Next chapter, beautiful people!

Clary didn't have to get up as early as she had the past two days, because her class wasn't until nine, but she did anyway, to do her make up a little more carefully than the sloppy eyeliner she would usually put on and went with a darker lipstick, something purple that had probably been Isabelle's at some point, and then she let her fingers rest on the Cartier sunglasses that were on top of her dresser, in front of her mirror. After a moment, she picked them up and tucked one arm in the front of the grey and white shirt she was wearing and then left the apartment. She didn't go to college with Isabelle on Wednesday's, she went with Simon, and he was always up early and even had a coffee in a semi-clean mug which made him the most accomplished adult in their flat.

"Shit," Simon raised his eyebrows when he saw her walking him with her laptop bag over one shoulder and her messenger bag over the other.

"What?" Clary made a face at him, because she had been up for an extra fucking forty-five minutes this morning and he was looking at her as though she'd gotten mascara all over the bridge of her nose.

"Uh—you don't usually wear so much make up," Simon shrugged. "But, whatever, you look good."

"Fuck yeah I do," Clary retorted, leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek and leaving a perfect dark purple lipstick mark behind.

Clary bused onto the other side of town where the building address Jace gave her was, and then had to walk the other fifteen minutes by foot. It was fine, because it was a nice day, so she slid Jace's sunglasses on, and when she caught her reflection in a passing shops glass, she was glad to see that she didn't look like a total dickhead with the glasses way too big for her face. They just kind of looked a little too big, and it sort of went with her whole outfits vibe, with her hair all curly and loose, pushed back from her face by a black band with a bow, her loose grey and white shirt and ripped skinny jeans. They were the good ripped skinny jeans as well, they'd actually been brought ripped, not the ones that she had that were just so old and worn that they had ripped. She had thought about wearing her glasses today, instead of her contacts, but then she wouldn't have been able to wear Jace's sunglasses, and she really wanted to wear those.

She got to the building and scrunched up her nose as she looked up, noting that it was taller than the buildings on either side, although one on the opposite side of the street was taller. That was an apartment building, though, so Clary wasn't sure that it counted. She went inside and the main lobby had a receptionist behind a desk, two security guards, a line of elevators and at the far side there was a wide flight of stairs. It was all white and glass and clean and there was a plant that looked like it was watered regularly and her eyebrows arched before she approached the desk.

"Hello. How can I help you?" The woman behind the counter asked, a polite smile on her face, and a blank look in her eyes, similar to the one Helen got when she was really hungry and she had to be polite to people in the photography lab. Clary took the sunglasses off and hooked them back into the neckline of her shirt again.

"I'm..." Clary looked back down at her phone, at the address that Jace gave her. "Here for Idris Communications? Floor twenty-nine?" The woman arched an eyebrow and looked over at the security guard, and Clary was beginning to wonder if maybe she was just going to need to call Jace to come down, but then she nodded and pointed to the elevator closest to her. "Thanks!" Clary flashed her a smile, but the woman had already lost interest, going back to her computer. Clary stepped into the elevator and then stopped short.

There was a plant in the fucking elevator.

Magnus had given Clary a plant for her twentieth birthday, telling her that it would teach her responsibility.

It had died three weeks after he'd given it to her.

The doors made a loud pinging noise and slid back open again and Clary made a face as she realized that she had literally just been standing there and not moving, just looking at the plant, and the elevator doors had both closed and then re-opened since she had been there. She couldn't help put poke her head back out, and the receptionist was staring directly at her.

Judging her.

Clary ducked back inside and jabbed her finger on the button for the twenty-ninth floor and stared at the plant as she whizzed upwards. At least there wasn't elevator music.

That stuff was shit.

She tilted her head to the side and reached out to touch one of the leaves, wondering if maybe the plant was a fake. She dug her finger in, trying to scratch away at the surface, and she was pretty sure it wasn't plastic when all of a sudden the doors slid open again and she tried to whip her hand away, but she also didn't really loosen her grip so she sort of...Pulled the whole branch with her and tore off the leaf.

"Oops," Clary muttered, giggling before skipping out of the elevator and dropping the leaf on the ground. This floor seemed a lot more security conscious, opening up to only one room, with sturdy frosted glass doors on either side. She walked up to the desk, and the girl behind it was younger than the woman downstairs, and rather than just looking a little judgy, she looked exactly the girls in high school that Clary went out of her way to avoid like the fucking plague.

"Can I help you?" The girl asked, and Clary was pretty sure she was about half a second away from popping bubblegum and dying tacky bright coloured streaks in her hair, that's how similar she was to the girls back in high school.

"I'm here to see Jace," Clary said, trying to sound totally even and not as though she was intimidated by the girl. She had highlighted blonde hair, and it looked as though it was properly highlighted, not the home jobs that Clary and Isabelle would have Magnus do on them. And while Magnus did an amazing job, she wasn't trying to insult his expertise at all—the other girls hair looked flawless. So did her make up. And Clary was guessing her clothes were too.

"Jace?" The girl looked as though she was trying not to smile. "Mr Herondale?" Clary shrugged a shoulder as she realized that she didn't actually know his name. "Is he expecting you?" Clary nodded and the girl still didn't look as though she believed her but she leaned forward and picked up a phone, pressing a few buttons. "Hello, Ms Roberts? This is Heidi, at the front desk," Heidi's voice changed remarkably from her conversation with Clary to her conversation with whoever it was on the other end of the phone. "I've got somewhere here to see Mr Herondale." She looked Clary up and down, clearly holding a degree in Looking Down Her Nose At Someone While Sitting Down and Clary sighed, pulling out her phone, sending a text off to Jace.

I'm at the front desk

She looked back at Heidi, who was hanging up the phone, a small smile on her face, one that could come off as polite if someone as came along, but one that they both knew was snarky and self-satisfied.

"Sorry, but Mr Herondale is busy—"

"Shit, Clary, sorry!" Jace suddenly appeared, his cheeks a little flushed and Clary grinned blindingly at him. She had literally just text him. He must have run from wherever he had been the instant he had gotten the message.

That made a girl feel good, she had to admit.

"My meeting was running late," he began and Clary looked down at her phone, and saw that it was only just going quarter on one, so his meeting hadn't actually run that late. "I'm just going to go and grab my jacket, okay? You alright with waiting here?" Clary couldn't help but look back over at Heidi, whose eyes were now wide and her pretty pink and likely botoxed lips were parted as she watched the exchanged.

"Sure," Clary smiled, looking back up at Jace. "I can wait right here." Jace didn't look as though he had noticed her glance because he just smiled and started to back away, before stopping and pointing just below her chin.

"Those my glasses?" He asked her, his lips tipping up in the corners.

"Sure are, boo," Clary grinned, purposefully pulling them out from her shirt and slipping them on, not even caring that they were inside. Jace didn't seem to care either, because his smile just stretched and then he was walking away quickly, disappearing back down the hall behind the desk. Clary turned her full attention back to Heidi, who seemed all of a sudden completely engrossed in her computer screen. Jace didn't take long before he was coming back, now wearing a jacket, and he looked good.

Damn good.

His suit fit him perfectly, as though it was made for him, not just brought off the rack, and his hair was pushed back, looking a little styled but not overly done and when the cuff of his jacket and shirt slipped up a bit, she saw that expensive watch on his wrist again.

"There's a place just down the block that we can go to?" Jace said as he reached past her to press the button for the elevator. "We can go get coffee and lunch?"

"Oh my god," Clary groaned and then bounced up a little. "I haven't eaten today. I'm so down for lunch." Jace's eyebrows flew up.

"You haven't eaten today?" He asked, and he actually sounded concerned, kind of like how Luke Garroway sounded when he heard that her laptop still made weird beeping noises and occasionally just shut down completely and then she said that she still hadn't taken it into the colleges IT department. She just...Kept forgetting and it worked fine most of the time.

"Nah, Izzy ate the last muffin yesterday, Simon ate the last slices of bread for dinner last night and we had a tin of peaches but I couldn't find the can opener," Clary shrugged a shoulder as the elevator door. Jace was still looking at her, eyebrows all worried and she pursed her lips together, wondering what was wrong. "It's okay, I had pasta for dinner last night. Carbs take up a lot of room," she patted her stomach as they stepped into the elevator, Jace waiting for her to get in first. There was another man in a suit walking toward the elevator, but when he saw Jace get inside, he stopped kind of awkwardly, not getting inside. Clary raised an eyebrow, but then he was pressing the button to go to the ground floor and the doors were closing.

"Where's your can opener?" Jace asked.

"Huh?" Clary made a face as she looked at him, adjusting the glasses on her face, needing to push them back up her nose since they were a bit too big for her.

"You said that you couldn't find your can opener," Jace replied slowly, looking confused.

"Oh!" Clary grinned at him before shrugging again. "I don't know. I didn't find it. I mean, sometimes Jordan and his boyfriend do weird sex things and our kitchen stuff goes missing." Jace actually looked kinda horrified at that and Clary couldn't help but laugh. The elevator doors opened and they were on the ground floor and he held out his arm, indicating that she get off first. The woman behind the desk looked up as they went past, but Clary just ignored her. When they got out onto the busy street, Jace took a pair of sunglasses out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket—another pair of Cartier ones—and slipped them on.

"This way," he nodded to the side, and then he lifted his hand from his side and pressed it gently to her lower back to guide her forward and to the left. It wasn't a firm hand, in fact there wasn't much pressure at all unfortunately, just enough for Clary to know that it was there, and she liked it. She kind of wanted to press up back against it, but she didn't.

They walked through the busy crowds, not talking because unless you were willing to raise your voice or stand really close together, it was hard to have a conversation over the buzz of noise around them.

Clary and Izzy made it work, and so did she and Simon, but Jace seemed kind of classy to do that, plus he was looking around at the shop windows and then down at his phone, which was in the hand that wasn't currently touching Clary.

She'd be down for both of them touching her.

And neither of them on her back.

Or, in particular positions, one could be splayed on her back while the other is gripping her hip and he's behind her or maybe holding her up against a wall—

"Here it is," Jace said and Clary was snapped out of her thoughts as she looked up at the little cafe on the corner of the block. It wasn't a Starbucks, but it didn't look a little mum-and-pop place that was within her budget, which meant it was probably a bit out of her budget. Especially since she didn't get paid until tomorrow night, and they might need to put more money into the pringles can so that they could buy another can opener, which was dumb, because Clary hated their money going to stupid stuff like that.

She knew it wasn't recommended, but she wondered if she could open the can of peaches for dinner tonight with the only sharp knife they had in the apartment.

"Get whatever you want," Jace was saying, and his hand dropped from her back, which was disappointing, and he finished up with whatever it was he was doing on his phone, pressing the button on the side to turn off the screen and his other hand dropped to his side as well.

"Ooh, you're paying?" Clary grinned up at Jace as she pushed the sunglasses up on top of her head. "Well, that changes things."

"You weren't going to get anything?" Jace asked, and he had that worried look again.

"I was gonna get coffee! And then..." she looked up at the blackboard behind the counter, scrunching up her nose as she considered the prices next to everything. It actually wasn't as scarily priced as she expected, but it was still expensive. "Well, I can afford a muffin? Or one of those yo-yo biscuits?" She shrugged as she looked back at Jace and he shook his head before smiling.

"Alright, well, order whatever you want, I'm paying. And I cleared my afternoon with my secretary—" he held up his phone, explaining what he had been doing on it on their way to the cafe. "So I'll take you home as well."

"Ooh, in the nice car?" Clary asked excitedly and Jace let out a short laugh.

"I guess? In my car," he shrugged a shoulder. "And we'll go to the grocery store and get you some food." Clary eyes widened and she stopped from moving up in the queue.

"Grocery store? Food?" She repeated back.

"Well, yeah," Jace said, taking a step forward in the queue and waiting for her. "You said you didn't have food—you didn't have breakfast this morning. I'm getting you some food before you go back to your apartment." Clary blinked at him, and then some old bad behind her cleared her throat pointedly and Clary sighed and moved forward to stand beside Jace again.

"I get paid tomorrow—and Jordan does to. We will get some food from the 7-Eleven and then we'll be good for the next week," Clary nudged him with her elbow, not too sure how to react to the fact that he was willing to pay for her coffee and lunch and then take her grocery shopping.

"7-Eleven? That's where you get your weekly groceries?" Jace asked, sounding a little disbelieving.

"Yeah," Clary shrugged.

"We're gonna go to Whole Foods," Jace told her and then they were stepping forward again and they were at the counter and Clary was still blinking up at him, because as far as she knew, only parents shopped at Whole Foods, and Jace was already placing his order. She guessed parents and adults, but generally those things were interchangeable. All she knew for certain was that unless she was with her mum or Luke, she had never shopped at Whole Foods. "Clary?" Jace tilted his head to the side as he looked at her, a small smile on his face as he waited patiently for her.

Unlike the woman behind the counter waiting for her order, who looked as though Clary was the bane of her existence.

"Oh, shit," Clary cleared her throat as she quickly joined Jace at the counter and skimmed her eyes over the menu. "Can I get a mocha with two pumps of hazelnut syrup? And a..." she chewed down on her bottom lip as she kept looking at the blackboard, trying to find what she wanted to eat, and then shrugged when she couldn't decide between two things. "The honey-mustard chicken sandwich and a slice of the passionfruit cheesecake?"

"Full cream or skim?" The woman asked in a bored voice.

"Ew—full," Clary answered and there was a quiet laugh from Jace before he reached forward to the pay for their order. They moved to the side with the other waiting customers, and Clary looked around the cafe for a spare table. There was one at the far end, and she nudged Jace's side, nodding at the table so that he knew where she was going before leaving him waiting for their food and drinks and moving to the end of the cafe where the table was, to make sure it was reserved. It wasn't too long of a wait, and Jace came over and put down their drinks and food and sat opposite her. "Thanks," she told him with a smile.

"It's no problem, Clary," Jace said, his eyes warm as he looked over at her, and she was glad that he had taken off his sunglasses as well, so that she could see his eyes, which were kind of like liquid gold, and made her insides feel all warm and tingly.

"And honestly—we don't need to go to Whole Foods. Like—I'm all in for you giving me a ride back to my apartment, because anything not to take the bus or uber or whatever is awesome, but—you don't have to get me groceries," Clary assured him as she picked up her coffee and took a sip. Then she made a face and reached for the sugar packets in the middle of the table in a dainty glass cup with pretty flowers painted around the rim and dumped two of them.

"Clary," Jace said quietly but firmly. "I'm going to give you a lift back to your apartment, but first we're going to get you groceries, okay? And not from 7-Eleven." Clary felt like maybe she should protest, but then she caught a glimpse of his watch again, and the Cartier sunglasses on his head, and then she had another pair of Cartier sunglasses on her head, and if he could afford all that shit and buy her cheesecake and coffee and sandwiches and wanted to buy her groceries, then why was she complaining about it.

"Okay," she shrugged a shoulder, but even she heard the slightly uncertain tone to her voice.

"Clary?" Jace murmured and she lifted her eyes from where she had been stirring her sugar into her coffee and met his, and it made her stomach feel even softer than before and she bit down on the bottom corner of her lower lip to stop herself from being super embarrassing and whimpering out loud. "It's fine. It's honestly fine." She narrowed her eyes a little at him, and then he narrowed his back at hers playfully and it made her giggle.

"Okay," she said again, and she sounded more confident this time. "But we have to get a bag of marshmallows."

"And a can opener."

"Oh yeah!" Clary laughed and Jace smiled at her. "And a can opener."

Alright! Another mass update! I'm just...In a super shitty place right now, completely mental, my life is actually in a really good space—isn't it great when that happens? But writing is generally therapeutic so...Here we go.

Movies I would recommend would be Where The Heart Is, which is an old time favourite for me, and How To Be Single, which I actually quite like, even though I don't like Dakota Johnson. It's like my love for Leslie Mann cancels that out though. Haha. I don't know...Both of these movies make me really sad and happy at the same time, so it's good.

Songs that I've recently fallen in love with are Perfectly Wrong by Shawn Mendes, Chateau by Angus & Julia Stone, You Make It Easy by Jason Aldean and Marry Me by Thomas Rhett. Recommend any songs that you guys have had on repeat recently :)

Hope you're all doing well, and please leave a review and let me know what you thought of the chapter because I love your comments x