AN: I have absolutely no excuses for being this late on publishing…please forgive me…

Disclaimer: Cassandra Clare owns all Mortal Instruments characters seen in this story.

"Clary, get up," I hear the melodic voice tell me. I groan and nuzzle my pillow. "Okay, then. Have it your way," I hear the voice say and it's too late when I realize where I am. Jace's house.

My eyes fly open, only to see two little brown and white fur balls jumping towards me. I squeal and pull the blanket over my head to no avail, Celine's two Mini Australian Shepherds, Bear and Bandit, who adore her and obey Jace, find a way to get under the blanket. "Jace! Help me," I squeal while laughing. I am currently getting, what Jace and I call, a 'face-wash.' In other words, they are licking my face to no end. I hear Jace's laugh and cover my face when I realize that he is definitely not going to help me.

I lay there for what must be a good 5 minutes, getting licked everywhere, and I mean everywhere, before Jace pulls them off of me and they sit on the edge of the bed with him, staring at me with their tongues hanging out. "Damn," I say and point to Bandit, the smaller of the two brothers with one blue eye and one brown eye, "that dog has the world's longest tongue." He laughs and says, "You've been here since we got them and you're just noticing that now?"

"No, I'm just stating a fact. Like the fact how Bear sleeps on his stomach and looks like a frog," I say simply and then get a glance at the clock. "Why would you get me up at 5:30?!" I ask very loudly.

He smirks at me and says, "Would you mind taking it down a few octaves. Look at the poor dogs," he motions to the two dogs that are now playing chase on the bed. I raise an eyebrow, "They're playing, Jace. Not whimpering and covering their ears with their paws."

He then looks at the dogs and commands them to cover their ears with their paws. The dogs lie on their stomachs, place their heads on the ground, and place their paws over their ears. "Smartass," I say to Jace and he smirks. "Well, to answer your question about why I'm waking you up this early is because our flight to California leaves at 7:30 and you take forever to get ready," he states simply and I get out of bed. I scoff and ignore that comment. I walk into the bathroom to shower and get the dog saliva off of me. Of course, when I turn around to get my clothes, I see that Jace has gone down stairs to feed the dogs and make us breakfast.

~.o.O.o.~

After my shower, I put my wet hair into a side braid and put on my black leggings and my oversized t-shirt that I am positive belonged to Jace at some point. I tie the shirt into a knot at the side and put on my old sneakers. I pull my suitcase down stairs and put my messenger bag over my shoulder.

In the kitchen, I know exactly what Jace is making…pancakes. I grab two plates, give one to Jace, and head for the island with my three pancakes. We have to careful to not wake Celine as we talk about what we think Izzy is going to make us do over summer. "Who knows," I say as I clean off my plate in the sink. I check the watch on the wall and see that it reads 6:45. "Jace, we better get going if we're going to make that flight."

"Already called the taxi," he says and then grabs his suitcases. I follow suit and pet the dogs on my way out. They jump on me and I now have long white dog hair on my black leggings. Awesome.

~.o.O.o.~

The plane took off and now Jace and I are waiting for the Capitan to tell us that we can use our electronic devices. I notice the girls staring at Jace and see some whispering to their friends. Great, here we go. I look over at Jace and see that he is fishing in my bag for my iPad. I lean down to whisper in his ear, "You've got every single girl on this plane looking at you."

"So?" he turns his head to look at me and opens his mouth to say something else, but inhales sharply when he sees how close our lips are. I freeze too and stop breathing. I feel my heart rate spike and we sit like that, bent over, not moving, Jace holding my iPad in his hands, until some blue haired bimbo interrupts us. She has long blue hair in a bun and with the way she's dressed, I'm shocked she's made it this far. "There's an empty seat by me, if you want," she attempts to speak in a sultry voice and her eyes are glued onto Jace.

We are both sitting upright in our seats again when Jace responds, "I'm fine with sitting here." She looks at him longingly and when he leans into me (we pushed up the seat divider so we could be more comfortable) her lovely presence gets even better. She glares at me and I see her 'inner beauty' really shine. "Surely you couldn't be with her, she's a little young and looks immature," she puts her sultry voice back on as she says, "You should be with someone a little more experienced, don't you think? I mean she's like what, 12?"

I look at Jace as she says this and I can see him tense. He's been my best friend ever since we were five and I know how to read him well. She continues on speaking and I know that the gloves have come off with Jace. She leans on the aisle seat where Jace is sitting and nods her head towards her seat. I watch the interaction closely and see that Jace is acting as if he's contemplating it. She looks victoriously at me and I just sit there, acting like I don't know what's going to happen with a worried expression on my face.

She was definitely not expecting these next words to come out of Jace's mouth. Neither was I.

"You know what? I'm fine with sitting here, probably because she's my best friend, you insulted her, and you don't know anything about me. Those aren't my only reasons…my other reason is that she is ten times more beautiful than you and I'm not just talking about inner beauty…" he trails off and looks satisfied with his answer as I sit there with a shocked expression on my face before I regain my composure and smirk triumphantly at her. She looks absolutely shell-shocked. She manages to walk slowly back to her seat and I start fishing around my bag for the splitters and my earphones.

He exhales and sits still for a few minutes. I feel as if I wasn't supposed to hear that, so I quickly shove in my earphones and plug it into the splitter, acting as if I was doing this the entire time. I mess around on the iPad, picking the movie, which, as always, is 'John Wick.' He plugs his earphones into the splitter also and I start the movie. I let my thoughts drift off during the beginning of the movie because it's kinda depressing.

He doesn't know it, but when he turned back to face me I heard him breathe a sigh of relief as he took in me wearing my earphones. I took one out and asked him 'what that was about' and he just responded with 'that girl insulted you and asked if I wanted to sit by her.'

I snap out of my thoughts as I hear John realize who it was that put him in the position of scrubbing his floor clean and then the screen cuts to a bus…onto the ass kicking.

~.o.O.o.~

"Alright, folks. We are beginning our descent into California. It is currently 72o and is raining, sorry about that, it seems the ever sunny California isn't so sunny right now," the passengers laugh lightly as the Capitan makes his announcement, "At this time I would like to ask you if you could place any large electronic items back in their bag, turned off. Any smaller devices, such as cell phones must remain in airplane mode until we safely land, and may be used if wished during our descent. We should be landing in about 20 minutes."

Jace and I look at each other and our unspoken words always are understood. I unplug the splitter from the iPad and turn it off as Jace grabs his phone and plugs the splitter into it. I place the iPad back into the bag and we listen to music as we descend.

~.o.O.o.~

Jace and I are getting our bags from baggage claim when I see a text from Izzy.

New iMessage from: Izzy

Hey, girlie! When your plane lands get a rental car because I'm not chauffeuring your ass everywhere in CA. See ya at the beach house! P.S. the address is in your email.

I groan. "Jace, it looks like we're getting a rental car."

"Why," he asks as he grabs our bags.

"Because Izzy is an ass and is too lazy to pick us up. She also claims that she is 'not chauffeuring my ass everywhere.'"

"Then let's get us a rental car." We grab our bags and head to the rental car area. I had no idea Jace would work his magic like he did, but the person helping us was indeed a girl, and boy did we get a car.

~.o.O.o.~

"Jace, slow down!" I am gripping the handle in the car for dear life. He just laughs and glances at me. His eyes dart back to the freeway as he says, "Clary, we'll be there in less than 20 minutes. Relax…and you know what? I'm thinking of getting one of these baby's when we get back home."

I roll my eyes and scoff, "What is it with guys and fast cars?"

"It's the thrill," he pauses and I look over at him, "and maybe the idea of having a hot girl that goes with it."

There's the answer I was expecting. I face forward again and mess with the radio. If we're going to be in this car for the rest of summer, I might as well figure out the radio.

~.o.O.o.~

We pull up in front of the beach house and all I can say is wow. It's absolutely pouring outside and considering the fact that you really can't drive any farther because fog is settling on the small town we're in, Jace parks on the front patio and tells me that 'he'll move it when he can actually see.' We open the doors and run to the house. It isn't that far a run to the front door considering the wooden door/gate that leads to not only the house, but also a casita and it's covered. We still manage to be absolutely soaked to the bone. We slam the front door shut as we enter and I hear Izzy coming towards us. She was in a room that was right next to the front entryway and I'm guessing that's her room?

She takes one look at us and asks, "Is it raining?"

I respond, "No, I'm drenched in liquid sunshine."

Jace responds, "No, I'm practicing to be a water sprinkler."

Izzy just rolls her eyes and starts to explain the house, "Okay, so there's three floors. Simon and I are on the bottom floor in the master. There's also an exercise room, extra bathroom, laundry room, two balconies, and the garage on that floor. The top floor is Mag's and Alec's. They have an extra entrance and a living room up there," she points up, "This floor has the office, another bedroom-which is my closet-living room, kitchen, dining room, large balcony, and a casita. The casita will be yours."

"Jace and I are sharing a room?" I ask. She looks at me and then nods her head. "Well, I have to get back to organizing my closet, so-" she turns to go back into her 'closet'.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she pokes her head out of the room," there's an elevator."