"Is your kitchen always this empty or did you do this because Izzy was coming over?" Jace asked, throwing a cupboard door shut. My sister looked at him venomously, then to me like she expected a genuine answer. I was not going there under any circumstances.
It was nice to be hanging out as a trio again. Isabelle was telling us all about the latest venture of the school's drama club, which is more fun for all of us to hear about because me and Jace knew the setting. When I talked about my life or Jace talked about his time at the college, there were a whole bunch of unknown factors involved.
Izzy was just getting onto the terrible passage of poetry Simon's band mate Eric recited so a girl on stage - balcony-scene style - when my phone started to ring. I was going to silence it, and then I saw it was Camille calling.
"Hold on." I said. I raised a finger in a pause signal and showed the two of them the screen. "I think I need to take this."
I don't know what was making Isabelle more annoyed; being interrupted or the fact Camille was still calling me at all.
"Mon petit!" The woman gasped, before I even said 'hello'.
"Hey, Camille." I said a little sheepishly. Obviously, it was not a good time. "What's up?"
I put her on speaker phone, just to show my sister that there was nothing to hide. Wow, was that a bad idea.
"I want to hear all about your date, that's what!" Camille exclaimed in her usual, dramatic voice. I got the impression that she was always 'on', when it came to theatrics. Honestly, I didn't know how Magnus could put up with it all the time.
Then again, he could be pretty outlandish himself.
"You said it wasn't a date." Said Isabelle in an accusatory way. Her arms had folded and her dark eyes had narrowed.
"It wasn't." I told her.
It was Camille who spoke next. You could just about picture her rolling those bright green eyes of hers. "Whatever you want to call it. All I know is that he blew me off."
"Hold up. You actually went somewhere with him?" Jace asked in complete disbelief.
Our priorities were pretty different. I had to keep in mind that while Magnus and I were in a pretty comfortable place as far as seeing each other went, my friends and family weren't half as prepared to accept what was going on.
The situation called for a lot more delicacy than Camille Belcourt was capable of providing.
"It was just a movie." I explained, wondering how much the woman on the phone had been told. Or would re-tell.
"And yet, he wouldn't tell me a thing." She sighed, co-incidentally answering my question. Nice how things panned out. Or not. The whole conversation was actually a bit of a nightmare. "But I thought, 'Not to worry, dear Alexander will surely tell me everything.'"
Isabelle made an unpleasant noise, somewhere between a snort and a huff, while I tried to figure out when exactly I'd become 'dear' to Camille. Sometime during all her phone calls? More likely after she got her way and I started talking to Magnus again.
In any case, it was pretty weird. But I was way past expecting normality when it came to this couple.
"There's not a lot to say." I began. "We went there, he refused to let me pay, we watched the movie and he walked me back to my car."
"Sounds like a date to me..." Izzy muttered. She and Jace exchanged glances. I threw a tea towel at them.
"Shut up." I said, not realising that Camille had been talking at the time.
"Rude!" She snapped. The other two started to snigger.
Talking to the three of them was making my energy levels were decrease incredibly quickly. I took a seat on one of the bar stools beside the counter top to take the weight off my feet.
I never asked Kyle where the stools came from, and convinced myself they were purchased second-hand, not somehow stolen from actual bars. Although with that guy you never really knew.
"Not you, Cam, I'm sorry." I sighed. I hardly even noticed that I didn't say her name properly, but Isabelle certainly did.
"Ca m'est egal." The woman on the line dismissed lightly. Last time she'd said those words to me, the situation had been very different. I shuddered.
It was crazy what had happened since that day. The last thing I would have expected was to wind up here. Which is why Izzy and Jace were having such a hard time with it. I sent the two of them apologetic glances. The looks I got back said exactly the same thing.
What the hell are you doing?
I looked away, sharpish.
"So, tell me." Camille went on. I willed her to stop talking. Maybe she had filming to go do? "Have you forgiven him yet?"
I'm sure I've said it before, and I will definitely say it again. This woman would be the death of me.
In one breath, Camille turned the atmosphere in the room from pretty-damn-awkward to suffocating tension. I knew there was no answer in the world I could give which would please everybody.
All I managed to say, turning away from the concentrated judgement rolling off Jace and Izzy in waves, was: "I don't know."
And everybody else heard what they wanted to hear.
"I knew it!" Isabelle and Camille gasped in unison, though one of them was a lot less happy about it than the other. Take a wild guess which. Jace just looked like his eyeballs might just pop out of his head.
I closed my eyes, and Camille said goodbye and hung up, leaving me to deal with the mess she'd created.
I spent a little time just staring at the phone.
"That woman..." Izzy muttered. Apparently my sister was pretending she hadn't once wholeheartedly idolised Camille Belcourt. Selective memory loss, perhaps? I kept that comment to myself. "Is she pressuring you into this? Is that what this is about?"
"No." I said firmly. "This is about Magnus making me happy."
"Last I checked, he made you anything but happy." Jace commented and hopped up to sit on the counted. I would have told him to get up. Under these circumstances, though, chances were that surface had been home to things far less sanitary than Jace's rear end.
"He's changing." I said, in a voice that sounded a touch too petulant. "He lives away from Camille, now. He doesn't sleep with anybody."
"How do you know?" Izzy interrupted.
"Because he says so." I said. She didn't consider that good enough evidence. Jace was holding his tongue.
They didn't trust his word, of course. What else was I supposed to do? Inspect his place with an ultraviolet light? Install a camera? Geez.
"Innocent until proven guilty." I added as an afterthought.
Jace leant back and put his weight on his hands. He seemed to be musing. "Okay. But, even if you don't call it dating-"
"Because it's not." I interjected.
"Okay." Jace replied, unconvinced. "You're still seeing a married guy. Doesn't he have exactly what he wanted now?"
In truth, I never really thought about it that way. The way I'd been looking at it, I couldn't very well ask Magnus to officially divorce Camille without knowing if we'd even get along. It was something I just had to move past for the time being.
We knew we got along now and he was still with her. I could see how from the outside that looked bad.
On the other hand, I knew better than that. Magnus didn't have what he wanted. Effectually, while he was speaking to Camille regularly and getting frequent visits from me, he didn't have a romantic relationship with anybody. Much less a sexual one.
And let's face it; Magnus wanted those things like he'd want another cigarette if he gave those up.
I shook my head. "Trust me. This is far from ideal for him."
And on it went. The story. Last time I'd recounted anything so fully it was that day in the cafe with Annamarie. She'd listened quietly, but this time there were comments, questions. Izzy and Jace both had a whole lot to say.
At heart, my sister is as much of a hopeless romantic as she is protective. She'd never admit that seeing Magnus was a good idea. I was resigned to that. But by the time it got dark outside and I had to drop her home - it was a school night - after talks and tangents and take out food, she at least seemed like she could deal with it.
Hey, that was progress.
Thanks for reading! Please excuse any mistakes for now because I uploaded via my phone. It will get checked when I have a computer again but I didn't want to wait all weekend to upload another chapter... Even so, I hope you enjoyed it.