Okay, this is gonna be another one of these months you get two updates in month, so...*throws internet cookies*
It was surprisingly easy to just sit there and talk to Jace.
Clary had wondered if maybe it would get awkward, because he was old and had a proper job and money and owned a fancy ass car and lived in a super nice house, that they wouldn't have much to talk about, but they didn't.
He asked about her photography and she asked about his job, and he told her about how different New York had been from Los Angeles and how glad he was to move back and she told him about how she had lived anywhere but Los Angeles, although she had bounced around through a few places. And he had gotten some berry and white chocolate slice thing that looked amazing, and he could obviously see her eyeing it up because he pushed his plate in her direction and just laughed when she took off a massive chunk with her fork.
"Alright, so we need to get my car. Then we'll get groceries and I'll you take you back to your apartment before I got back to work," Jace said once they were done.
"You're gonna go back to work after you dropped me off?" Clary asked, tilting her head to the side and Jace's gaze followed her red curls as they fell over her shoulder before looking back up at her, eyes oddly soft.
"Yeah," he replied.
"But you said you cleared your afternoon," Clary pointed out. Because why the fuck would anyone work when they didn't have to? He'd said before that it was his company, which meant he probably got paid and shit whether or not he was there or not. If she could choose to get paid and not to go to work, she would totally be down for that.
"I've still got other things to do," Jace told her with a small smile on his face. "There's always a lot to do."
"Sounds shit," Clary made a face and Jace let out a surprised laugh, eyes dancing as a grin spread across his face.
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is," he admitted and Clary grinned back at him, just glad that she was the one who had made him laugh. "But it sort of comes with the territory."
"Wouldn't know," Clary shrugged. "I've never owned a company before." Jace smiled at her as an old memory shifted to the surface. "Although...I wouldn't go as far as to say that I don't have any business knowledge. There was a lemonade and fruit stand that I ran a very successfully for three summers in a row." He arched an eyebrow and his smile shifted to something adorable and soft.
"What'd you buy with all of your profits?" Jace asked.
"A skateboard and a whole lot of a candy," Clary replied instantly and Jace laughed again.
"You still own the skateboard?" Jace asked.
"Damn straight I do," Clary grinned. "Although, I've had to buy another one since then, a bigger one, but I still have it, back at my mum and Luke's." Jace grinned again and Clary just felt nice and stupid and warm.
So, she got to drive in Jace's car, this time not drunk and not totally hungover, so it was even better than the first two times. It smelt really good, better than Simon's car and the other guys that Clary's had been in, even better than Luke's, because he always had boxes of work stuff in the back that would be in and out of storage which meant there was usually this musty sort of smell. It was clean as well, no stickiness or anything, or even dust, and Clary ran her fingers along the shiny surface in front of her before looking over at Jace.
"You alright?" Jace asked as he glanced over at her before focusing back on the road, and it wasn't as though she was going to tell him that she was marveling at the fact that there was no dust.
"Yup," Clary replied, popping the 'p' and then looking down at her phone. She had a couple of snapchats, one of them from Michael, and they only ever really interacted when one of them wanted to hook up, so she didn't even bother opening that one, pressing on the one from Magnus and then from Izzy. It didn't take long for them to get to a Whole Foods, and Jace found a park not too far from the entrance, and then they were getting out and he was getting a trolley as though they were normal, proper adults and doing their normal, proper adult shopping and she kind of just trailed in behind him.
"You want to lead the way?" Jace prompted her once they got inside, standing in to the fruit and vegetable section. Clary looked up at him, pursing her lips for a moment before nodding and then striding forward.
She wasn't completely incompetent when it came to grocery shopping, she used to go on proper shopping trips with her mum on a weekly basis and sometimes she did when she went home for weekends or holidays, she just didn't go on a regular basis.
She licked her lips as she her fingers skipped over to the apples, scanning the bags for the reddest ones and then putting it in the trolley. She couldn't help but glance up at Jace and he had this sort of approving look on his face, and it was stupid because she didn't need his approval—this was her shopping after all—but it kind of made her feel better. So then she got bananas and fresh peaches—none of this in the can kind of shit—and she got some vegetables because she wasn't working tonight so she could make dinner with actual food rather than the pasta with chopped up chicken patties that they had originally planned.
"Oooh!" Clary's eyes widened as she slammed her hands down on the side of the trolley and looked back at Jace, who looked taken aback by her outburst. "I'm gonna make meatballs for dinner." He relaxed almost straight away and nodded.
"You know what you need?" He asked, probably assuming that she had some type of food at home.
She didn't.
She really hadn't been kidding about there being nothing.
"I've got the seasoning?" She attempted with a shrug and a sheepish grin.
"Like the herbs?" Jace's eyebrows pulled together.
"Like the salt and pepper? Except probably not the pepper?" She replied with a squint and Jace stared at her for a moment before letting out another laugh, sounding like it came up from his stomach and was genuine and sweet, not at all like he was laughing at her, which she was fine with.
"Alright, let's get going," he told her, his voice warm, and Clary couldn't help her smile in response, skipping along at his side.
They got everything that she needed for meatballs, and Jace got the proper brand pasta and put it in the trolley, not even weighing up the prices and going for the knock off brand that was all misshaped styles of pasta. Then he got two more bags and kept on going. He let her lead the way, but he made sure to pick things out as well, things that Clary wouldn't really think to get herself; like museli bars and little boxes of herbs and garlic ailoi in a fancy jar and a few packets of biscuits. He got her deli meat and fancy bread and didn't judge her when she dumped the biggest bag of marshmellows in the trolley, or when she grabbed a second bag, because she might as well capitalize on this generosity while it was available to her.
"Just one last thing..." Jace mumbled under his breath as they went down the last aisle with assorted items, and he pulled a can opener off one of the hooks.
Clary beamed up at him.
When they got up to the check outs, Clary just started piling things onto the conveyor belt, and Jace didn't stop her, but she noticed that there was some kind of method to the items that he was pulling out of the trolley and putting down on the belt. The fruit was all together, the boxed items were together...It was all properly organised and it made her shrug, because she really didn't care if the chicken got packed next to the muffins.
They were wrapped up already, right?
She hadn't died of cross-contamination yet, and if it was going to happen, then at least she would have had the meatballs first, because she wouldn't try the muffins until tomorrow.
She'd had a good life, albeit a bit short.
She could deal with it.
She wouldn't have to pay off her student loans, so...That was a plus if she really had to find one.
"Clary?" Jace tilted his head to the side as he looked at her and Clary hummed in response as she looked back at him. "Can you move up a bit?" She realized that she had been standing in the same spot for a while now, while the cashier had swiped most of their items through and bagged them, and was probably going to expect payment some time soon.
Payment she definitely didn't have, given it was payday tomorrow and she had about...Six dollars in her account, when she had checked this morning.
But Jace swiped a shiny black credit card through the machine and then he was packing everything back into the trolley and then they were walking out. Clary couldn't help that she was still skipping beside him, and her hair was bouncing up and down around her shoulders and the hem of her shirt kept flipping up a little and she felt really stupidly happy.
About groceries.
And that was a scary thought, because that was definitely an adult thing to be excited about and that wasn't really something that she wanted to think about right now.
What she was willing to think about was the fact she was going to make fresh meatballs with proper herbs and spices and sauce from a jar and not the tubs where she had to peel back the top and fancy-ass pasta.
It was gonna be amazing.
When they were driving out of the store parking lot, Clary was looking around the centre console and found an aux cord tucked into the little slot where the lighter thing usually was in and she unwound it, glancing over at Jace. He looked over at her, and so obviously knew what she was doing and didn't seem to care, so she plugged it into her phone and flicked through her Spotify—or, more correctly, Simon's Spotify account, because he paid the Spotify and she paid the Netflix and Jordan paid the—
"Put on whatever you want," Jace said quietly as they came to a stop at a red light and Clary realized that she had just been scrolling through the playlists and not choosing anything.
"Right," Clary mumbled, her thumb swiping over the screen, to the last played artists.
Liquid Jesus.
Not one of hers.
Clary rolled her upper lip and moved on.
Luke Combs.
Nope—that was definitely Simon.
Amy Shark.
There we go, that was fucking better.
Shawn Mendes, Yungblud, The Pretty Reckless, Bastille...She kept on swiping until she found 5 Seconds Of Summer, tapping into their main playlist and then just selecting Shuffle Play since they weren't all that far from her apartment. She had specific playlists as well, but she figured if Jace could handle her enormous hard-on for boy bands, then he was actually pretty much shaping up to be the perfect guy.
"I'm pretty sure Iz was obsessed with these guys," Jace commented. "She was heart broken when they broke up."
"They haven't broken up!" Clary cried, looking over at Jace with a horrified expression. He looked a little bewildered.
"I thought they...Were all doing their own separate thing now? After that first guy left—Iz's favourite?" Jace said, looking almost tentative. "That guy who was dating that model..."
"Ew, Iz's favourite was Zayn?" Clary rolled her eyes. "Typical. But—no, I mean—I'm guessing you're talking about One Direction, that's not them. This is 5SOS. They're amazing and still together. Although 5SOS did open for 1D at one stage..." she hummed out loud and Jace just shook his head, smiling before looking back at the road. They made it through three songs—including one of their old ones that Clary still adored but could admit was super cheesy—and Jace still had a small smile on his face and wasn't complaining, so she figured that she could forgive him for mixing up the two boy bands.
"Hm," Jace hummed out as they reached the apartment building and he looked around for parking. There was parking underneath their apartment building, but Clary didn't have the swipe card to get into the basement—one was in Simon's car and the other was in their apartment—so it wasn't as though they could go down there and use one of the parking spaces there. Jace found a park around the corner from the front doors of her apartment building and they got out, pulling the bags out of the back. Jace loaded most of them onto his arms, so Clary only had one to carry, and she lead the way into their building.
"Are you sure you don't want me to carry anything else?" Clary asked over her shoulder as she jabbed the button for the elevator a couple of times, waiting for one of them to come down to the ground floor.
"I've got it," Jace replied easily, not looking as though he was struggling with the five bags on his arms. An elevator door opened and they got in, and it was nowhere near as fancy as the elevators at Jace's apartment building. There was shitty twinkling music and there was no plant in the corner, and there were some weird stains on the floor and scratches on the walls and door. Once they got to their floor, Jace stuck his foot purposefully in the door, holding them open while Clary walked past him, then following after her, and her apartment was empty as she went inside. "Does everyone else have class now?" Jace asked as he walked over to the cluttered kitchen table and put the shopping bags down.
"Simon and Iz do," Clary said as she put her own bag down next to his, then put her keys, phone and wallet down on the bench. "Jordan is...Out. I don't know. Or maybe he's here and in his room?" She glanced down the hallway, and the door of the room that he shared with Simon was shut, but that was pretty common for them. "He's at his boyfriends sometimes, but they fight a lot."
"But still do weird sex things that involve kitchen utensils?" Jace asked with an amused smile and Clary grinned.
"Half the time I think they just fight to have the make up sex," she replied as she started to unpack the grocery bags. "It can get pretty loud. Simon usually ends up on the couch or sharing mine or Izzy's bed..." she got distracted as she realized that Jace had added some more fresh fruit and vegetables than she had seen, and there were also some instant mixes for pancakes, cupcakes and a lemon cake. They were the expensive instant mixes too, and she appreciated that he hadn't just randomly got her all of the ingredients, because at least this way, they could sit in the cupboard for a while, until a special occasion, and they didn't have to use them right away.
"Where did you want these?" Jace asked her, holding up the bread items and Clary waved a hand over her shoulder to one of the cupboards while she started putting things in the fridge. There was some beer in the fridge—Jordan's brand, not Simon's—and there was a bottle of mayonnaise and a few cheese slices still in their plastic wrappers. All in all, it looked pretty sad, but as she started adding the bottle of milk, and the yoghurt, and the fruit and vegetables, it started looking like a fully functional fridge—probably for the first time since it had been moved into their apartment. "And this," Jace held out the can opener, still in it's cardboard and plastic packaging. "Is there somewhere safe that you can put it? Where Jordan and his boyfriend can't find it?" He had a wry smile on his face and it was weird, because Jace wasn't the type of guy who had to worry about where his can opener was.
She'd been in his house and she'd seen his car, and he seemed to be extra clean and orderly, even for an adult.
He probably knew exactly what was in the drawers in his kitchen, and he didn't have room mates who have weird sex lives that correlated directly to not being able to open a can of peaches.
But he was...Smiling and looked happy about the fact she was the complete opposite of him.
Clary wasn't even really thinking before she was taking a few steps to cross the kitchen and was reaching up and pressing a kiss to Jace's cheek. Admittedly, she would rather be kissing him somewhere else, especially since she knew that he was so good at kissing, but she decided to stick with something safe right now. When Clary moved back, Jace was smiling at her, and it made her stomach dip as she rested back on her feet.
"Did you want to do this again?" Jace asked.
"Grocery shop?" Clary couldn't help but laugh and Jace rolled his eyes, and it made him look younger, and it was ridiculously endearing, even though she liked the fact that he was older than her.
"We can grocery shop again, yes," Jace nodded his head, and Clary had been joking but the fact that he had agreed made her eyes widen in surprise and the smile drop her face as she realized that he was implying that he would buy her groceries again. "But I meant go out for food. Maybe for dinner?" Clary's eyes lit up.
"Yeah?" She grinned. "Yeah," she repeated, and jerked her head in a nod, and Jace smiled wide at her.
"Does Saturday night work?" He asked. Clary probably had plans already on Saturday, but it would just be to go out drinking, which is what she did every Saturday. This was a once in a life time thing.
Or twice in a life time, if their coffee date today counted as an actual date.
But either way, she wasn't going to pass it up.
"Yeah, absolutely," Clary nodded again. Jace's face was soft and sweet and he lifted his hand to touch her cheek, gently gliding his fingers over her cheekbone. His touch was so light that Clary could only just feel it, but her eyelashes still fluttered slightly and her lips parted just a little. When she refocused her eyes on Jace, he wasn't smiling anymore, and his teeth were pressing gently into his lower lip. She watched as he swallowed hard and he stepped back, hand falling to his side.
"Do you have anywhere that you would prefer to go?" Jace asked as he turned back to the kitchen table and finished emptying the plastic bags.
"Uh..." Clary really just wanted him to come back and touch her face again.
Or kiss her.
She really wasn't fussy.
Either one would make her happy.
And honestly—the fanciest food that she went and brought was when they had enough money to scrape together to go to the roast shop across the road and then put it onto plates and use actual knives and forks to eat it instead of using plastic ones and eating right out of the container.
"You pick," she went with and Jace nodded.
"Do you like Thai? Chinese? Italian?"
"Yes, yes, yes," Clary smirked and Jace laughed.
"Alright, really narrows down our options," he replied and she just shrugged.
"And don't forget that wherever we go, it has to have a good place to get dessert. Or we could go to a dessert bar. Either way, dessert is the most important part of the meal and if you screw up on that, I really don't think I can go out on another date with you," the words were out before she could stop them, and even though Jace was technically asking her out on a date, saying it out loud made it sound a whole lot louder.
But Jace just smiled over at her as he picked up his keys from the table.
"Dessert is the most important, and you like Thai, Chinese and Italian," he recited back. "I'll find somewhere for us to go, and I'll text you and let you know what time I can get us booked in?"
"Perfect," Clary beamed and she kind of wanted to say you're perfect but she didn't.
"Thanks for meeting me today, Clary," Jace said, his voice so sincere that it made her heart thump harder in her chest.
"I—course," Clary didn't really know what to say, because she had thanked him a few times on the way home for buying her groceries, and really, she was the one that got the better end of the deal here.
"Bye, Clary," Jace told her softly, giving her one last smile before opening the front door and disappearing.
I watched the movie It's Kind of a Funny Story for the first time, I've been meaning to watch it for years, but I just never had. I'm really glad I did, so I definitely recommend it. It's got Zach Galifianakis, Viola Davis and Emma Roberts and it's just a really really good. Sort of similar to Perks of Being a Wallflower, although nowhere near as good since that's my favourite movie of all time. Haha. Also as I'm writing this, we're watching Big Hero 6 and I just adore this movie so much. They're all just amazing, and Tadashi is just...The most beautiful person in the world. Oh, and the other day I watched Need For Speed again, which is just a mindlessly car racing movie, but I love Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots and so it's great. Haha.
For TV shows, I've recently started The Bold Type, and I'm completely in love, the three main girls are adorable, I don't know which one is my favourite so far. None? All? All, I think. And I absolutely love Alex. And Jacqueline is a fucking goddess. Honestly, the show just makes me so happy. Also Crashing, which was fucking hilarious. Some of the lines in it were really cruel, actually, which kind of cut for a comedy show. I absolutely fucking LOVED Melody and Colin and Sam. Particularly Melody. Also, Derry Girls, I've recommended it before, I'll do it again. Haha. My husband and I have watched it sooooooo many times, it's generally our go-to when stoned. Haha.
Okay, so songs... Uh, some old ones I've been listening to—Forever and Sex Metal Barbie by In This Moment, um, also Blood and Adrenalize. Slow Fade by Ruth B, which is beautiful, Cringe by Matt Maeson and the acoustic version is even better. None Of My Business by Cher Lloyd and Takeaway by The Chainsmokers and then Hope For The Underrated Youth by Yungblud, which I bawled my eyes out over the first few times I listened to it.
Okay; questions...Anyone into Veronica Mars? Anyone been into Veronica Mars since they were a child? Oh my god. I was so fucking disappointed by the reboot. Like, my entire heart dropped. I only got two episodes in, and I wasn't really enjoying it, I just felt like Veronica wasn't characterized well, she had actually regressed, and then I read the ending, and I just refused to go on. So...That's disappointment dating back to my primary school days.
Umm...Favourite song right now? Mine is hammer by nothing,nowhere.
And how many tattoos do you have? I've just gotten my second one, and I think I'm getting a third in November, and then I've got plans for, like, four others.
Anyway, drop a review, they make my day :)