{Chapter Three}

~o.O.o~

~Jace~

Jace peeled his heavy eyelids open, the only reason he was this tired was because that she-devil had gone batshit with his plates last night and he had gotten stuck cleaning up the mess she had made. He could feel the knots in his back and the softness of the blanket threatened to lull him into a deep sleep again.

Not only had he torn up his hand pretty badly from one of the more jagged pieces but said she-devil had woken up at five in the morning, accidentally waking him up along with her. Jace guessed she was doing it on purpose when he heard the shower in her bathroom start and then she began humming.

Humming!

Normally a shower wouldn't be a bother and he could sleep right through, if you were napping in the living room, but Jace's room just so happened to be a very thin wall away from the shower in the second bedroom. He could hear the gentleness of her voice and if he wasn't royally pissed he might have thought it was pretty.

He waited in the warm sheets as long as humanly possible, praying to whatever deity would listen for just a few more hours of undisturbed sleep. The shower had turned off at some point and Jace could hear the rapid steps outside of his room. The melody however didn't stop along with the shower, if anything it got louder and more persistent as getting inside his head. Like an irritating itch he couldn't scratch. Jace was already regretting his decision to let her live with him, not caring how many psychotic girls she would manage to get rid of for him.

Unraveling the covers away from his sweating legs, Jace swung them over the edge of the bed. Throwing on sweatpants and a black tee shirt, which he quickly dropped back down on the edge of his bed. Jace strolled through the hall, towards the incessant singing.

The kitchen countertops were covered in splats of pale yellow batter, the fresh scent of pancakes filled his nostrils. Jace didn't smell anything burning or hear the fire alarm blaring, that ruled out Isabelle's cooking. What really surprised Jace was the smiling woman in his kitchen, he'd never woken up to any woman cooking for him. Besides Maryse and Isabelle, but what Izzy made barely counted as edible in the first place.

Clary stood at the griddle, her red hair pulled into a messy bun at the top of her head, loose tendrils dropping down her back and in her face. Drops of off yellow littered her pink tank top and boxer shorts, along with dried paint chips in a rainbow of color. Jace smirked as he watched her sway her hips to the music coming from her phone, Clary slid on her purple, fuzzy socks, from one end of the over to the other. And continued to hum.

"Where did you get those clothes?" Clary jumped up, a good foot away from the bubbling batter, the spatula clicking off the pan. Jace stood at the doorway, arms over his bare chest. Clary glared at him as she flipped the golden cake.

"Don't you own a shirt?" Jace reached for one of the steaming stacks and ripped away a piece to pop in his mouth, Clary glanced at him disapprovingly but didn't smack his hand away like he would have thought she would. "They're hot, try not to burn your tongue."

"You've seen me shirtless before." Tearing into the fluffy hotcake with his nimble fingers, Jace shoved a larger chunk into his mouth, blowing out puffs of air to cool his mouth. "This," Jace swallows the heap of food. "Is really good."

"That one time I saw you was enough to make me want to pour acid into my eyes and thank you. Can you get the butter out of the fridge, please?" Jace nodded his head.

Pulling open the metallic door Jace gapped. What he saw inside surprised him more than seeing his new, female roommate cook pancakes for him. Food. Fresh food. Jace was used to take out containers lining every edge of the refrigerator and strange mold growing in the vegetable drawer, and that was definitely not what was inside now.

There was a carton of eggs, milk, packaged meat, and all sorts of fruit and none of it was expired. Jace's worst fear was beginning, he was living inside a domestic house. Next thing you know he would be picking up diapers at baby gap. Was that even a real store? Jace didn't want to find out. Grabbing the wrapped butter he wordlessly handed it to Clary.

"You okay?" Clary asked as she began rinsing the pan. Once she finished she pulled the plate of pancakes with her to the kitchen table. "Are you coming?"

"Uh, yeah." Jace sat down and pulled several cakes onto his plate, eyeing the bowl of fruit next to his plate. "We should talk about our arrangement."

"Wow, way to make me sound like a prostitute." Jace choked and began to laugh. "For the record, you couldn't afford me."

Jace continued to laugh and soon they were both laughing, unable to eat without dying via pancake. "Okay, okay. Let's talk about our agreement."

Washing away her laughter with a drink of orange juice, Clary nodded her head for him to start. "You can be my roommate, but you have to help me. Most of the time when I have a girl over and it ends the way it did last night, I have to think of a believable excuse. But with you, you can help me get out of sticky situations."

"Please don't describe anything. I really don't want that mental picture haunting me. I'll agree with helping you, but is it going to happen every night or do I get time off?"

"Well, a lot of my dates know what they are getting into so they leave on their own and on those nights you can stay out of sight, or when you don't want company you can call me and tell me not to bring anyone over. This isn't a prison sentence, you still have a choice."

"I can live with that." After that they only made polite conversation, Jace felt a weight fall away from his chest. Clary and him had a nice working arrangement, like partners in life. Only without the bonus of sex.

She was a good cook and she was a stress driven germaphobe so maybe it wasn't the worst thing to happen to him. Even though after breakfast Clary made him wash the dishes.

~o.O.o~

"Mom? Hey, it's me. Your only child. You and dad are probably out but I just wanted to call and let you know I'm sorry that I haven't talked to you in a while. I'm moving into a new apartment, I'll send you the address and have you over as soon as I'm settled. Don't worry about me, I'm taking care of myself. I love you both. Bye."

She hadn't exactly mentioned that she had broken up with her boyfriend or that she and Simon snuck into the apartment they were supposed to share, while he was in class, to steal her things back. They could only make three trips since she didn't want to risk running into him and there were only two of them so the majority of her belongings were still piled high in unmarked boxes against the living room wall.

She knew it would be easier if she called him and had a moving truck come in and take her things but every time she thought about it, thumb hovering above the 'call' button, she would chicken out. Unable to go through with it.

Clary only grabbed what would fit inside the cab, things like her laptop and a couple of the smaller cases of clothes. Simon managed to snag her Xbox and controllers but they couldn't find the box with her actual video games, she considered it only half of a win.

"Was that your parents on the phone?" Clary spun around to face the ghosting voice. Isabelle stood in the doorway, her hip pressed against the couch. "I didn't mean to pry…"

"No, it's okay, it was my parents voicemail." She explained. Isabelle pulled away from the couch and briskly walked towards her.

"I know what it's like to know your parents voicemail better than their voices. My mom and dad travel all the time. Most times I don't even know what time zone they're in." Izzy rubbed down her arm in what Clary assumed was a comforting gesture.

"I'm sorry." Isabelle and Clary stood staring blankly at the cellphone in Clary's hand.

"Don't be. Do you want to go get a cup of coffee or something? We can talk more about how shitty our parents are." Clary gave her a reassuring smile.

"Lead the way."

~o.O.o~

"What happened after?" Isabelle had spent the last hour enlightening Clary on Jace's colorful background. If the endless parade of women Izzy was telling her about was as accurate as Iz remembered then Clary would have a hell of a time rooming with Jace.

"Well, after my mom basically force fed the poor girl a mountain of cookies, Jace was so uncomfortable that he refused to come out of his room the entire weekend. Not even when What's-Her-Face banged on his door for a solid twenty minutes, asking for her underwear back. Jace never had a girl over to our house again. He used every other available space though. Cars, the janitor's closet at school, movie theater and even the bathroom at Panera one time." Clary dropped her fork against the edge of her plate.

"I'm never going to Panera again." Clary covered her mouth with her hand, faking gagging noises. Although inside she really was vomiting at the thought, she just hoped the feeling would say on the inside. "Pumpkin muffins are ruined forever."

"It happened in Junior High! It was a long time ago! I'm sure they've cleaned thoroughly since then." Isabelle attempted to sound outraged at the fact that Clary refuses to listen to her, but her face broke out in a wide grin. Their laughter echoing through the otherwise quiet Java cafe. "At least I hope it's enough."

"What are we talking about?" Isabelle's eyes practically bugged out of her head, Clary's matched hers closely because she recognized that voice too. The smooth velvety sound of it, even when used in monotone. It was Jace, the Almighty Asswipe who ruined Panera for her. Where the hell was she supposed to get those delicious pumpkin muffins now?

"Nothing important." Isabelle hid her relentless giggling behind a fit of coughs that Clary knew, just as well as Jace, were fake. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know, going on an expedition to a far away land where the hills are actually chocolate and I'm hunting the mythical unicorn." Jace shakes a brown paper bag, the contents bouncing uselessly against the sides. Clary almost choked when she spotted the Panera logo.

"Are you always such a smartass?"

"Almost exclusively." Clary opens her mouth to respond and closes it again, there was nothing that could dampen this guy's ego. "We need to talk. Come on." Jace holds out his hand to her. Clary, rolling her eyes skyward, purses her lips together and stands up. Avoiding his outstretched hand again. After hearing about his exploits she didn't want to risk her clothes magically disappearing.

Clary waved goodbye to Iz and snorted when she innocently chewed on one of Clary's abandoned fries. Clary and Jace exited the cafe into the warm breeze. The mass of people filtered around them, Clary's small stature caused her to get pushed back into the crowd and away from Jace. She could see Jace rolling his head back in a defeated manner before pushing back through the turmoil of people and to her in a few strides. He reached for her hand and grasped it tightly, her fingers wiggling limply across his palm.

Lord Almighty, this is how he holds hands?

She hadn't noticed how bad it was last night but she was definitely feeling the numbing from his grip. Jace pulled her away and into the less crowded park across the street. Jace dropped her hand like it was searing holes into his flesh but Clary didn't feel offended in the slightest, especially with the deformed way he had been holding her hand in the first place.

"What is it, Jace?" Clary massaged her palm with vigor, hoping to return the circulation into her desensitized fingers.

"My best friends birthday is in a month, you know, Alec? He's having his party at Pandemonium, I want you to be my 'date'." He quotes around the word date. Clary nods confused and turned to hail a cab, she didn't really have anywhere to go besides the condo and Simons, maybe she could go sketch or paint at the school. "I wanted us to practice."

"Excuse me? This isn't like practicing for a basketball game, it's natural for people to be with others. It's not like you need to learn how to be in a relationship. Although your hand holding technique need help."

Clary gave up her search for a cab when the third one passed her and decided to get some exercise and walk back home. She was a little surprised at how easily she thought of the penthouse as home. Izzy and Alec made the place seem more alive and even Jace, in all his disgusting fuckboi ways, had an endering quality.

"My what technique?" They began walking leisurely through the varying degrees of green scenery in the park. A canopy of vines hung low from the cap of the gazebo several feet away from them and Clary thought the scene was beautiful enough to paint for hours.

"You have a death grip, I still can't feel the majority of my fingers. Not to mention the fact that you were holding my hand like we were closing a business deal. More professional than intimate." Jace had stopped moving and lagged behind her. Staring down at his hand.

"Have any other critiques for me? Because we need to create the whole disgusting couples atmosphere that people have." With that, Clary was forced to spend the next twenty minutes with Jace, fixing the most disappointing hand hold she had ever seen.

"Not so tight, you want to be reassuring not like you're holding a leash." Jace muttered another apology before readjusting his fingers to lightly hold onto hers.

"My hands not too sweaty is it?" Clary wasn't even paying attention to his hand anymore, it was almost a subconscious thing for her to be holding it. She hadn't been single since she was fifteen and it was weird not having a boyfriend to do nauseatingly sweet things with.

"Nope, it's fine. Try not to worry as much. Just relax." Jeez with the way he was acting you'd think he had never walked down the street with a girl before. Then again, Izzy had mentioned girls but never a girlfriend. "No, stop it. If you squeeze my hand anymore my eyes will pop out of my head like a stress ball."

"This isn't rocket science, Golden Boy, just relax your hand."

"Rocket science might be easier." Clary ignored him with a roll of her eyes.

Clary stopped walking and flexed their intertwined fingers again. "You have a smudge of ice cream on your chin. How it got there, I don't know." It was a lie. She did know how it got there but she didn't want to tell him that people had been staring at his face and giggling because of her. It hadn't been ten minutes since she'd used her cone to threaten him. He still hadn't lessened the pressure on her hand so she had to go through with her attack.

"Yeah, no one knows. It has nothing to do with your kamikaze ice cream from earlier." Clary's treat had to be sacrificed for the greater good, and there was no way in hell that she was willing to lick anything that touched Jace's face. She swiped her thumb on his stubbled and smiled happily when the chocolate was gone.

Jace loosened his fingers around hers, making their palms scrape together gently as they trudged down the sidewalk. Clary didn't take notice of how close to each other they walked. It was almost a peaceful walk, birds chirping high in the branches above them. Until Jace opened his mouth and annoyed her.

"Do you want a muffin?" He held up the Panera bag and Clary had to bite her lip to avoid getting Isabelle in any trouble with her brother.

~o.O.o~

The clingy taste of raspberries slid across Clary's tongue. The gooey syrup glinted off the metal fork and clung to the torn piece of french toast. For the past two weeks Jace had been annoyingly present. At all times. She didn't get any time to herself. Dropping her off at campus every morning, being fantastic eye candy for every female in the vicinity along the way, except Clary of course. Not only did he also pick her up but he then took her to lunch or dinner, whatever time it was when she finished class. It was getting ridiculously hard trying to avoid him. It was like he was glued to her side.

Said siamese twin was currently devouring the largest platter of waffles by stuffing large forkfuls into his mouth. Every time he took a bite of the spongy food he would moan, at first Clary thought he was doing it unconsciously, but after the one hundredth sexual sound that left his mouth, Clary wanted to beat him with the butter container.

Clary had finally had enough, forcefully dropping her knife and fork onto the white tablecloth she lost her temper. "Oh my God, can you not sound like you're having an orgasm every time you take a bite? It's a waffle, not a vagina."

"If these were any less amazing I might take offense with that." Jace stuck his fork out at her, a piece of waffle pointing directly at her head. "You should order these next time we come here." He popped it into his mouth and made an even louder groan in the back of his throat.

"You're a pig." Jace grins around an overstuffed mouthful of food.

Clary noticed the amount of attention he was receiving. Both female and male. She guessed that when someone looked like Jace, sexual preference wasn't the first thing you thought of. Watching him eat she couldn't help but admire his figure.

"How do you manage to eat so much and not gain a pound? I eat a single potato chip and break the bathroom scale, but you're over there eating a small nation's worth of breakfast and your six pack is upgrading."

"I train it all off," Jace shrugged away her question.

Scrunching her eyebrows Clary swallowed back her food. "Train?"

"I play soccer for NYU. Coach is a sadist when it comes to nutrition and health." He explained with a shudder.

"How come I haven't seen you go out to practice or class since I moved in?"

"That's because you're either in class yourself or you're passed out somewhere at home." She couldn't disagree with that. Class was kicking her ass and it would only get worse when she found an internship at a hospital. "Why are you studying medicine anyways? An idiot could see you aren't passionate about it."

"Apparently an idiot has seen." She gave him a joking look. "My dad is a doctor, he was always at work when I was growing up and I never felt like we really got a chance to bond. I guess I thought that maybe medicine could bring us together."

"You won't be happy, you know? You aren't becoming a doctor because you want to be one, you're doing it to try and save something that's already gone." Jace waved over a server and asked for the check.

"What do you want me to do, quit Columbia Med to become a starving artist?" She provoked with an airy laugh.

"If it can make you happy someday. Why not?" Clary had become so distracted with the conversation that she missed Jace passing the check back to the waitress, she snapped out of her head when he pulled her to her feet. Experienced fingers finding their place between hers and tugging her out of the restaurant.

~o.O.o~

"If you change the channel one more time, so help me, I will tickle you to death, Clary Fray." She had flipped the channel enough times that Jace was dealing with whiplash.

For the past three weeks Clary had been the person he spent most, if not all, his time with. When she went to see her friend Simon or went out for coffee with Alec or Izzy, Jace felt kind of lost. She was there when he woke up, her ridiculous fuzzy socks sliding on the floor as she moved around the kitchen to make breakfast. Her bright colored pillows on the couch and a throw on the arm of the recliner.

Jace remembered coming home one night only to find a battered looking Clary dragging heavy boxes through the door. As it turned out, Clary was a chicken when it came to asking her ex for her things back. She had been sneaking in and out of the guys apartment while he was out, slowly collecting all her things. He would have gone over there and just asked for her things but she threatened bodily injury so Jace left her to her methods.

Her voice broke him out of his head, "Enjoy explaining that to the police."

"They will never find you." He said lowly.

Clary was wearing another pair of fuzzy socks, along with her trademark shorts and band tee. Her feet were tucked up in his lap, the remote rocking on her stomach. She narrowed her eyes into slits and in one swift movement she was on her knees next to him, her arms around his neck. An innocent smile on her face. "Ah, you don't mean that."

"Switch the channel again and we'll find out." She rose both eyebrows, he knew she couldn't lift just one and he enjoyed making fun of her for it. Her lips curled in a challenge he had learned to recognize. She leapt away from him, grabbing the remote. She stood facing Jace as she raised the remote and pointed it at the tv.

"Clary, don't do it." Clary smiled devilishly as her thumb came down on a button and the screen switched to a rerun of FRIENDS. Not that Jace didn't like the show but he had been enjoying the 24 hour commercial channel. Okay, he hadn't liked it at all and this was much better but it didn't mean he wouldn't carry through his threat.

"Shouldn't have done that, pretty girl." The second Jace jumped off the couch, Clary was throwing the remote on to the table and jogging towards the kitchen with a squeal. Jace grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off the ground. Clary kicked her legs in vain and flailed her arms in an attempt to escape. "I warned you." His fingers found their mark at her stomach and Clary couldn't hold it in anymore, she was laughing and screaming.

"Please, please, Jace, please, no." She continued to chant her pleas but Jace wouldn't hear it. Her heel caught his shin and he loosened his grip on her long enough for her to wiggle out of his arms. Recovering from the shock, Jace pounced back on her, catching Clary as they fell onto the couch together.

"Are you going to keep changing it?" He asked darkly in her ear.

Clary was pinned underneath him, it was odd being this close to a girl and having no intent on ripping all her clothes off. That wasn't exactly true, he was a man and he wasn't going to deny that having sex wasn't far from his mind. Especially after almost a month of no sex. It was hard fitting in Clary and other girls, it would get easier once they learned how to be a couple while still being totally platonic.

"Would you stop being an ass and get off me?" Jace could hear the low pitch of her voice, she was thinking about doing non platonic things just as much as he was.

"I have a better idea." He pushed down on her knees until her legs parted underneath him, and he slid between them easily, his arms keeping most of his weight off her small body. "How about we practice something other than hand holding?"

Clary smiled coyly up at him and he swore that it was because he had eaten a bad sandwich earlier that his stomach began to turn. Just as their lips were a breath away from touching, Clary wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer before she spun them, away from the couch and landing unceremoniously on the ground with him below her. She lifted a pillow above her head.

"You wouldn't-" The rest of his sentence was muffled by the fluffy thing. He remembered Clary bringing them home a week ago and thinking how girly they were but quickly taking a liking to them because they were incredibly soft.

"What the hell?" Jace and Clary looked at Alec and Izzy. The siblings were looking back at them with a mixture of pure joy and amusement. Izzy reached into her back pocket and snapped a picture of the two of them on the ground.

"Help me hide his body after I finish?" Jace snickered at her and Clary proceeded to almost kill him. There wasn't a doubt in Jace's head that Alec and Izzy would help her dump his body in the river when she finished him off.

To Be Continued...

Disclaimer: I don't own TMI or any of the characters used in this story.

Guys, Seeing Red and Clockwork City are now apparently in a community called 'The Best Mortal Instruments Stories', how cool is that?

Anyways, I hope you're enjoying this fast updating thing because it's going to last all month long.