And we've got the next chapter! Don't worry, we're getting closer to the wedding ;)

The tension between Jace and Clary was clear—and it wasn't the type of tension that their friends usually teased them about either, unresolved sexual tension, so Isabelle put it. It was more of a friction where everyone was waiting for one of them to just snap and hiss at the other. It had been four days since they had even spoken to each other, which was the longest time they had gone without talking to each other since they had been living together. Even when one of them was away, when Clary spent a week or so back with her mother or Jon, or when Jace would have a boys weekend with Alec, there would be texts or calls.

Magnus tried talking to Clary, who glared at him and said it was none of his business, and he then went to try and talk to Jace, who had promptly slammed the door in his face.

Alec tried his hand as well, going to both of them with bribery food offers. They took the food, and then refused to talk any further.

Simon didn't even bother trying to go to Jace, because Simon was probably the last person who Jace was going to open up to, but he did try to get Clary to tell him what was going on.

She shut him down.

The room mates had even tried to get Isabelle in on it as well, although she had seen the long suffering look on Clary's face and then immediately refused, saying that they all needed to take a step back and let them sort it out for themselves.

Jace pulled some longer hours at work, disappearing around six or six-thirty in the morning, before Clary was up, and coming home around seven at night. Clary didn't have to many events that she needed to go to through the week, so she spent most of the day in her room, choosing to have her own, smaller TV playing in the background on her set of drawers while editing her photos.

Aline and Helen's wedding was next weekend, and Jace had decided that he was going to go stag. It was too late to ask anyone now, anyway, despite what he had told himself at the tuxedo fitting, without making it seem like an after thought. If he was being completely honest, he kind of thought that he and Clary were going to go together. He knew that she was wearing some sort of purple dress, and he had looked at a couple of ties that he thought would go with her dress and was going to go back and get that when he picked up his tuxedo.

It wouldn't be like a date-date, but sort of how she went to company dinners with him, or sometimes when their friends were all off on proper couple dates with each other they would go out and get ice cream or watch a movie.

So maybe their friends were right.

He liked her.

He would be an idiot not to, really. She was funny and smart and knew him well, more than happy to call him on his bullshit when the situation required it. But this thing that he had with her—their friendship, even though it nudged at the line between friendship and something more—it was important to him.

He had thought it a couple of times before and he had always pushed it to the back of his head because he didn't completely understand it. But when she had gone home with Sebastian that night at the club, and when she had come home the next morning, clearly having showered at his place and looking all happy and in that after glow of sex, he had been furious. Jace had wanted to curl his hands into fists and put them through a wall.

He had wanted to put Sebastian through a wall, which was completely unfair.

"Shit, man, it's like you're always here!" Sebastian announced as he came over to Jace's space in the corner of the office floor. Given Jace's current train of thought, which was lending toward hurting Sebastian, he had to clench his jaw before looking up to the meet the blondes gaze. "I swear, every day this week, you're here when I come in the morning, and you're still here when I leave at night," he dropped his tone and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Has this got anything to do with your booty call down in accounting, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," Jace muttered, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his computer, and if Sebastian was any good at picking up on social cues then he would know that Jace was not in the mood for talking. But Sebastian didn't seem to pick up on that, because now he was leaning his elbows against the partition around Jace's cubicle.

"So have you got any plans for next weekend? One of my buddies won a bunch of tickets to this baseball game, and I was wondering if you wanted to come?" Sebastian pursed his lips slightly and shrugged his shoulders. "And there's a ticket for your hot roommate as well, if she wants to come." He tried to look casual about it, but Jace frowned at his computer, his fingers freezing over the key board.

"Wait, next weekend?" He asked, his frown deepening.

"Uh, yeah?" Sebastian looked confused. "I mean, if you have plans that's totally fine."

"So that's what you're going to be doing next weekend?" Jace asked, finally looking up to Sebastian.

"What else would I be doing?" Sebastian scrunched up his nose and tilted his head to the side. "I mean, this weekend I'm going out of town with my sister and her kids—so not what I would plan for a relaxing weekend," he made a pained face. "But then I'm all up for a game next weekend with beers and shit. And, if you can bring Clary, a hot girl," there was a hopeful look in his eyes.

"Uh," Jace scratched at the side of his face, searching for something to say to cover up the random push of questions. "I'll check our calender. I'll let you know."

"Dude, you have a calender?" Sebastian snorted and shook his head. "I thought only my mum had a calender." Jace forced a smile, which was actually a little more relaxed, but for a completely different reason. It wasn't because he was looking forward to a baseball game with a couple of his friends. It was to do with the fact that Sebastian had no plans for next weekend.

The weekend when the wedding was.

"Jace?" Sebastian frowned at him, clearly he had said something that required an answer because he was looking at him expectantly.

"Oh, sorry?" Jace blinked at him.

"I said, do you think that Clary is busy? Could you ask her if she wants to come?" Sebastian looked a little embarrassed by needing to ask.

"Why can't you just ask her?" Jace asked bluntly.

"Uh," Sebastian tapped his fingers against the partition. "Well, she maybe said that it was just a one off thing between us," he gave a smirk that he tried to play of cocky, but it wasn't quite coming across that way. "But I think that maybe if she saw me again, we could hit it off. The first time it was just about getting her into bed because she's so fucking hot—" Jace's fingers clenched around a pen that was next to his keyboard. "—but the next morning was fun, and I think that if we saw each other in public and it was more, I don't know, friendly or whatever, she might change her mind."

So Sebastian liked Clary.

And was more than willing to admit that far faster than Jace had been.

"When did she tell you that it was a one off thing?" Jace asked.

"Huh?" Sebastian frowned.

"When did she tell you that it was a one off thing?" He repeated.

"Um," Sebastian looked confused by the question. "Last Friday night." That was the day before the tuxedo fitting. So when he had gotten pissed off at her, she had already told Sebastian that she wasn't interested. Clearly she just hadn't gotten around to telling the rest of the roommates that it had been broken off if they were still trying to get her to ask him the wedding.

"And she hasn't contacted you since then?"

"No," Sebastian was looking pissed off now. "Look, can you ask her or not?" Jace bit down on his lower lip and jerked his head in a nod.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Thanks, man," Sebastian gave him another smirk, looking a whole lot more hopeful this time as he walked off to his own cubicle. Jace shifted his eyes to the corner of his computer screen, to the time. It was a little after four. Given the extra hours that he had put in this week, he could get away with leaving a bit less than an hour early. He logged off his computer, grabbed his bag and headed toward the elevator at the end of the floor.

Yeah.

He liked Clary.

He liked her as more than a friend. Most definitely.

Jace remembered Clary back in high school. He honestly hadn't paid all that much attention to her for a long time, she was just his friends little sister. She was always locked up in her room with her cameras or her paint, and whenever she was around them she would get this blush on her cheeks and stutter over her words. Jon had teased Jace a couple of times, saying that his sister had a crush on him, but he had just brushed it off. Quite a few girls had a thing for him, it was all part of what came when you were one of the hottest guys in school.

In the last year and a half of school he had paid more attention to her. She didn't seem embarrassed or nervous all the time, and she was a whole lot more comfortable in her own skin, and so it made it easier to have a conversation with her. Clary would hang out with them when they were watching movies and sometimes she would come out and have dinner with them at a burger bar down the road.

There had been one night, though. Things were all hazy from the night. He had gotten into a fight with his dad and gone to Jon's party to get drunk. Everything had gotten to be a bit much, and so he had gone upstairs to the first empty room. He remembered Clary coming in and seeing him, and sitting down next to him, and he remembered her fingers wrapping around his and feeling calm. Content. He had been pretty drunk though, and couldn't remember anything else.

The next day it was as though nothing had happened and so he had let it go.

Maybe he shouldn't have.

My song recommendations this time are Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran, Kings by Years and Years and Pretty Girl by Maggie Lindemann. Especially the first song, I've had it on repeat for the past two weeks. So addicted. Also Calum Scott's cover of Dancing On My Own. Holy shit. So incredible. His audition for Britain's Got Talent almost had me and my husband in tears, he was so incredible.

Also, I can't stop watching Law and Order: SVU. I've watched it on so many occasions, but holy shit, I've almost made my way through two seasons in two weeks. Haha. Olivia Benson is one of my all time favourite characters of all time...She's so amazing...Another show I'm really getting into is Riverdale. I thought it was quite young the first few episodes, but I'm quite enjoying it now. I absolutely love Cheryl, and I really like Betty and Jughead and Veronica as well :)

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