Merp, I've kinda lost track of my updating schedule? *Throws updates and internet cookies*

Usually waking up on a Tuesday was pretty shit. It was only a little bit better than a Monday, and really not by much, because her first class was at nine, whereas her Monday class was at eight-thirty, and Monday was also Monday, so it was automatically worse than every other day of the week.

But this particular Tuesday, she woke up with a text from an unknown number.

Clary tapped her thumb against the side of her phone, looking down at the message on her screen. It was a simple message, with a simple question, and it was something that she had been asked a hundred times before and she wasn't sure why it was making her stomach do back flips and her heart beat faster in her chest.

Hi, Clary. It's Jace. I really enjoyed spending time with you the other day. Did you want to go out for coffee?

It had all the proper punctuation and everything in it, and Clary wasn't even the slightest bit surprised. She spelled out everything correctly now, given her iPhone's auto-correct, so it wasn't like high school and her old phone when everything was short hand and pretty tacky, if she did say so herself, but she didn't generally add commas and everything into her texts.

Her reply was simple though, didn't require punctuation.

YES

She licked her tongue over her lips, wiggled around on her mattress for a few minutes while she waited for a reply, and then lost patience and threw back her blankets, getting out of bed and feeling stupidly energetic for eight o'clock in the morning. She threw on a pair of jeans and a bright pink singlet and then looked around for her hair brush. Clary grabbed her phone and shoved it into one of her pockets and then left her room, going into Isabelle's room next door, which was still dark and Isabelle was still motionless in her bed.

"Iz! Move your ass! And I need to use your brush!" Clary didn't bother trying to keep noise down as she tripped over a pair of high heels in the middle of the floor, and then Isabelle's fucking laptop, because she always left it charging, strewn across the floor. She'd already had to replace two chargers already from them being broken when tripped over and ripped out of the laptop or wall at awkward angles. Clary managed to find Isabelle's hair brush in the mess on top of her drawer and then she turned to look at Isabelle.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays they went into uni together, so Isabelle should be getting up around now. Clary smirked and jumped onto the bed, shaking her arms and legs and Isabelle finally made a noise, groaning and trying to get her arms out from where Clary had them pinned at her side.

"Why the fuck do you have so much energy?" Isabelle groaned, her voice choked with sleep. "Get the fuck off me!" Clary grinned and just shook the bed some more. "Oh my god—okay, I'm awake! Fucking hell, just get off!" Clary flopped to the side, laying between Isabelle and the wall, and pulled her phone out again.

Still no texts back.

It had been about all of fifteen minutes, but...She was still impatient.

"I've got a date," Clary whispered.

"Good for you," Isabelle muttered, not sounding like she wanted to discuss it.

"You wanna know who with?" Clary asked.

"Don't give a shit," Isabelle grunted and Clary rolled her eyes.

"I'll let you have the last muffin in the cupboard if you pay me attention," Clary poked Isabelle in the side, through the blankets and Isabelle grumbled again, but she poked her head out from underneath her blankets and looked over at Clary with narrow eyes.

"Go and get me the muffin first, then I'll pay you attention," she bargained roughly and Clary grinned.

"Deal."

Clary didn't get a reply from Jace in her first class, or when she was in the photography lab until lunch, or when she was rushing to eat the pizza slice she had picked up from one of the cafeteria, or in her next two classes. It wasn't until she wasn't heading back to the photography lab, this time for her shift, that her phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket and it was actually a text from the person that she had been waiting for.

Sorry, Clary. Todays been crazy. I was going to ask if you wanted to meet up today, but it's a bit late now. Does tomorrow work?

Clary pouted as she looked down at her phone, because she would have made today work. She had work now, but it was only until seven, that left the whole evening ahead. It wasn't unusual for them to go out drinking or to an impromptu party or even just to a late movie and then dinner with friends afterward that meant they didn't get back to their apartment until two in the morning. She didn't care how late it meant they went and got this coffee, she just wanted it to happen.

But Jace was...Like, a proper adult, and he worked full time, and on a Sunday, so he probably had, like, a nine o'clock bed time or something.

Perf. You wanna meet up somewhere or...

Clary reached the lab and tugged open the door, grinning over at Helen Blackthorn who was already there. Helen rolled her eyes from where she was helping one of the freshman students, and had probably been there for a while, judging by the exasperated look on her face. On Tuesday, Helen and Clary's shift overlapped by a few hours, which was one of the best shifts of Clary's week. As she was putting her bag down behind one of the desks and pulling out her old laptop, her phone vibrated again.

I have a meeting until twelve-thirty. I could pick you up around one? Or if you wanted to meet me at my office at twelve-thirty, that works as well.

Clary bit down on her lower lip as she thought about it. On one hand, she would one hundred and ten percent be down for Jace picking her up in that beautiful car that she had only been in twice, once when drunk and the other while hungover, she would also be interested to see where Jace worked. And it meant that she would be able to see him earlier, because she could leave straight after classes, which finished at eleven-thirty for her, and go straight to his office.

I'll come to you. What's your address

Another reply came within a couple of minutes and Clary typed it into a Safari page and noted that she was actually pretty sure where the building itself was, so that wouldn't be too hard to find. Then another message came through.

Are you in class?

Clary tapped out a reply.

Nah at work now

Where do you work?

At the photography lab on campus. Means I get first dibs on reserving the good photo lights and dark room time so it's good

Don't you have your own photo lights?

Nah. Too expensive. Got some cheap ones I use when I can't get the good ones but they're getting old. Saving up for some new ones but I'll probably need to get a new laptop first

It wasn't like she needed new photo lights when she could reserve them for use through the photo lab, and like she had just said to Jace, working at the lab meant that she could write her name down in the slots to reserve the lights whenever she needed them. But her laptop was still the same one that she had been using since she was in high school, and it hadn't even been new then. It was starting to glitch a bit, and it had slowed all the way down in the past couple of months and now she was using Jordan and Isabelle's when she could to run her editing program.

Isn't a good laptop gold to college students?

Unfortunately this college student don't got gold to get a good laptop

"I swear to god," Helen groaned as she came over to where Clary was sitting. "I'm gonna fucking kill the next freshman who doesn't know how to install shit on their laptop. That's not our job. That's, like, IT's or something." Clary made a face, because it was something that they dealt with a lot. "Anyway, who are you texting you? You're smiling like a dick."

"Aren't you fucking lovely?" Clary grunted and jabbed her elbow into Helen's side and the blonde grinned. She looked back down at her phone but there weren't any more messages from Jace, so she put her phone on the desk and pushed it away. "Did you want to go out this weekend? I think we're gonna go out on Friday night."

"Ooh, yeah, I'm in," Helen wiggled her eyebrows. "As long as there's no flaming shots. I'm pretty sure you were half a second off being comatose the other night we went out." Clary made a face and Helen grinned, before her own phone went off, and the blonde looked down. Her grin shifted to a softer smile and Clary raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

"Who's that?" She sung out, nudging Helen's arm. "Another one of your dates?" Helen didn't just work at the photography lab. She also went out on, delicately putting it, dates with older people. She was a Sugar Baby, as she put it. Clary found the whole thing fascinating, but while the money appealed to her, she honestly didn't think she was the type of person who could feign interest in someone that she really didn't want to spend time with. But Helen was sweet and funny and apparently she was good at what she did because she always had people messaging her, and she went out a couple nights a week, from what Clary knew.

The money wasn't just for her, though, like Clary's money was. Helen's mother had died a couple of years ago, after being sick for some time, and had left behind her father and Helen and six younger siblings. A lot of the money that Helen had earned, she sent back to her father to help with the hospital bills they were still paying off, or toward school fees and clothes for her siblings.

"Kind of," Helen made a face as she looked up, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips as she thought. "I mean, yeah, she is, but...I think I really like her as well." Helen was bisexual, so her dates varied between men and woman, but all of the people that she had actually had relationships with that Clary had known about had been with girls.

"Isn't there, like, rules against that kind of thing?" Clary arched an eyebrow.

"There aren't really any rules, other than the ones that you set for yourself," Helen shrugged a shoulder as she tapped out a reply to the woman who had messaged her. "It's not like I go through an agency or anything." Clary knew that for a fact, because there had been one very messy date that Clary and Jordan had ended up having to go and pick her up, because he had shoved her against the wall and slapped her across the face, and from then Helen just started doing more thorough vetting. She'd been doing it for nearly two years now, so she seemed to know what she was doing.

"Wouldn't it be kind of weird? I don't know, actually dating someone who basically pays you for sex?" Clary tipped her head to the side and turned around on the wheely chair she had sat down in. Helen gave her a narrow eyed look and Clary rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, they pay you for companionship or whatever, but I've seen the photos you send them and the amount of condoms you keep in your drawers at home, so we all know there's sex involved." Helen rolled her eyes again, but the edges of her lips were pulling upward in a smile, to show that she wasn't offended. "Just...Wouldn't it feel like you owe her or something? Like if you start an actual relationship?"

"I don't think so," Helen really didn't look bothered as she shrugged again and then looked back at her phone. "I mean, she has money and she likes spending it on me. Nothing wrong with that, right?" Clary hummed in agreement.

"You know, if there wasn't the whole fact that half the people you've gone out with are boring as hell—no offence—I would so get into it. I'd love to have someone buy me expensive things and tell me I have a pretty face," she said and Helen let out a laugh.

"Yeah, riding on that no offence train, babe—you don't even have a poker face when we're playing poker and your literal rent money for next week is on the table, I doubt you're gonna be able to do it when a man named Barry is telling you about his third ex-wife and why he only gets to see his kids on Christmas," Helen laughed. Clary snorted.

"Okay—to be fair!" She held up a finger as Helen kept on laughing. "Maybe I gambled with my rent money, but at least I still managed to cover my portion of the rent next week! I'm responsible like that!"

"Only because of your sock money," Helen pointed out.

"But what else is sock money for?" Clary retorted and Helen nodded.

Clary had almost finished her shift when she got another message from Jace. She couldn't stop her smile. She had considered assaulting his inbox with incessant messages, demanding that he reply to her like she did with literally everyone else she text, including her mum and step-dad, but she figured that they really didn't know each other well enough at that point so maybe she shouldn't jump right down to the thirty messages in a row straight away.

Sorry, Clary. Was in a meeting. What type of laptop do you use now?

Clary screwed up her nose, because she didn't want to talk about her shitty old laptop, which was covered in stickers that she had collected over the years, the main big one on the front of Harry Styles with a pink flower crown.

Eh just some old one. Why are you still in meeting?! It's LATE

Then she had to remind herself that this had been the guy who had gone to work on a Sunday, so it really shouldn't surprise her that he had work meetings until seven at night. She packed up her laptop and the papers that she had been working on and moved around the photo lab, making sure everything had been packed away after the last guy had been there after ten minutes ago. The hours changed, depending on how many people needed to use the lab, but at the moment, seven o'clock was when they were closing up, so it took Clary a little longer to make sure everything was shut off before she left the room and locked the door behind her. As she walked down the long, empty hall and pulled out her phone again, her heart beat a little faster when she saw that she had two texts.

All part of the charm of running a business. Haha.

What are you doing tonight?

That sounded...Well, when Clary got messages like that from Michael Denton or Ryan Arnold, it was because they wanted to know if she wanted to hook up. But she had a feeling that Jace was classier than that, so she didn't reply with one of her saved tit pics that she had on file—only for when she was feeling frisky. Michael was kind of a dick and Ryan talked more than she liked, so more than half the time, she turned down their texts, either with a simple 'Busy' or just not even replying, but when she was feeling into it, she answered with the tit pics.

She wondered what Jace would say if she sent one to him.

And then she started wondering when the last time she had taken one, because she was pretty sure she had only had one nipple piercing the last time she had taken some semi-artistically shadowy selfies of her chest, some of them even featuring some lip biting, although none actually showing her whole face. She had another piercing in her nipples, one in each of them now, not just in the left one.

Maybe she needed to update them.

Just finished work. Going home. Si and Iz will be at work so I'll probably piss off Jordan until he makes me dinner

You don't cook?

Clary narrowed her eyes at that. She liked the quick reply, but she didn't like the assumption.

I cook!

I'm a bloody good cook!

She was partway through her next text when a response came.

That wasn't mean to be an insult! Sorry if it came off that way! It was just meant to be a question. I didn't really learn to cook until after college, and even then, I pretty much lived on take out. I mean, even now I pretty much live on take out.

It kind of sounded like he was panicking, which...Was kind of cute. So Clary back spaced on the text that she had been typing out, which had been emphasizing again that she was a damn good cook and she cooked for the flatmates at least twice a week, but she worked late on Tuesdays, and Jordan didn't work until Friday, so why shouldn't he be the one making her dinner? She jogged down the steps of the front of the building, and it was dark outside, since it was after seven and they weren't in summer anymore, and she wondered what she should text back. But then she got another text, and she saw that it was a picture. She tapped it open.

It was a picture of two empty Chinese cartons on what looked like an impeccably tidy desk.

Dinner tonight.

Clary smiled.

I'll cook for you sometime if you cook for me?

She didn't have to wait long for a reply.

Deal.

If it had been some guy from college, he would definitely added the emoji with the winky face. She kind of wished that he had added a winky face, it was so much easier to read situations with emojis were involved.

Then again, he had asked her out for coffee, so that sounded like date material.

No.

It was definitely a date.

Fuck yeah, it was a date.

She had a coffee date with a cute older guy who hadn't cared that she had stolen his one and a half grand Cartier sunglasses.

Plus, she got to make out with him a little the other day, so that was pretty hot.

It only took her fifteen minutes to walk back to her flat, especially since she was kind of doing this half skip kind of thing, feeling kind of dizzy as she kept replaying in her head that she had a date with Jace. There were quite a few people out on the streets, which was normal for the busy Los Angeles street. When she got back to the apartment, there was only the kitchen light on, the lounge all dark other than the light coming from their TV. Jordan was camped out on the couch, the blanket from the back of the couch draped loosely over his shoulders as he jammed his fingers down on the blue controller in his hand, and he tipped his head back to look over his shoulder as she walked in.

"Hey, cutie," Jordan called out to her.

"Hey, babes," Clary grinned, dumping down her bag and laptop on the kitchen table before walking over the couch, jumping over the back of the couch and practically landing on Jordan's lap. He elbowed her in the side and then shuffled around to push her away, and she settled down next to him with a smile. "Hey, Jord. Jord...Jord," she poked him with her finger, jabbing his knee.

"Your dinner is in the fridge. I made pasta," Jordan grinned. Clary smirked, leaning forward and smacking a kiss against his cheek before getting up to find her dinner.

So songs I recommend are I Think I'm OKAY by MGK, Yungblud and Travis Baker, which I absolutely adore, and the song and especially the music video give me intense early 2000's feels, and Lost by Dermont Kennedy, which is so damn beautiful, I've completely fallen in love with it. Also Lost Without You by Freya Ridlings, which was sent to me by Reppinda5o3 and is completely heart breaking. Umm...I can't really think of many movies and TV series I've been watching lately. Sorry :(

Okay, so, questions; what's your lockscreen/homescreen/blah blah blah? My lockscreen is Dominic Harrison and my homescreen is Demi Lovato, both total babes.

Umm...What are you go-to feel good movies? Mine are—not in any type of order—Princess Bride, The Swan Princess, Stardust, Spirit and Frozen. Lol. Not even sorry. I think Catch and Release might be working its way onto this list as well.

...'Please tell me I'm your one and only/Or lie and say at least tonight/I've got a brand new cure for lonely/And if you give me what I want/Then I'll give you what you like'...

xxxxxxx