Hey, pretties :) This is the second to last chapter!
It was Sunday afternoon and Clary had laughed when Jace had tried to drag her back to bed for the third time and insisted that they go back to her apartment. She told him apart from last night, it had been a while since she had hung out with her friends, and she wanted to go and be with them. Jace had thought maybe she would want to be with them alone, but when they got to her apartment, she gave him a pointed look when he pulled into the parking lot.
"Come on, buddy, you're coming with me," Clary said with a grin. Jace blinked at her, not too sure what to say, so he just got out of the car, locking it and then followed her into the building. Her apartment was small, a lot smaller than his place, and he wasn't sure how many of her friends were there, but he was guessing it was probably going to be cramped. He caught a glimpse of the love bite on Clary's neck as her hair swung from side to side, and he couldn't help his smile as he lowered his gaze. He couldn't remember if that was from last night, or one of their rounds this morning, they had all sort of blended into just this whole twelve hours of sex that he most definitely didn't regret.
Jace had been expecting this whole discussion to happen, usually it did when it came to girls. It definitely did with his past girlfriends. But this morning, somewhere between the third and fourth rounds when they were drinking coffee and Clary was standing naked in his kitchen, he had hesitantly brought up the fact that Clary had called him her boyfriend the other night, when she was falling asleep.
"Do you not want to be?" She had bluntly asked him with a raised eyebrow. Jace had gaped at her for a moment before jerking his head in a few nods. "So what else is there to talk about?" She shrugged as she picked up her coffee cup to finish of the drink before she had jumped Jace again. And if that was it for her, then that was enough for him.
"Oh, heeeey!" Came out a teasing sing-song voice as Clary opened their door and Jace followed her inside. Magnus grinned from where he was sitting in the arm chair, his legs folded underneath him and a piece of pizza in his hand. "You disappeared on us last night, wasn't sure you were going to reappear until after the weekend ended," he winked cheekily over at Jace, and the older man wasn't sure what to say, so he just kept his mouth shut.
"Please, please, please tell me that there is still some—"
"Garlic prawn left, yes," Lydia said with a knowing grin as she opened up the lid of one of the pizza's and shoved it in Clary's direction. Clary let out a happy noise and moved around to sit down on Simon's lap, who was taking up space on the couch next to Raphael. Lydia was comfortably on the ground, sitting on a cushion and the only other seat left was one that was pushed to the corner, beside the TV. Jace stood there awkwardly for a moment, eyes flicking over to the chair and then back to the group of friends who were easily talking, Clary looking more than comfortable on Simon's lap as she almost devoured a slice of pizza in one bite.
"You want pizza?" Raphael asked through a mouthful of pizza. "Pull the seat over or sit on the floor, dig in," he waved at the pizza boxes on the table and after a quick glance at Clary, who was looking at him expectantly, Jace decided to drag over the chair in the corner of the room. He knew that the people in this room were important to Clary, and that if they were going to go forward with this relationship, then he should make an effort to get to know them. He had liked Raphael, when they had spent the day at the beach, but he hadn't really gotten to know the others, since he had mainly been with Isabelle and Alec, or Clary.
"Thanks," Jace said with a tight —almost nervous —smile and picked up one of the chicken supreme pieces of pizza and lifted it to his mouth. It was still hot, so it must have only just arrived recently. There were a couple of pieces of garlic bread left and two bottles of soda that were both half empty. There was a bong on the floor beside Magnus, and there was definitely the smell of weed winding together with the smell of greasy food, so he was guessing that they had been getting high and then had been hit with a case of the munchies.
"Did you hear anything back from the ice cream place?" Lydia asked as she got up from the ground and went into the kitchen.
"Yeah, they offered me like fifteen hours a week," Clary crinkled her nose. Jace remembered Clary mentioning a while ago that she wanted to work more hours through the holiday, which made sense, since she wasn't going to be studying.
"Same," Lydia sighed as she came back into the lounge with a roll of paper towels in her hand. She ripped a sheet off and then put them on the table for anyone else who wanted them. She wiped off her hands and picked up one of the soda bottles, drinking straight from the bottle. "I was kind of hoping for something more around the twenty-five to thirty hour mark. There is no way in hell I can keep living with all those girls next year. That place is a hell hole."
"You mean you don't want to be woken up in the middle of the night when Shanae and Riley are having domestics over who that guy belongs to?" Magnus snorted.
"I thought that cat fights were interesting to watch," Raphael's eyes were wide, and he looked as though he had seen some things that he didn't wish to relive. "But there is literally no class when it comes to their fights, and I ended up with a hunk of hair in my mouth before I managed to get out of there." Clary let out a laugh. The topic of conversation had seemed to shift from the whole job talk, but Jace cleared his throat and spoke up.
"I've got a temporary bartending gig opened up, over the next two months?" He offered, feeling strangely nervous as he looked over at Lydia. Lydia blinked at him and then a grin broke out over face.
"Do I get an employee discount?" She wiggled her eyebrows and there was a bark of laughter from Magnus and another from Simon.
"Yeah, but no drinking on the job," Jace replied, feeling a bit better than he had before.
"Deal," Lydia nodded and grinned. "Ooh—does the employee discount extend to friends and family?" She asked with a cheeky raised eyebrow and Jace sighed, but he was smiling, along with everyone else who was now looking at him excitedly.
"We can work something out," he agreed.
"I think that we've already got an in, even if you weren't working there," Simon grinned and squeezed Clary in his lap, who rolled her eyes, but she didn't bother talking because she was already onto her third slice of pizza. Jace just shook his head as the others laughed and Magnus tore off a piece of garlic bread before tilting his head to the side.
"What about you, Clary?" He asked.
"Hmphf?" Clary mumbled through her mouthful and Jace snorted as he picked up another piece of pizza. She rolled her eyes and then looked back at Magnus.
"Are you happy with fifteen hours a week at some gross ice cream parlor with a bunch of screaming kids who get their sticky fingers everywhere?" Magnus asked her. Clary swallowed her mouthful and laughed.
"Are you trying to make the idea sound even worse?" She teased him.
"Kind of," Magnus nodded. "Because Kaelie was talking to me yesterday and she was thinking that she might want to go on a bit of an overseas trip."
"When?" Clary asked.
"What?" Lydia exclaimed. "She never said anything like that to us!"
"She mentioned it a while ago, that she was thinking about it, but then the other day she said now that 'we were all hooked up and in love'—" Magnus made quotation marks with his fingers. "—And she said that there were some really good last minute deals to go to Italy."
"Italy?!" Lydia cried out. "The bitch is just upping and leaving us for Italy?!"
"You know she's probably never gonna come back," Raphael snorted. "She's gonna hook up with some Italian guy who owns a vineyard and she's gonna forget all about us."
"Anyway," Magnus continued, ignoring their interjections. "The point is, that with her maybe going—and I'm pretty sure she is going—I'm not going to have her there in the boutique with me. I've got Jessamine, but she mainly just handles customers, she doesn't do any of the setting up or counting the register or helping me with the restocking and orders."
"Is that a job offer?" Clary asked with raised eyebrows.
"Just for the summer," Magnus nodded his head. "I'm certainly hoping that Kaelie ends up coming back, given she helps me with the designs and things like that, but I need someone I can trust there to help and do things like close up the register. It's gonna include things like cleaning up as well, since I'll be the one working on all of the designs with Kaelie gone, so it's not going to be anything glamorous, but it's not bad pay, and it'll be thirty-five hour weeks, so it's full time, give you a bit of money to save."
"Uh, yes. Absolutely yes," Clary nodded her head so fast that it made her hand shake and one of the prawns on her pizza slice nearly slid off. "Yeah, that'd be great!"
Jace slouched back in his seat comfortably, lifting one of his legs and bending it so that his ankle was resting against his other knee. He was more than happy just to sit back and observe as the friends all talked among each other. Clary managed to push both Raphael and Simon apart so that she could squeeze into the space between them, and it was impressive, the way she nearly finished off the whole pizza. Conversation moved on to other topics, like what their other summer plans were and what they thought Kaelie was going to get up to overseas. He was surprised how much time had gone by when Magnus checked his phone and got up from his seat.
"I've got plans with Alec for dinner, so I should probably be off," he said. "You need a hand?" He gestured down at the empty pizza boxes and soda bottles and rubbish in front of him.
"Nah, nah," Simon waved his hands. "Don't worry. You head off."
"Alright, I'll see you guys later," Magnus waved over his shoulder before heading out of the apartment. That seemed to be the prompt for everyone to start moving around and packing up the rubbish. Jace got up and helped as well, and Clary and Lydia wiped down the table. Afterwards, Clary grinned and held out her hand toward Jace.
"Wanna go to my room and make out?" She asked with a grin, sticking her tongue out from behind her teeth teasingly. There was laughter from Raphael as Jace quickly took her hand and followed her out of the lounge.
I hope you guys enjoyed the update! I'm not too sure how much longer I'll be able to keep up with the weekly updates, but we'll see how it goes. Haha. On with my top 10 of the week;
1) Walls - Louis Tomlinson. 2) Wrong Direction - Hailee Steinfeld. 3) Alanis' Interlude - Halsey and Alanis Morissette. 4) Brooklyn Baby - Lana Del Rey. 5) You Should Be Sad - Halsey. 6) Venice Bitch - Lana Del Rey. 7) Fake Love - BTS. 8) Too Young - Louis Tomlinson. 9) Love Me Less - MAX and Quinn XCII. 10) She - Harry Styles.
And then my husbands repeats for the past week have been the new In This Moment song, The In-Between, and Blood, Sweat & Tears by BTS.
I haven't watched anything new, really, other than the Nancy Drew series that's out. I don't mind it, but it just doesn't strike the same chord that the book series did when I was younger, it doesn't have the same feel. Even the old movie with Emma Roberts in it had a more nostalgic feel to it, but given how different it is from the books, it's kind of easy to just make it feel like a completely new fandom all together. Oh, and I did finish Reprisal, and it was fucking amazing, so I definitely recommend that.
Please leave a review, let me know what you think of the update, let me know your favourite song at the moment, or your favourite movie or TV series or favourite lyrics or whatever the hell ya want xx