"Is that all your stuff?" Maia asked when he'd brought home his last box and placed it on the floor by the dresser. Jordan nodded. "That's it?"
"Don't need much," Jordan shrugged.
"Clearly," his girlfriend replied.
"All you need is love," Jordan grinned at her.
Maia giggled, playfully punching him in the shoulder. "Don't go quoting The Beatles on me, unless you plan to sing." Jordan quickly fell silent, worried he'd be asked to sing. "As I suspected." She grinned at him, and Jordan leaned over to kiss her. He'd intended it to be sweet and short - but like so often with Maia - it lit a spark. She pulled him closer and tangled her hands in his hair. Jordan broke their lips apart to kiss down her neck.
"I love you," he whispered against her skin. It had been his reality for some time, but expressing it in words was still relatively recent.
"I love you too," Maia whispered back. But her returning his love in words so easily might always feel shiny and new to him.
In reality though Jordan was gonna miss living with Jace and Jon. Just guys was such a different dynamic than living in couples, even so he knew he was exactly where he was meant to be. In life there's always things you miss as you move forward, but it's all worth it in the end.
"I can hear smacking!" a sharp voice called through the door. They were in their bedroom with the door closed, but the curtains were open to let in the afternoon sun.
"She's just jealous," Maia giggled.
"Oh please," Jordan scoffed. "Isn't Simon home?"
"He's at work," Maia answered, still trying not to laugh.
"Then who is she talking to?" Jordan asked. He'd noticed two muffled voices earlier while it was quiet.
Maia shrugged. "Probably Clary?"
"Speaking of," Jordan grinned, "don't you have job hunting to do? Or do you plan to let those two girls beat you?"
"Oh shut up," Maia said, pretending to hit him again. Jordan mouthed 'ow' in mock horror, which only made her swing at him again.
Seeking escape, Jordan opened the door and ran out into the living room to find Clary and Isabelle sitting at the dining room table looking very serious.
"Oh no you don't!" his less than serious girlfriend said following behind him. Before Jordan had time to react she'd pounced, sending them both crashing to the floor.
"Got you," she grinned from where she lay on top of him.
"Oh no," Jordan said, his tone calm and a smile on his face. "Whatever will I do?" He reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears and then she kissed him.
"Get a room, you two!" It was Izzy again.
"We had a room," Maia stated firmly, looking up to stare at her roommate. Izzy muttered something under her breath that Jordan couldn't hear, but he could guess at what it meant.
"Don't you have job hunting to do?" Izzy asked Maia.
Maia just shrugged, sitting up and trapping Jordan even more completely beneath her. "The grocery store isn't so bad for now. I'm not in a rush to find my career. Besides I majored in Management so maybe one day I'll manage the grocery store?"
Jordan knew Maia would be wasted working in a grocery store her whole life, but he also knew he wasn't going to push her just yet, especially while he himself was still a student. Jordan felt certain that in time Maia would outgrow the grocery store and move up in the world. And who knows? Maybe the management experience she can gain there might open doors for her one day. Either way he knew he would be there to support and encourage her to reach her potential when the time came.
Izzy just rolled her eyes and turned back to her laptop which was sitting in front of her on the table.
"Sounds like you have this figured out more than me," Clary sighed. "What did I ever think I was gonna do with an arts degree?"
"Something artistic?" Izzy suggested.
"Oh yeah thanks," Clary sighed. "At least I have another semester before I have to face it."
"That's the spirit!" Izzy exclaimed. "Now what do you think about this bookstore?"
"We could apply," Clary said. "Though I am pretty sure it's easier to get a job somewhere with a higher turn over, like the fast food industry."
Izzy sighed. "But I don't wanna smell like burgers."
"Who does?" Clary chuckled.
Jordan's attention was diverted just then as his girlfriend once again began kissing him. He suspected her choice of location and timing meant she was doing it mostly to spite Izzy, but he didn't mind.
"What did I say about the room?"
Maia giggled, but didn't stop kissing him. Jordan kinda forgot Isabelle was there as he placed his hands on her hips and pulled her down closer to him.
"Why I oughta," Izzy grumbled.
"If we keep this up we might actually get to see steam coming out of her ears," Jordan whispered, holding back his laughter. Maia held nothing back and giggled even more.
The moment was punctured by the sound of a key turning in the lock, and a moment later the door opened to reveal Simon.
"Thank god!" Izzy exclaimed as she stood up and ran over to him.
"Oh he-," Simon smiled, but he didn't get the chance to say anything else before his girlfriend grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down the hall. Jordan heard their bedroom door close with a sharp decisive sound.
"And now we know why she was so cranky," Maia giggled.
"Didn't even let the poor guy say hello," Jordan sniggered.
"Poor guy my ass," Maia laughed. "I'm sure he's loving this."
With no one to annoy, Maia finally let Jordan up off the floor. Once he'd stood, he saw her walking over to Clary and followed behind.
"How's it going?" Maia asked.
"Depends what you mean by going?" Clary replied. "I'm sure I could get a shit student job, but Izzy is determined for us to find a good one."
"Such an overachiever," Maia smirked.
"Honestly, I think she just doesn't wanna work too hard at said job," Clary chuckled. "Or smell like food after a shift."
"On the food thing I hear ya," Maia agreed. "But as far as the other ones she's just gonna have to suck it up."
"Maybe you could get us an in at Tim Hortan's?" Clary asked Jordan.
"I could ask," he replied. "Though not sure Izzy would go for that."
Clary closed her laptop and pushed her papers aside. "Enough work for one day," she said. "How are you doing on Horizon?"
"Almost done," Jordan replied. "Though I don't know how Simon would feel about us playing without him." Clary laughed, but agreed.
They ended up watching Avatar The Last Airbender on Netflix. It had been so long since Jordan had seen the show - quite possibly grade school - and he'd forgotten how much fun it was.
"This show is great," Clary exclaimed after a few episodes. "Poor Aang. Waking up one day to find everything he knew gone."
"Yeah," Jordan replied without much emotion. "I'm looking forward to when we see more of Zuko. He's my favourite character."
"I don't know," Clary disagreed. "I mean I know you said he gets better, but so far he's been awful."
"But still fun," Jordan countered. "So full of angst."
"Toph is kinda the most badass one of the whole group," Maia observed. "Definitely a unique character!" Clary looked confused at this. "Oh sorry. We haven't met her yet."
They watched in silence for a while. Jordan was trying not to give away why he liked Zuko so much, but his self control didn't last long.
"See his uncle believes in him," Jordan said, as the show revealed more about the exiled prince character. "One day you'll like Zuko, Clary, I promise." Clary still looked dubious so Jordan added, "Who is your favourite character, Clary?"
"Hmmm," Clary said. "Well it sounds like I haven't met all the good ones yet. Sokka is funny. Appa and Momo are adorable. Katara is definitely cool. Aang is pretty epic yet also adorable. Honestly they are all great characters," Clary continued. "I'll have to wait to choose a favourite until I've met all the characters."
"I can't believe Simon didn't force this show on you before," Jordan laughed. "Like seriously, he is slacking on his best friend duties."
Clary chuckled as the episode ended. While they waited for Netflix to autoplay the next one, she looked down the hall. "Are they gonna be in there all day?" Clary asked. "I mean it's almost dinner time now."
"I would say give her a taste of her own medicine by wafting pizza smells down the hall, but I don't really feel like pizza," Maia said.
"Chinese?" Jordan suggested. "Or we could cook."
Maia sighed as if someone was asking her to work a ten hour shift without breaks. Jordan decided she didn't feel like cooking tonight and dialed the chinese place.
By the time Izzy and Simon emerged from their bedroom, everyone was eating sweet and sour pork with egg rolls and watching Team Avatar getting side tracked once again on their way to the Northern Water Tribe.
The credits of another episode rolled and Clary turned to him. "This does have a good ending though right?" she asked. "I hate to get invested in a show just to have it end in the most frustrating way possible."
"The tv show has a good ending yes," Jordan replied. "Though technically the characters' stories aren't over. They are still making comic books and there is a sequel series, but it has a major time gap."
"Comics?" Maia asked.
"Yeah the comic books pick up right where the show left off," Jordan explained.
"Well that's awesome," Maia said. "How come I didn't know that?"
"One must reach a certain level of nerd-dom to do enough research to find them," Jordan laughed, teasingly. "Or at least a couple google searches." He chuckled.
Just then, they were suddenly interrupted by the love-birds emerging from their cave.
"Something smells good," Simon commented, sniffing at the air and walking over.
"Any leftovers?" Izzy asked. As far as Jordan could tell she looked much more relaxed, and she hadn't even commented on him sitting with his arm around Maia's shoulder.
"Yeah alright there's some," Maia smiled, pointing to what was still uneaten on the table.
"Oh and that's Avatar the Last Airbender!" Simon exclaimed, darting over to get food as quickly as possible so he could sit down on the couch right next to them with his eyes glued to the screen.
"Haven't you seen this like a million times?" Izzy laughed at her overeager boyfriend.
"It's one of those shows where the re-watch is just as good as the first time," Simon explained.
"If you say so honey," Izzy replied. "Just so long as there is dinner."
It was, as far as Jordan was concerned, a perfect moment. Surrounded by friends with his arm around Maia's shoulders he couldn't imagine being happier.
Which was funny since summer break had never really been Jordan's favourite time of year. It wasn't like he was against it, but rather that he found it boring. His job especially was boring, and now that he had no classes his boss kept giving him more hours. If it hadn't been for Maia, Jordan was sure he'd have hated this summer as much as the last one.
Jordan was seriously considering staying at school after he got his Bachelor's to get his Master's. With a computer science Master's he'd have a lot more doors open to him than with just a Bachelor's. He still hadn't told Maia about this, though he didn't think she'd mind. Jordan was trying to do things differently this time around, trying to be a better communicator. He would definitely talk to Maia before he decided anything. Even so, there was no rush. He didn't have to make a decision right away.
The next morning - instead of just Simon going to work - all employed residents of the apartment were packing lunches and putting on work pants. The two unemployed residents had declared they were going to spend the day handing out resumes.
Jordan and Simon went to work together. Working with his friend was at least one thing Jordan loved about this job.
"I gotta get out of here," Simon said as they stared at the entrance to the building to which they owed the next eight hours of their lives.
"I hear ya," Jordan replied.
"Yeah, but you have another year at school," Simon whined. "It isn't lame for you to still work here, but me! Urg."
"Cheer up," Jordan smiled, patting his friend on the back. "At least we are suffering together."
"Misery does love company," Simon agreed, and with that they opened the door and began their shift.
The time passed slowly as it always did, though sometimes when it got busy and Jordan forgot about everything except the next task, time seemed to speed up a little. Still an entire day spent focusing on which till ordered bagels, who wanted cream in their coffee, and if they made enough bacon was a long day indeed.
By the time he and Simon left for the day, Jordan had made a resolution. He was going to try and get a job in his field, even if it was a lame part-time, poor paying job.
"Yeah I need to get back to job hunting too," Simon agreed when Jordan told him of his resolution.
They spent the time commuting home on the bus discussing places to apply and how they should tailor their resumes for each place.
When they re-entered the house the first thing Jordan heard was Isabelle's raised voice.
"This is just so unfair!" Izzy exclaimed. "I liked it better when he was cut off!"
"What happened?" Simon asked, looking concerned as he moved closer to his girlfriend.
"My stupid parents bought Alec a car!" Izzy exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "A freaking car! And a ridiculously nice one to boot!" She scoffed, then began again with equal energy. "Graduation gift huh? Just because he's older I have to wait a whole year to get a car. How is that fair? I didn't ask to be born second! Maybe I need to explain this to them."
"Good luck with that," Jordan told Simon quietly as he prepared to move away from the emotional outburst.
"Don't need luck," Simon replied with a wink. "She loves me and has this certain spot on her neck-"
"Nope," Jordan said, lifting his hands to cover his ears. "Too much information."
Simon just laughed as he went over to sooth his irrational girlfriend. Jordan knew his girlfriend wouldn't be home from work for about another hour, so he decided to spend that time on his computer looking up job postings. It was time to just bite the bullet and get a better job.
He scrolled through many job listing websites trying to find anything to do with computers. He didn't fancy making websites unless someone else would design it and he could just do the coding. Jordan wasn't so good at colour schemes or page layouts. Hardware wasn't really his thing either, but the software developer assistant posting looked interesting. The Database, or Computer Systems Analyst jobs didn't look bad either. The problem was that Jordan didn't feel remotely qualified for any of them, no matter what the ad said. He did, however, feel like he could do light tech support and so also looked at a couple customer support computer jobs.
Then again what did it hurt to apply, right? They were all online applications so if they laughed at him at least he wouldn't have to hear it. All that he needed to do was just fill out a few boxes and attach a resume. Not that hard, and who knows, maybe they wouldn't laugh at his lack of qualifications? He wouldn't know unless he tried.
Taking a deep breath, Jordan hit submit on his first application. Feeling pretty good about it he applied for a few more. It was out of his hands now, and he'd try not to think about it.
Instead he was going to focus on his wonderful new life. Coming home to Maia was a new joy that he still wasn't quite used to. Even after being here a few weeks the novelty hadn't worn off.
Please forgive any glaring typos or mistakes. My editor is so busy that I'm uploading this without her editing. With so much free time I've been writing way too fast for her to keep up so rather than let the chapters pile up I decided to update without editing. I might one day re-upload this if the editing gets done and is significant, but we'll see. Either way I hope you enjoyed the chapter. :)
And yes thanks for quarantine giving me nothing but free time the next chapter is totally finished and I have multiple chapters done for my other stories as well. sigh.
(UPDATE from 7 chapters later. I found a new editor who has back edited these next 7 chapters. Hopefully the typos and total fails have been greatly diminished. Her username here on fanfic is: Connie Brown. :)
(UPDATE from 13 chapters later. My regular editor, CoffeeandLiterature, is back! She went through this and pointed out some things I needed to fix and it has been re-uploaded a 2nd time. It's times like these when my perfectionist ways are quite the inconvenience to me.)
Sneak Peek Chapter 167
When they came inside with the first round of boxes, the door was still locked which mean neither Alec nor Magnus was home yet. Chairmen Meow greeted them at the door but promptly refused to help carry anything in so the three of them had to carry everything into Paige's room.
"It's a little cramped, I'll admit," Paige said. "But what are friends for if not to live very closely with." She smiled trying to make Clary see she didn't really mind.
Clary just groaned and collapsed on the bed: the only bed in the room.
"Why did I think this would work," Clary groaned, throwing her arms over her face. "Maybe I should just suck it up and move back home with my parents. I mean it's not like I have a job or a boyfriend keeping me here."