Roommates & Soulmates

Ch124: Jace's Time

Time was not his friend. Everyday that went by brought him closer and closer to the day that would change everything. Jace didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to acknowledge its existence. If only time would just stop. Then he could be here on Alec's couch with Clary forever. He was pretty sure no one else would have a problem with this either. Magnus and Alec surely wouldn't object to an extended honeymoon in the Caribbean. Simon was overly happy with Izzy at the moment. Jordan had asked Paige to move in. Now was perfect, so why did the clock have to keep ticking?

But tick it did, and his strange summer flew by. Jace had decided not to try and get back his job at the docks, but rather opted for a summer's unemployment. There'd be plenty of time to work when Clary was gone, ten months in fact. Clary had wanted to get a job, but found it rather tricky to find an employer to hire her once she explained that she'd be leaving for ten months. Clary had therefore spent her summer in equal unemployment as Jace, just for different reasons. The three months since the wedding had been both the best and worse three months of Jace's life because he'd spent every moment of it with Clary, all the while knowing their time was short. Jace knew ten months wasn't forever, but still his mind had started putting everything in two categories: before and after Clary's plane took off.

Even trusting her, and believing they'd come out of this together, didn't change the fact that they'd might not be the same people this time next year. For surely the last year of university had a large part in shaping who you were and where your life was headed.

Rather than dwell, Jace was trying to focus on right now. He'd never lived with cats before, and after cat sitting for Malec, likely never would again. It seemed to Jace as if every piece of clothing he owned was covered from top to bottom in cat fuzz. He could have sworn the little creatures had a sixth sense about when clean items of clothing were left unattended. Then if you could looked past the fuzz, there was also the neediness to consider. Jace had come to appreciate a nights sleep that didn't involve having one's butt slept on by a warm ball of fur that was a lot heavier than it looked. When one of the little felines wasn't making his legs numb from their body weight, they were rubbing up against him, or walking across his laptop keyboard pressing random buttons. And of course, there were the times when the cats wanted literally nothing to do with them, and if petted, would hiss and lash out as if attacked. Jace just couldn't wrap his head around why someone would want to live with such creatures.

Apart from the feline squatters, house sitting for Malec had been a great escape. Jace loved living with only Clary. When it was just the two of them, no one cared when he walked shirtless into the kitchen, or Clary got out of the shower then spent the afternoon in nothing but a towel. Jace was very fond of the days Clary did this, as he could usually get her out of the towel with a deep kiss and soft caress.

"Clary stop," Jace sighed as he watch her.

"I'm almost done," Clary replied as she kept doing exacting what she was doing without any signs of stopping.

"You know you don't have to do this right?" Jace reminded her.

"But-" she argued.

"But nothing," Jace sighed, moving forward to wrap her in his arms, stopping her. She sighed and he added, "This is Alec and Magnus we're talking about."

"Doesn't matter who," Clary disagreed. "It's still rude to leave a house messer than you found it."

"Our best friends aren't going to break up with us over dust," Jace chuckled. Clary turned in his arms to glare at him that way she did where her forehead pulled together just enough to narrow her eyes.

"But we aren't talking about dust," Clary explained. "We are talking about overflowing garbages."

"Those are hardly overflowing," Jace said gesturing to the garbages in question. "Maybe almost full, but definitely not overflowing."