So ACOWAR comes out in like 21 days, and I'm yodeling at the top of my lungs with every day that passes and brings us closer to May 2nd.

Anyways, I hope you like this chapter because the next chapter is already halfway done and I'm having so much fun writing it and it's gonna be great, okay. And there's gonna be an even greater playlist for next chapter. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW.

Okay, I'm done, go read the chapter. :))

"Westchester Art Gallery, Clary speaking," I drone, staring at my nails and wondering how in the world I'm ever going to pick out the oil paint from under them.

Then from the other end, in a regal, grating voice: "Clarissa! How are you?"

"Hi, Maryse—I'm good, how about you?" I cringe, wishing I had just let the phone ring and continued to flip through the art catalogue.

"I've been better, but…I have a favour to ask of you, Clarissa, and I do hope you'll agree."

"…What is it?" I don't want to know—good god, I do not want to know—

"You recall the charity gala I was telling you and your mother about? Well, you see…I would like for you to accompany Jace."

I think I'm choking. My tongue is a dead weight in my mouth, I can't speak for the life of me and Maryse's pretending-to-be-concerned voice floods my ears.

But I don't hear any of it.

Finally, though, I manage to get out, "Like—a—date?"

She laughs, a crackling sound in my ear and I'm not sure if it's her voice, or if the connection is shaky. "Not necessarily. Act as his date, is what I'm asking, but I really need someone to keep an eye on him—make sure he doesn't sneak off or do anything that might reflect poorly on the rest of us." Maryse's request sounds perfectly…normal, reasonable, even. I want to gape—because reasonable is not really a word associated with Maryse Lightwood as far as I know—but I don't because the bell above the door rings and a guy walks in, looking around like he's lost.

"Clarissa?" She asks, and I realize I must have just stood there with the phone pressed against the side of my face, silent, instead of telling her what I've decided against my better judgement.

"Sorry—um, listen Maryse. A customer just came in, but, yeah, I'll do it—but I don't have anything to wear." I don't want to tell her I can't afford the kind of clothes I know she wants and probably expects me to wear.

"Of course!" And it's kinda freaky, because Maryse Lightwood doesn't resemble her daughter in the slightest outside of their appearances', but Maryse almost sounds like Izzy when she's happy. "Of course, Clarissa. You can spend the weekend with Isabelle and I, we're getting spa treatments and going dress shopping. Oh you'll adore it! And don't you worry yourself about a thing, darling." With that, Maryse hangs up and despite the fact that I'll have to spend god knows many hours with Jace glued to me, I can't help grinning; a whole weekend of spa treatments and pampering with one of my best friends?

Uh, yes please.

"I don't believe you actually—you said YES?"

"I'll answer you when you're done screaming."

"Okay—I'm done—I think," Izzy sighs, folding her hands in her lap as she sits down on the edge of her bed.

"Finally," I roll my eyes, glancing over at her from where I'm laying on my back, staring up at the ceiling, shirt slowly riding up my stomach and being swallowed by an abyss of pillows on her bed. "But yeah, I said yeah."

"WHY?"

I scowl at her, but feel it drop from my face just as fast as I put it there. "I don't know. Getting all dressed up and spending the weekend with you sounds pretty convincing, crazy more so when your mother pulled out the 'spa treatments' card."

"And this had nothing to do with my brother?" She raises her dark eyebrows at me, and she's being so loud I'm glad Jace has his music blaring so loud the floor is vibrating (he's having a hissy fit about the whole being my…company at the gala).

I hesitate.

The feeling of his skin burning under my lips is still haunting me, his arms knotted around my waist, the smell of booze and cologne stinging my nose, the butterflies rearing up in my stomach and fluttering around my ribs, the sound of his voice in my ear, the gold of his eyes almost completely engulfed by the black of his pupils—

"Earth to Clary," Izzy waves her hand in front of my face. "Heellllllloooooo?"

Flushing, I look up at her again. "What?"

"It's okay to like him, you know," Isabelle tells me, her voice suddenly soft and quiet like she is talking to an animal she is trying really hard not to scare off. I don't look at her; I keep staring up at her faintly off-white ceiling, sketching 3D cubes on my stomach with the pad of my finger.

"I don't," the response is automatic. I'm about to spit out a list of pre-compiled reasons I have not to like him at all—like stealing my pencil crayons, yanking on my ponytail, teasing me mercilessly, being an outright jerk sometimes—when the filter between my brain and mouth stops me for a second. Do I like him?

Is that even possible?

No. I don't think it is. I have no reason to like him—even if there's that kind of cute thing he does with his shoulders when he's nervous—or that stupid grin with that stupid chipped incisor that's kind of crooked—or the way he looks at me sometimes—

God. I have a problem.

"No, I don't think I like him, Iz."

"You think?" She prods with the most patient look on her face, like she's willing to sit beside me all night and wait for me to admit to being crazy about her brother. That's so not going to happen, even if I can admit to the fact that he's practically physically flawless.

"I'm positive, Iz. If you haven't noticed by this point, Jace is kind of a—"

"Dickhead?"

We both laugh, and Izzy's eyes are practically shining with excitement when the laughter has died out. "Dress shopping, Clare—I'm so freaking excited! You have no idea, Clarissa Adele."

"Oh, I'm sure I do."

"Even so, I'm going to make you try on so many dresses your head will not only spin, but your hands will be stained with dye and you'll have gotten a work out." I don't doubt that one bit, and the fact that I'm fully prepared to let Izzy drag me from store to store and am going willing try on what will more than probably be hundreds of dresses in every style and colour known to the human population is proof that spending so much time around her has melted the rational part of my brain that should be screaming at me about just how unpleasant the experience is going to be, factoring in sore feet and frustration with Isabelle's disapproval of any and everything.

But instead of the rational part of my brain kicking into gear, I grin, "Bring it on, Lightwood."

My feet are aching and my arms are sore from carrying around four hundred pounds worth of dresses. Izzy is giving me a break, trying on an Elie Saab dress she went absolutely nuts over.

She peeks her head out the dressing room curtain. "Zip me," she orders and turns, lifting up her hair so I have easy access to the zipper on the inside of the dress. When I've zipped it we both back out of the room that's a little small for trying on the type of flowing, poufy dresses they sell here.

"OHMYGOD!" Isabelle squeals, bringing her hands up to her face, her eyes wild and sparkling like the dark depths of the ocean in sunlight. "This dress—!" I know exactly what she means: with light blue beading that gets closer together and more intricate as you get closer to the bottom and a gold wrap-around belt that meets in the front in the form of two shining leafs, it's ridiculously gorgeous and fits her like a glove, clinging to every curve of Izzy's willowy body. I can picture her waltzing into that charity gala with her hair swishing and rolling down her back like spilt ink, her cheekbones sharp and glittering under the lights.

Imagining it makes me excited all over again, and my sore feet no longer seem half as relevant and deserving of attention as my want to find a dress—one that makes my hair look like fire burning against my skin and makes me feel as confident as Izzy looks in her own dress as she poses in front of the mirror.

"Oh oh! Saw 3 is coming on in an hour—let's watch that!" Isabelle reaches her greedy little paws across Simon's lap in an attempt to snatch the remote from him, talking through a mouthful of partially chewed popcorn. I stare at the date written in neat print on the screen of the TV guide—Saturday already, and I can't stop squirming in my seat. A whole night next to Jace.

"We are not watching Saw 3, Iz," Simon looks down at her with an expression that's part disapproving part Are you out of your mind?

"Why not? Thought you guys liked scary movies," she relents, moving to settle back into her spot against the arm of the couch, chomping loudly.

"Because I'm sure I speak for the both of us when I say I don't feel the need to see people being tortured by a puppet," he shakes his head, long strands of dark hair falling across his forehead and covering his eyebrows and then pushes his glasses up.

"Is that what it's about?" I ask, leaning forward so I can see the both of them from my spot against the other arm of the couch, my legs stretched out in the empty space between me and Si—I may or may not be purposefully shoving them as close as humanly possible together. Both of them shrug as if to say they have no idea. "Okay, well, let's watch Family Feud instead. Can we all agree to that?" Izzy looks a little disgruntled but nods and goes back to picking through the popcorn bowl on her lap.

Simon is shouting out the answers to the questions Steve Harvey is asking, Izzy leaning her head against his shoulder, eyes half open, when Jace barges in. He slams the door and then stops when he sees us, and he is looking directly at me then suddenly he's looking anywhere but. His cheekbones are turning pink and I realize I'm staring.

Again.

"Still throwing a hissy fit?" Izzy lifts her head off Si's shoulder and raises her eyebrows. Jace opens and closes his mouth a few times before shrugging noncommittally. Then he turns and books it up to his room, where he proceeds to slam that door, too.

Cue Maryse Lightwood storming in, evidently laden with the shopping bags hanging from her arms: "Jonathan Christopher!" She yells up the stairs, dropping the bags onto the floor, "That boy…I swear…" She looks to the three of us and her expression shifts until she's smiling. "Clarissa, Isabelle. How do the two of you feel about heading to the spa?"

Over the next four hours, I'm plucked, pampered, waxed, and just about everything else you can think of. One lady squeezes at my face until another shoves her out of the way and paints a face mask on me. A different woman does my nails a shimmery white and then tops it with shellac. Another expertly waxes my brows, shaping and trimming to perfection. Then she goes to work on waxing my legs—and suffice to say that I wasn't expecting it when she ripped the first strip off: my entire leg jerked and then tensed up. And then she ripped another off.

Izzy waggles her newly-done brows at me as Maryse swipes her more than likely well-used and loved card through the debit machine. "Mom wants to go to a salon and get hair treatments. She can't shut up about how 'absolutley divine' she thinks your hair'll look. For once, I have to agree with her. You're gonna look amazing tonight, babe."

I grin at her. "We both will."

The clock on Isabelle's bedside table is blinking 7: 02 pm when we get back to the McMansion the Lightwoods call a house, and my skin and hair are so magnificently smooth I'm afraid to touch them.

There really isn't an appropriate way to describe how I'm feeling other than ecstatic mixed with nerves in the form of butterflies that keep fluttering around in my ribs and floating up into my throat and tying my stomachs into knots. We have an hour and a half left until we leave and I'm stuck on Jace's arm instead of giggling with Izzy as we attempt and fail to slow dance because Jace Herondale doesn't know how to just sit stoically at a table, hands folded in his lap and be good.

But I don't let myself think about Jace as Izzy and I bustle around her room, looking for key makeup items—like her mascara, which for some reason, she had on the very top shelf of her closet, and her eyeliner, which was stuffed inside of a furry pink pillow case in her laundry basket.

"How did it even manage to get inside the pillow case?" I wonder aloud as Izzy very neatly and precisely applies a coat of coral lipstick. When she's satisfied with the clean, sharp lines, she spins to face me, eyes crinkling with her mischievous smile.

"I don't know, but what I do know is that you need your makeup done." I was planning on doing my own makeup once she was finished hogging the mirror, but the glimmer in Izzy's eyes tells me that is not going to happen. And I don't throw a hissy fit about it, because if I'm honest with myself, my best friend is much more advanced when it comes to makeup and can easily apply eyeliner without smudging it all over her face. I'll have to ask her to show me sometime.

She tells me to close my eyes while she works her magic—or probably just so she doesn't put eye shadow on my eyeball. She laughs when I cringe away from one of her brushes sweeping across my jaw, the bristles tickling my neck. I'm not sure how long it takes her to do my makeup, but when she's done I can hear the excitement in her voice when she tells me to open my eyes and then spins my around in my chair—with some measure of effort not to scratch the floor—to face the mirror.

I smile brightly at my reflection, looking back at Isabelle; sure my smile is going to split my face with the force of it. Maybe it's stupid and shallow, but I just imagine Jace's jaw dropping when he sees me—my skin glowing, my eyelashes long and dark and my eyeliner flawless, my hair soft and supple and rolling down my back in waves like wildfire.

I feel like wildfire: happy and alive, burning stronger with every breath I take.

Walking down the slightly curved stairs to the front door, I feel like every girl who ever gets the opportunity to walk down a curving staircase in heels and a pretty dress with an even prettier boy waiting for her at the bottom—nervous, exhilarated, and like a princess in nearly every sense and definition of the word.

Especially considering the corset-like, beaded bodice of my black dress and the price tag that had been attached to it.

With a sweetheart-neckline that shows off my shoulders—scandalous—and collarbones spattered with freckles, with a large slit up the front—either side of the slit decorated with a line of gold and silvery petal and rose designs—that reveals a opaque black skirt brushing a few centimetres above my mid-thigh, it's something that my Dad would never let me out of the house in if he ever saw me in it.

Which is why I'm not going to show him pictures until I'm moved out and in college.

Jace holds his hand out to me, and instead of brushing past it like I'd debated doing, I take it lightly in mine and smile up at him—nearly a whole foot higher up than me. His eyes don't waver from mine, seemingly glowing from the inside out. His left cheek is dimpled from the wide grin lighting up his features and— I'm staring. Again. I am mortified, and that mortification starts to display itself on my face as my cheeks heat to what I'm sure is a lovely crimson shade bright enough to rival my hair, when I realize that Jace has been staring right back at me.

"If you guys are gonna make out or something can't you at least find a closet or something?" Izzy says, exasperated and holding onto the handle of the open door. Her words bring an image to mind that makes me blush much harder than before—Jace and me, locked in a closet, my back against the wall, his lips on my throat and my jaw, trailing upwards, my hands knotted in his golden curls, breathing hard as his hands grasp at my waist.

I turn away from Jace's faintly dazed expression, hurrying out the door side by side with Izzy, worrying that just from the look on my face the both of them are able to more or less guess the kind of images floating through my head.

Ugh. Sorry if that wasn't as good as you were hoping guys, or as entertaining. I feel like I'm losing my touch.

Anyways, onto les reviews.

WilliamTheGirl: If I could manufacture my best friend, they would be 85% Izzy (cause I love her so much too) and like 5% Jon, and the other 10% would just be like some weird glitch where they like get muscle spasms and like accidentally punch the barista in the face when the barista gives them their coffee. That might have been a little off topic - but, short version, I love Izzy too. And Jace is a freak because he doesn't know how to deal with his emotions like a normal person.

Yumna98: I love awkward Jace. And sorry about the lack of updates - just been busy, last semester really kicked my butt and I was just too stressed to try and write especially when I didn't know where I was going with my stories. I'm fine, thanks for asking, and I'm really hoping to start updating frequently. I miss updating weekly like I did when I first started writing Fading and I Hate You.

I'm A Dreaming Writer: MY POOR BABY JON. HE'S TOO PRECIOUS TO HAVE HIS HEART BROKEN. But I'm gonna do it anyway for the sake of plot. I'm a bad person. The dynamic between Jon and Clary is literally my favourite thing, okay. Like they fight and argue and sneak otu together and defend each other and they're essentially best friends. It's such a...complex thing in my head and I hope I end up doing it justice when this trilogy of sorts is over and done with. Jace stuttering around Clary is my aesthetic.

oesteffel: Don't watch Marley & Me. Just don't do it, save yourself the heartache and dehydration from crying so much. Nah it's not weird to want to live inside Clary's head - I mean, look at me, writing her inner monologue. So if anyone is weird here, it's me. Oooh, you'll find out why Jace is stuttering (insert smirking face here). OH MY GOD IT WAS NOT HEAVY BECAUSE IT HAD (insert me spluttering here) THAT IN IT. NO NOPE NO WAY. i'm such a liar there probably was some of those in there. It's Jace. And yes, THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF CLACE.

Guest: I intend to finish all of my stories, even if it means I have to go back and restructure the whole thing so that I can finish them. Nervous Jace and Jon are two of the best things I've ever written or ever will write.

Drop me a review and tell me what you thought about this chapter! Love ya! :))