DRAMA NOVEL ONLINE City of Boneheads: Chapter 11
When Jace told Hodge what had happened, Hodge was enraged.
“You go to two different parties and you don’t bring any girls back?” fumed Hodge. “I didn’t even say they had to be hot!”
“Sorry, we kinda got sidetracked,” said Jace, holding up his arm, which was swollen and bent at an odd angle.
“Ohhhh, now I get it,” said Hodge. “Because hurting your arm totally prevents you from saying, ‘Hey ladies, I got this awesome pad with this super-handsome roommate who makes tisanes that are completely off the hook.’”
“I promise, next time I’ll bring some girls back,” said Jace. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to go fix my arm.”
“Oooo, are you gonna repair it with your stele?” said Clary. “Can I watch?”
“Sure, but only if you shower first,” said Jace. “You’re starting to smell like the trash pile at a farmer’s market.”
Clary realized she was still covered in tomatoes. “I’m on it,” she said, and she headed quickly down the hall toward her room.
At the end of the hall Clary turned the corner, and was surprised to see Alec waiting for her in front of her bedroom door. He glared at Clary angrily.
“You need to leave,” said Alec.
“Why?”
“Because I called Jace first. And you’re messing it up for me.”
“But Jace isn’t gay.”
“Thanks to you!” said Alec. “I’ve spent over a year working on him, and just when he’s ready to make the switch, you swoop in and mess it all up.”
“How am I messing it up?”
“Are you kidding?” said Alec. “Who’d he take to the vampire afterparty? You! That would’ve been amazing alone time for me and him.”
“But the only reason we didn’t take you is you were talking to—”
Clary was going to say “a werewolf,” but she remembered she wasn’t supposed to know about Alec’s bi-ness. So she just said, “someone else.”
“It’s ok, you can say it,” said Alec. “Isabelle told me she told you.”
“Why don’t you just go out with that werewolf then?” said Clary. “He was hot.”
Alec sighed. “He had a boyfriend.”
“But there are plenty of other werewolves out there,” said Clary. “Have you tried going on Howler? I heard it’s like a total werewolf hookup fest.”
“I suck at online dating,” said Alec sadly.
“Omigod, I’m like the queen of dating profiles!” said Clary. “If I make you an awesome profile, will you forgive me for stealing Jace?”
Alec thought about it for a second. “Fine,” he said. “If you need some personal details for the profile, I love to laugh, I’m equally as comfortable at a dive bar as I am at the symphony, and my favorite author is David Sedaris.”
Clary watched intently as Jace finished up drawing the final tramp stamp on his own arm. The arm glowed a bit, and then looked good as new.
“That’s so cool,” said Clary.
“You know what’s cool?” said Jace. “Not having to go to a doctor and pay 30% coinsurance.” He stood up and clapped his hands together. “So, you ready to party?”
“Party? Now?” said Clary.
“Simon mentioned it’s your birthday next week, and I thought we could celebrate a little early,” said Jace. He pulled out a picnic basket. “How does a picnic sound? I sneaked some food from the kitchen. “
Clary gestured at the rain outside the window.
“I love picnics, but it’s a little wet for one, no?”
“Not when you have your own greenhouse!” said Jace.
They took the spiral staircase up to the greenhouse. Jace spread out a blanket for them and they sat down.
“Okay, I admit, this is cool,” said Clary. “But if it’s not outdoors it’s technically not a picnic, is it?”
“Of course it is!” said Jace. He knew girls loved the idea of going on a picnic, so it was worth calling it that even though it really wasn’t. It was similar to how girls liked activities better when you called them “adventures,” even though you were doing something completely unadventurous, like getting ice cream.
Jace opened the picnic basket and pulled out a bunch of Tupperware containers with labels that said “HODGE” in giant letters. In small writing under the word “HODGE” were the words, “Touch this and die!”
“Should we be eating this?” said Clary.
“It’s fine, I’ll tell him demons stole it,” said Jace.
The food was amazing. Barbecue chicken, ribs, baked beans, cornbread…clearly Hodge had ordered in from some really expensive BBQ place.
“Thanks,” said Clary, licking her fingers. “This is a great birthday present.”
“Oh this isn’t the present,” said Jace.
“Huh?”
Jace took out a small box and handed it to Clary. For a moment, Clary’s breath was taken away. She excitedly opened the box to reveal a brightly glowing stone.
“A witchlight? For realz?”
“Yep!” said Jace. “Happy birthday!”
Clary wasn’t normally one to make the first move, but she was so overcome with a desire to encourage this gift-giving behavior that she grabbed Jace and kissed him.
“Wow!” said Jace, happy but also a bit bummed that he’d set the bar so high with such an expensive gift early on, rather than making her earn her way up to it.
“WHERE’S MY BARBECUE?” came a shout from downstairs.
“Yikes,” said Jace. “We’d better move this picnic somewhere a little more private. Your room?” Clary nodded and they headed downstairs, hand-in-hand.
Clary gave Jace another kiss, then opened her bedroom door…and froze.
Simon was lying on her bed in his underwear.
“I got your text about wanting to cuddle,” said Simon.
Clary had decided that to keep from losing Simon to Isabelle, she needed to start putting in some extra effort. So she’d texted Simon asking him to cuddle, because as every girl knew, letting a guy cuddle in bed with you without giving it up was the best way to get him to buy you stuff, in the false belief that he was that close to hooking up.
She’d assumed, however, that Simon would text her back to set up a time to cuddle, rather than just showing up in his underwear.
“Did you really text him that?” said Jace angrily.
“Yes, but—”
“So I spent $15,000 on a non-returnable witchlight for a girl who has a boyfriend?”
“Jace, I can explain—”
“If that explanation doesn’t include handing me $15,000 plus 8.5% sales tax, I don’t wanna hear it.” Jace tore his hand away from Clary’s and stormed away.
“Thanks a lot, Simon,” said Clary. “Now I’ll have to wait until he wants to hook up with me again. Which I’m sure won’t be ‘til like twenty minutes from now. Why’d you have to do this?”
“Because…because…” Simon stammered.
Uh oh, thought Clary. She knew what was coming: the moment when the guy in the friend zone tells the girl that he loves her, even though she’s known this the entire time, along with everyone else in the world.
“…because I’ve loved you for ten years!” said Simon.
Clary silently congratulated herself on getting ten years of free meals and movies. She wasn’t sure how to respond to Simon, so she did what girls always did with a guy in the friend zone when things got awkward: she hugged him.
“Wow, does this mean you feel the same way?” said Simon.
She didn’t want to lie, but she also didn’t want to tell the truth and drive him away. So she decided to ask him to do an activity with vague connotations. “Wanna watch a movie?”
“Sure!” said Simon, thinking this might lead to a hookup even though it hadn’t the 1,000 other times they’d watched a movie. They took out Clary’s laptop and fired up Netflix. Simon wanted to watch a comedy, but Clary insisted on The Notebook, not because she actually liked it but because it was fun to watch it with a guy and see how annoyed he’d get at having to watch it.
Five minutes into the movie, Clary announced, “I think I might take a little nap,” dashing Simon’s hookup hopes once again. “Could you let me know what I miss?” She fell asleep…and was woken up sometime later by water falling on her face.
Clary opened her eyes to see that the movie had reached the big kissing in the rain scene, but somehow the rain from the movie was hitting her face.
Simon saw she was awake. “Want me to catch you up?” he said. Clary saw that he’d taken 20 pages of notes on the movie, and also that he was completely dry.
Wow, Clary thought, I guess I have the ability to go inside movies.
And then it hit her.
“Omigosh, I finally figured it out!” said Clary.
“That The Notebook isn’t actually that good?” said Simon.
“No, the place where Mom hid the Mortal Keg!”