Next up, pretty people!
"Hey, Jace?" Hodge tapped his knuckles a couple of time against the glass door of Jace's office. "You want to go and grab that lunch now?" Jace glanced over his desk, which was now a haphazard mess given he had been there for about four hours now and he and Sebastian had been working tirelessly. Sebastian had gone out to interview another one of the employee's of their clients, and Kaelie was out at lunch with one of the other secretaries, so Jace had been giving some quiet to try and start tidying things up, but he hadn't got very far.
"Yeah," Jace nodded and stood up, tightening his tie around his neck and taking his suit jacket off the back of his chair and shrugging into it.
"That Thai place just down the block?" Hodge asked with raised eyebrows as they walked down the carpeted hall toward the elevator, either side of them lined with offices of others lawyers and near the end was the bull pen with all the first and second years.
"Okay," Jace nodded again, and then winced when Hodge gave him a side look at his short answers. It wasn't as if he was the most talkative person around—except when he was in the court room, where he never let a moment of silence settle—but he usually tried to make an effort when it came to the partners, especially the named partners, to continue a conversation.
"Andrew told me that you're making good progress? That you and Sebastian are going to be ready for court?" Hodge prompted as the elevator got to their level and they stepped inside.
"Yes, we're confident with what we've got. It seems as though it was a rival company planted a couple of employees on the inside who, of course, the CEO's and directors had no idea were sabotaging their work," Jace answered. "So we can shift the blame from our client—the company—to several of the employees, who are then going to have a lawsuit of their own, but that will be someone elses problem."
"I have faith in the pair of you," Hodge nodded as they reached the ground floor of the building. "Especially you as first chair, you've done some incredible things in your years with us." He cast a look over at Jace as they walked out of the building and onto the busy street. "You must have heard the rumors by now, that we're considering you for another promotion, as a partner."
"I've heard the rumors," Jace responded carefully, knowing that this was a line he had to be careful with.
"It's something to think about, so that you're ready when you're come to," Hodge looked back ahead, smiling at a woman pushing a baby carrier who he stepped aside for. They reached the Thai restaurant, which was full of people on their lunch breaks, the small place loud with chatter and the clanking of utensils against bowls and plates. Hodge went straight to the counter, speaking easily with the woman on the other side, as she smiled widely and grabbed several menus, leading them to a empty table near the back. They placed their orders and then Hodge looked across at Jace with his head tipped to the side. "So," he began. "I know there must be a good reason why you emailed me and said you wanted to meet for lunch. You get tunnel vision when you're focused on a big case, and sometimes it seems as though it would take an earthquake to get you away from your files when you're like that." Jace gave a tight smile, because unfortunately, that was true.
Which was part of the bigger problem here.
"It's about Clary," Jace began, and the seriousness in his tone must have been clear, because the easy smile dropped of Hodge's face and he gave a short nod. "Uh," Jace wasn't sure where to start, and he wasn't too sure how much he was planning on telling Hodge. He really should have thought this through a bit more, but as soon as he had left the office last night, it had all been about the therapy session, and then the cat and it's damn name...
"What's going on, Jace?" Hodge asked gently, and the younger man took in a deep breath. He had known Hodge for years, pretty much his whole life, and he had actually met Clary before his own father had. When Jace and Clary had come back to Los Angeles for her to meet his parents, and Stephen had been out of town, so she had met Celine, and it had turned out that Hodge and his wife had been visiting her. "Is Clary okay?"
"She's fine," Jace scratched at the side of his head before deciding that he just needed to get it out there and he straightened up in his seat, laying his hands flat on the table. "Actually, I guess, she's not fine. We're not fine." Hodge frowned in concern. "I think that—I mean, I know that...I need to be spending more time with her," he finally managed to say. "I went home the other week and there were...I found some paperwork from divorce attorneys." Understanding dawned and Hodge made a sympathetic noise at the back of his throat.
"I'm sorry," Hodge murmured.
"We...I think that she's going to give me a chance to make it right," Jace continued, his voice sounding strained. "We're going to see a counselor and make an effort to...To get back to where we were." Hodge was watching him carefully and Jace cleared his throat again, tightening his fingers around the fork beside his hand. "I've asked Kaelie to make sure I don't take late meetings. I know that sometimes we can't control when clients need to meet, and sometimes there are going to be things that have to be later, and there are going to be emergencies, but—"
"Clary is priority," Hodge surmised. Jace knew that in the law firm, that wasn't something that was looked upon kindly. It sounded horrible, but things like spouses and families—a lot of the time they needed to some second place to their clients. Andrew definitely felt that way, given he had never married but went through multiple woman and had more than a couple of illegitimate children running around the state. So was Stephen, clearly.
"Yes," Jace nodded his head firmly, and wasn't sure if he was surprised or just relieved when he saw Hodge's lips turn upwards in a small smile. He was about to open his mouth to continue when their waitress brought their food over, giving them both wide smiles as she put it down on the table in front of them. They thanked her but neither of them made a move to start on their lunch after she walked away.
"Evanna is a very patient woman," Hodge started in a soft voice, referencing his wife, Evanna Starkweather. "And I am extremely lucky to have her. I didn't meet her as young as you and Clary did, by the time I met her, I was almost thirty and I was already so buried in this job that I didn't actually think I was going to get married—settling down was just a whole other workload that I didn't have time for." Jace had never heard the story of Hodge and Evanna getting together. Evanna was a doctor, so she was no stranger to long hours and hard work, but she worked at a practice rather than a hospital, so she managed to get a bit more time off than Hodge. He hadn't thought much about it when he was younger, but as the years had gone by and especially after he had gotten married himself, he had wondered how Hodge and Evanna had managed to stay together and happy for so long in a world where most marriages seemed to be falling apart. "It took a long time—and Evanna breaking things off and leaving me for seven months—before I realized that some things are more important than just the job."
"She left you?" Jace frowned. "I never knew that."
"Oh, it was before you were born. We dated for three years, and I was happy—I loved her! I didn't realize that we were stuck, that we weren't going anywhere in our relationship," Hodge sighed and rested his elbow on the table. "We had spoken about children—neither of us wanted any—and we had both spoken about marriage—something that we both did want—and I thought that things were in a good place. It was just before I was made named partner, and you know about the buy in?" He raised an eyebrow at Jace and Jace nodded, feeling himself wince slightly at the thought at the half a million a named partner was required to put into the firm when they were promoted. "And this was exactly what I wanted, and so I didn't think twice about withdrawing the funds and handing them over," he licked his lower lip. "And I didn't tell Evanna. It didn't even cross my mind that I should have. We weren't living together, we had separate bank accounts, it was my money—I was still stuck in the single frame of mind."
"You had been together three years and weren't living together?" Jace quirked an eyebrow questioningly and Hodge nodded.
"Yup," he stated. "And I hadn't thought twice about it. I just kept thinking to myself that we would move in together when the time was right. Anyway, a couple of weeks passed and they made it official—that I was a named partner. There was a big dinner, and Evanna kept smiling and laughing—she was perfect, she's always been amazing in those big social situations. But when I dropped her off home that night, she asked me about the buy in. I told her the amount and she started crying." Retelling the story clearly pained Hodge because he paused to take a breath. "She thought the reason that we hadn't moved in together was because I was wanted to save to buy a home together. That was something else we had talked about and she had been saving for it as well, because that's what she thought we were both working toward. She thought that we were partners—she had invested three years of her life with me. And I hadn't even thought to speak with her about one of the most important decisions that I made in my life—and one of the most expensive."
"And so she left?"
"And so she left," Hodge confirmed. "She told me that she had waited a long time, and that was because she thought that we were on the same page. It took seven months of me drinking at all hours of the night and working all hours of the day before I brought her a ring and showed up drunk at her parents place, asking for her fathers permission." Jace snorted at the idea of his boss—his well put together, sophisticated boss—slurring ass-drunk at his in-laws place. "I barely remember what happened, but clearly whatever I said did the trick, because when I woke up on her parents couch the next day, she was there, and the ring was on her finger." Hodge took in a breath. "It's hard, Jace. It's extremely hard to find balance between work and your family—especially in a career like ours, and especially when you're so passionate about it. But," he picked up his knife and fork, clearly ready to start on his lunch before it cooled down too much. "When you have a woman as special as Evanna or Clary, who is willing to put up with the long hours and the late nights and the obsessing over clients, you make sure they know that they mean everything to you and you do anything you can to make it work."
They went to the therapist twice a week, but Jace made sure that he was still home by six o'clock at the latest on the nights when they weren't going. It felt so good to be seeing her again, everyday, and not just a glimpse of her in the morning or evening, but actually spending several hours together.
Their therapist had said that they needed to get emotional intimacy back before they were physically intimate. That meant getting to know each other again; going on dates, cooking, watching TV together, holding hands, going to bed at the same time, cuddling and most importantly; talking.
It had been two weeks, and they had cooked dinner together almost every night, they had gone bowling where they had discovered that Jace was just as bad as he always was and Clary still kicked his ass, and they had gone for lunch at Celine's both Sundays. Tonight, they had decided to go to a little food bar that was right on the beach front. It used to be one of their favourite places to come for dinner, it was a very casual place, with people walking in from the beach, their feet still covered in sand and hair dripping down their back. But the food was good, and the place held a lot of good memories. Jace couldn't help but laugh at the way Clary snorted everytime a girl in a tiny bikini walked up to the bar and tried to flirt with the attractive—and extremely uninterested—male bartender.
"Do you think they realize that he's definitely not into the V?" Jace raised his eyebrows.
"Hey, you never know," Clary reasoned as she picked up one of the last chips on her plate and dunking it in aioli. "Everyone has different tastes, it could just be that those particularly types of girl aren't the type he's after?"
"We've had red heads, brunettes and blondes all flaunt themselves in front of him, all gorgeous, all extremely sexy—" Jace broke off at Clary's raised eyebrows, and he shot her a cheeky grin while she just shook her head, rolling her eyes, obviously not bothered at his assessment. "All I'm saying, is that if he was into females, at least one of these girls would have gotten a second look." Clary shrugged as she scooped up the last chip and then stabbed it in the direction of a man who had just walked in. It was a sandy haired man with his wet suit stripped down to his waist so that his toned torso was on display.
The instant he reached the bar the bartender looked up, eyes widened and a big smile on his lips. Clary and Jace met one anothers eyes and both started laughing.
It felt good, it felt easy, and when Jace slid off the wooden bar stool and landed on the ground, he held out his hand to Clary. She took it, flashing him a smile, giving him a quick squeeze before letting go and picking up her purse. It was getting close to eight thirty and the sun was set, but the beach was still all lit up from the restaurants and cafe's and street lamps. Clary looked as though she was about to start walking toward the car, but Jace reached out for her arm, giving her elbow a tug.
"Do you...Want to walk for a bit?" He asked, sounding hesitant as he waved his hand over his shoulder toward the beach. Clary smiled and nodded, and he led the way down to the beach.
Their meals were still more filled with silence than conversation, but Jace had to remind himself that it had only been two weeks. Two weeks didn't make up for months and months of isolation from each other. But even though there was more quiet than talking, it didn't feel as tense as it had before, and today it had actually felt something like it used to, when the pair had been making fun of the girls making fools of themselves in the beach bar.
Jace's hand was still around her arm, and he took a sharp breath in as he dropped it, grabbing for her hand instead. Clary didn't tense, she didn't try to pull away as he slipped his fingers between hers. In fact, as he risked a look over at her, she had ducked her head so that her face was almost completely hidden by the curtain of her hair, and she was smiling.
He had done that.
He had made her smile.
Jace's stomach swooped and clenched and his heart was beating hard in his chest, and he felt like that younger man all over again, in the cafe, watching her come in each morning for her coffee, and feeling as though he had just won a prize whenever he managed to catch her eye.
They walked for nearly an hour, hands clasped between them, and shoes in their free hands. When they got back to their car, Jace felt like he was walking on air.
Ooh, have you guys seen the trailer for Venom? Aaaaand next season of Jessica Jones is out! So that's my binging this weekend. Haha.
Ick, and in depressing news, a lot of you will know how much I love SVU, and I'm just a mess over Rafael Barba leaving :( I was so upset about Stabler leaving all those years ago, and then Nick Amaro because I've in love with Danny Pino since Cold Case. Sigh, so I'm in grieving for that...And now I'm worried about Emily Prentiss from Criminal Minds! Noooooo! But in happier news, the new show that I binged on—finally!—was Dynasty. It's incredible and I looooove Fallon and Steven. I definitely recommend.
I'm also seeing Black Panther for the second time this weekend. Shit. I just don't know who I love more. Lupita Nyong'o, who is also the background on my phone at the moment, Chadwick Boseman or Michael B Jordan...The movie itself is just so fucking gorgeous, the costumes and the location and setting, it's just incredible. And the soundtrack! Shit! It's all amazing!
Songs that I'm loving right now are some older ones—Luka by Suzanne Vega, Look by Roxette and Hands by Jewel. Ooh, and also Jolene, which is my favourite Dolly Parton song, but I love Miley Cyrus' version of it as well :)
Send recommendations my way, and let me know if you want a preview x