't until the narrator was concluding the movie, relating the human race to insects, that he finally he spoke. "What. Was. That." His words came out very slowly, and he didn't understand how Clary could look so joyful after watching that trainwreck of a movie.
"A cult classic," Clary replied as if the answer was obvious.
"That was the strangest thing I have ever seen, film or otherwise," Jace said, impressed with his ability to string together a coherent sentence after having watched something that was probably going scar him for life.
"You're welcome," Clary said simply, reaching for the next two DVDs on top of the pile. "Ghost Busters or Hocus Pocus next?"
"Ghost Busters," Jace said quickly, since he at least had a vague idea of what that movie was about. Clary nodded and then got up, stretching, before walking over to put the next movie in. Jace quickly averted his eyes from the pale slip of skin showing as her sweatshirt rode up a bit when she bent over at the DVD player, knowing that thoughts like that about his neighbor couldn't lead to anything good. He cleared his throat and stood quickly, grabbing the two empty beer bottles. "I don't know about you, but after that I could definitely use another drink."
"Sure. There's plenty more in the fridge, just help yourself," Clary agreed without looking up from her task. When Jace returned a minute later, two fresh beers in hand, Clary was already settled back on the couch and the now empty popcorn bowl had been replaced with a large bag of M&Ms.
About halfway through the 4th movie, Jace noticed that his right side was really warm. He was about to shrug the blanket off until his hazy mind finally registered that the source of the warmth was actually the petite redhead burrowed into his side, her head pillowed on his bicep. He wasn't sure when she had moved close enough to cuddle and fall asleep on him, but he found that suddenly he didn't mind the temperature quite so much, and so he went back to watching the movie, drifting in and out of a light sleep himself. He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, but Clary didn't stir until someone was knocking at the door and the credits were rolling on the TV screen.
When Clary rose from the couch and opened the door to reveal a disheveled Simon coming to join their marathon, Jace's right side felt distinctly cold and he was sure he had never resented anyone quite so much.
A/N: Merry Christmas Eve/Christmas to all who celebrate! Sorry for this chapter going up at a later hour this week, unfortunately family time delayed me a bit.
Thank you so much for all of your lovely reviews. If I didn't respond to anyone, it's either because you reviewed as a guest/not logged in or because you have you PMs turned off, but I appreciate all of the responses you left!
Just a reminder - if you leave a review, I'll send a preview of the next chapter to tide you over until next Sunday! (We're finally getting a bit more into the plot next week too! I can't wait!) :)