Hey, beauties :)
As an FYI: the painting in this chapter is semi-inspired by the art piece Spectrum by Richard Phillips, which I definitely fell in love with in Gossip Girl.
Clary didn't really follow the whole fashion world, that was more Lydia and Aline's niche than her own.
But she knew who Isabelle Lightwood was.
She had seen her on massive billboards when she went into the city, plastered in barely any clothes and advertising perfume. She was sometimes on TV adverts for high priced jeans, wearing nothing put the jeans themselves, with her arm draped in just the right spot to not show her breasts. She was in magazines that Clary flicked through, and last month, she knew that Isabelle had been on the cover of Vogue because Simon had picked up the magazine when they were at Lydia's and groaned about how the fuck an actual person could be so perfect.
"H—hi," Clary stuttered out as Isabelle started up the steps. "What are—what do—" she broke off again and blinked. "Hi," she settled on.
"Hi," Isabelle was still smiling widely, not looking at all perturbed by Clary's faulting sentence. "It's really great to meet you! Jace is my cousin, but he's more like my best friend, I guess maybe like another older brother?" She laughed and held out her hand. "Anyway, I've heard a lot about you, and I'm so glad to finally be able to meet you!"
"Yeah," Clary reached out her own hand, and Isabelle clasped it tightly. The rings on her fingers all looked like they were real, actual gold and silver with diamonds and emeralds. She knew that she had met Jace, and that technically he was an actor, and the son of such big names in Hollywood, but that had felt different. She had met him without any idea of who he was when they had first started talking, and when he had first shown up, he had just been Jace. He had just been this amazing guy, on the other side of the phone.
"Do you mind if I come in?" Isabelle asked, before her eyes dropped down to the grey cat that had followed Clary out of the house and was smooching against her leg. "Oh my god, she's absolutely beautiful! What's her name?"
"Um," Clary looked down as Isabelle crouched, clicking lightly with her tongue. "She's a he, and his name is Bucky."
"Ooh, like Bucky Barnes? He's gorgeous," Isabelle grinned, and her smile just widened as Bucky sniffed her spread fingers, and then butted his head against her hand. "But I think you're more gorgeous," she cooed at the cat. "Yes I do," she stroked her fingers over the cats head, and Clary could hear the purring from where she was standing.
"Um, but yeah—come in," Clary answered the first question that Isabelle had answered. She walked into the cottage, which was probably the size of one of this womans closets. Isabelle followed close behind her, not taking off her shoes at the door, although Clary didn't mind so much. "Make yourself comfortable," she said, waving her hand at the couch. "I'm just...I'm gonna go get Jace."
"Okay," Isabelle smiled again as she walked into the lounge. She looked far too glamorous and completely out of place in the lounge with mismatched furniture and chipped coffee table, but Clary tried to shrug it off. She loved her home and she wasn't going to let self-doubt creep in. However, that didn't stop a mini panic attack set in as she reached her hallway and was out of sight from Isabelle. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped and she forced herself not to let out a scream, settling for making a bunch of aborted hand gestures and darting into her room.
"Uh, Jace?" Clary went over to her bed and shook his shoulder. "Jace? Jace—you need to wake up!" There was a groan from Jace, and she felt bad for waking him up, given how late they had been up last night. Jace opened a bleary eye and squinted at her against the sunlight that was coming through her windows.
"Are you alright?" Jace asked, his voice was husky from sleep and sounding so incredibly sexy that if there wasn't a internationally renowned model in her lounge, she might have just climbed on top of him. "What's wrong?"
"Um," Clary swallowed hard and Jace quickly sat up, rubbing a hand over his face, clearly seeing the panic on her face. "So—Isabelle's here." Jace looked completely confused for a split second, and then he seemed a whole lot more awake.
"Isabelle," he repeated back to her, not as a question, more as though he was just understanding what she had said. Then he was getting out of bed, nearly knocking her off the edge where she was perching as he threw off the blankets. "Shit," he muttered under his breath as he found a pair of briefs and a dark grey pair of sweatpants. "Did she say anything?"
"Uh—she likes my cat?" Clary said weakly, and despite the worried look on Jace's face, he cracked a small smile.
"Of course she does," he murmured before reaching forward and pressing a soft kiss on the crown of her head. "Alright, let's go," Jace said, holding out a hand to Clary, which she took thankfully. It felt good, having his warm palm pressed against her, and she forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths before they walked out of the bedroom and back toward the lounge.
"Jace!" Isabelle jumped up from the couch as they came in, looking a whole lot more comfortable in the ridiculously high heels that she was wearing than Clary could ever imagine being.
"What's going on, Iz?" Jace asked, his voice sounding firmer than Clary had ever heard, and that worried her a bit. But Isabelle didn't pay it any heed as she came over and threw her arms around Jace, giving him a tight hug and then a loud kiss on the cheek, leaving a lipstick mark.
"I wanted to come down and meet the beautiful girl who has you all tangled in knots," Isabelle stated with a wink past Jace and toward Clary, who just stared back at her, not sure what to say. "And it seems to be going well, I see," she grinned as she looked pointedly at Clary's neck, and this time the redhead blushed slightly, knowing that there was a hickey there, fully on display. Then she turned her wide smile back to Jace. "You shouldn't be surprised that I'm here—I said that I wanted to come out." Clary's raised eyebrows turned to Jace, who threw up his hands.
"Hey, hey," he defended himself. "I thought you were joking! I thought that you were busy with work!"
"I always find time for family," Isabelle said idly as she walked over to a painting that was hanging. "This is incredible," she said as she tilted her head to the side. "Did you do this?" She asked as she looked back at Clary.
"Uh," Clary cleared her throat. "Yeah."
"Shit," she shook her head as she looked back at the painting. It was a womans face, tilted upward, and her hair was streaming backwards with a few strands in front of her face. But it wasn't just standard colours, everything was in vibrant shades of pink and blue and orange and green. It was gorgeous and it had been one of the first things that Jace had noticed when he had come into her lounge. "You've got incredible talent."
"Thanks," Clary mumbled, although she still sounded nervous. Her eyes flitted toward Jace. "Is this how you felt with my parents and my friends?" Jace snorted.
"You mean like I'm a specimen on display?" He grinned at her and Clary rolled her eyes, but he saw some of the tension leave her shoulders. "It's fine," he told her as he nudged her elbow.
"Yeah," Isabelle had made her way over to the book shelf in the corner, where there were DVD's and books and a couple of photos, looking over them for a moment before she spun around to look at the couple. "It's totally fine. You're gorgeous and lovely and clearly Jace wasn't disappointed when he showed up here." Clary was back to blushing and Jace gave his cousin a pointed look, hoping that she would get the hint and stop. But, as per usual, Isabelle paid him no heed. "I mean, with the way he was going on and on about you, I have to admit, we were kind of worried that you were too good to be true and Jace was just going to be disappointed—"
"You're the one who kept pushing me to come out here!" Jace protested, red-cheeked.
"Well, yeah," Isabelle shrugged with a fond laugh. "I mean, worst case scenario, she's a total crazy, and then you can get over here. And best case scenario—well—" she waved at the pair of them. "Here you go!"
"Only a little crazy," Clary said, holding up two fingers a few millimeters apart. Jace was glad that she was joking, at least she was loosening up a bit.
"See? Everything worked out perfectly," Isabelle grinned and clapped her hands together.
"Right..." Jace arched an eyebrow. "So? What are you doing here?" Isabelle pouted.
"Are you not excited to see me?" She asked as she skipped over—once again surprising Clary in how surprisingly well she moved in high heels—and rested her hands on Jace's shoulders. "I just wanted to come and see you guys! And I wanted to meet Clary."
"That's it?" Jace checked with her, still sounding uncertain. "Nothing horrific has happened that you're trying to escape, and you're not here to spy on me for my mum?" Isabelle rolled her eyes, while Clary just looked vaguely horrified at the idea of being spied on for an Academy Award winning actress.
"O-or here to check that I'm not a gold digger?" She managed to say and Isabelle shook her head quickly, moving one arm off Jace's shoulder and onto Clary's, giving it a squeeze.
"No, darling! I don't think that of you at all," the dark haired model assured her. "I know that Jace didn't tell you anything about himself when you guys first started your, uh—electronic love messages—" Jace let out a pained groan at that, and Clary felt herself beginning to relax again, recognizing the loving teasing between the two as with her and her friends. "—So, no, that's not something I'm worried about at all."
"I guess...That's good," Clary murmured.
"This place is absolutely beautiful," Isabelle said as she walked toward the windows and looked out, taking in a deep breath. "You're so incredibly lucky to live here." She turned around and smiled widely. "So," she looked between the pair of them. "I've cleared my schedule for today, and then part of tomorrow. So what are our plans?"
So obviously it's been a while, and there's a lot of songs that I haven't recommended! I've just decided to log into that website thing that shows your top tracks, so these are my short term top ten. 1) She - Harry Styles. 2) Radio - Lana Del Rey. 3) Living Proof - Camila Cabello. 4) Hazel - Carlie Hanson. 5) September Song - JP Cooper. 6) We Made It - Louis Tomlinson. 7) All My Friends - AJ Mitchell. 8) The Sound - The 1975. 9) Wrong Direction - Hailee Steinfield. 10) Dazed & Confused - Ruel. Bonus song would be You Should Be Sad by Halsey, which is fucking amazing, so far my second favourite of the released tracks from Manic.
There's been a lot of amazing TV shows that have recently come out; The Witcher/His Dark Materials/Watchmen/The Mandalorian. These are all amazing, incredible acting, the sets and scenery and costume design is just A+. Also Spinning Out was really good, I absolutely loved Mandy and Marcus. I love when there are strong side characters that I can fall in love with, and it had good story lines.
I've also been to a couple of concerts that were great; Greta Van Fleet, Ruel, Shawn Mendes and Khlaid. All bloody brilliant.
Now. I don't want to say much about how shit 2020 has been because we're only 14 days in and holy shit, I feel like there's a lot going on. A fucking lot. For me, what hits closest to home is Australia on fire. On the fifth of January our skies turned an apocalyptic orange because the winds changed and the smoke reached us here in New Zealand. I just want to say to everyone who is dealing with anything right now—it doesn't matter how big or small—I love you and you're not alone x
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Twitter: CalamitySerene