Chapter Ten

Disclaimer: What do you think? *sigh* I own nothing.

Author's Note: Shoutout to all of my lovely reviewers! Especially -Fray-Chase :) Read on!

Half an hour later, Clary and Alec finished organizing the RSVP cards. Of the 68 they had so far received, 12 people were not coming and only four-thankfully- were 'maybe' coming. Clary put each pile in a labeled envelope before stashing them in her bag. She picked up her notebook before going to grab her phone. Everyone was waiting-rather impatiently, too-by the door for her to finish packing her things. She turned in a circle looking for her phone.

"I've got it," Jace chimed. He held her green phone up and smirked. "Are you ready now?" Clary rolled her eyes and snatched her phone. Still, she nodded shyly and pushed them out of the room. They were supposed to meet a DJ at a bar halfway across the city in twenty minutes. They'd planned on walking, but Magnus predicted it would take way too long to do so. Besides, he refused to threaten the soles of his new crocodile skin boots. Instead, two taxis waited outside for them.

"I'm riding with Magnus and Alec!" Isabelle announced. "Magnus and I need to discuss your hair for the wedding, Clary. No if's, and's, or but's," she ordered.

"Don't worry, Clary," Alec reassured her, "I'm sure Jace has no lingering air-borne STDs." He and Magnus chuckled before climbing into the taxi, and Izzy sat between them.

"What'd you do to Alec to make him punish you?" Jace asked as he held the taxi door open for her.

"What do you mean?" she inquired as she buckled up. She read off the address of the bar to the driver after Jace settled in.

"Well, you had to do something. He's making you ride with me." He said 'me' as if he were some scandalous punishment. Clary rolled her eyes at his arrogance. She didn't know how she felt about Jace thinking she thought of him as a punishment.

"I don't mind riding with you," she admitted quietly. She looked out the window so she didn't have to look at him. Jace laughed dryly, staring out his own window.

"Could have fooled me," he sighed darkly. Clary looked over at him quizzically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped.

"Nothing. It just seems to me like you hate my guts," Jace admitted. He looked at her with an open face: no cocky smirk or raised eyebrows.

Clary felt a wave of guilt hit her like a tidal wave. She didn't hate Jace. She didn't mean to make him think that she did, either.

"I don't hate you. I hate your cocky attitude." She winced. That may have come out colder than she'd intended. She could see why he thought what he thought.

Instead of arguing, Jace smirked that smirk she hated so much and said, "My cocky attitude is me, Clarissa."

"Don't call me Clarissa," she pleaded. "It makes me feel like an old woman. Or like you're my mother and I'm in trouble."

"That's the name you used when you introduced yourself, so it's the name I'll use," Jace decided. He feigned hurt when Clary playfully punched his arm and muttered a few choice words.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Clarissa!" Jace exclaimed as he caught her fist mid-second-swing. She fought to pull her hand free to no avail.

"What's your full name?" she asked curiously. Jace's eyes flickered with some emotion and his smile left.

"Why do you want to know?" Avoiding the question, naturally. So Jace.

"I don't think it's fair that you know my full name but I don't know yours," confessed Clary. He still held her fist, but he lowered their hands onto the seat between them.

"Ah, but I don't know your full name," he joked. "I only know Clarissa Fray. What's your middle name?"

She hesitated before admitting, "Adele." She wasn't ashamed of her middle name. She thought it was much prettier than her first and often wished her parents had named her Adele Clarissa instead. Jace thought and hummed for a moment.

"Clarissa Adele," Jace tested. She secretly liked the way he said it. Something about her name in his voice sent shivers down her spine. "Pretty," he complimented her again. Looks like Jace was full of compliments today.

"Now what's yours?" Clary urged. His grip loosened but neither pulled their hand away.

"Jonathon. Jonathon Christopher." Clary raised her eyebrows.

"How do you get Jace out of that?" she inquired honestly.

"My initials," he explained. "When Alec's parents adopted me when I was 10, they started calling me Jace instead. They thought it fit me better than some stiff old name."

Clary thought for a few seconds before announcing, "I agree."

"We're here," the taxi driver said through the window. He'd pulled over in front of a brick building in between a cheap shoe store and a divorce attorney's office. The name of the bar was Pandemonium. The n and i in the bar's sign were unlit, so it looked like "Pa Demon Um." Izzy was walking to their taxi, having just gotten out of her own, when Clary tore her hand away from Jace's. Had she been looking, she would have seen the flicker of loss his eyes showed. Climbing out of the taxi after Jace, the group paid their taxis before marching into the club. The bouncer let Magnus, Jace, and Isabelle in without a second glance. Considering Clary and Alec had dressed possibly as plainly as possible- each wore simple dark jeans and converses with a white shirt. They hadn't intended on matching- the bouncer rose his eyebrows at them.

"They're with us," Jace clarified in a deep, protective voice. He glared at the bouncer as if daring him to argue. Jace was taller and more muscular. The bouncer was wider, with arms the size of Clary, but he shrugged and let them through.

"Clary, my love. I've missed you," thundered a deep voice at the bar.

Author's Note: Oh, Izzy. Something tells me talking about hair wasn't the only reason she wanted to ride with the boys ;) Did everyone enjoy the teeny tiny ounce of Clace? We're working on it, slowly but surely. I think we can be expecting Jace in every chapter from here on out.

Reviews make me write faster and better!

~xox Jaciem