Heyyo...

The rest of the week had gone by pretty fast.

Clary and Mrs Black had stopped by once or twice and I had gone grocery shopping with Charlie.

We both had enjoyed the time we had spent together and yesterday, Friday, Damien had picked up Charlie at my apartment.

He hadn’t looked at me once and that had been fine with me.

The longer I could avoid talking to him, the better.

Today I was going to go out with Clary and when I checked my phone I realized that she would be here any minute.

I put on my sneakers and boots and grabbed my purse before I left the apartment and shut the door behind me.

While I waited for the elevator, my phone started vibrating and when unlocked it Clary had sent me a text message that said we are here. I raised an eyebrow.

Who was we?

I knew it wasn’t Damien as he was with Charlie, but that was only a small relief.

When I arrived downstairs, there was a blue sportscar waiting and Clary in the front seat, with her window rolled down, waved.

“Hi, Ally.”, she screamed, and I waved back at her before she got out of the car to let me in, as there were only two doors.

When I got closer I saw who the driver was.

It was Jared.

“What is he doing here?”, I asked surprised and Clary shrugged while she put her shades.

“My parents don’t really want me to go out alone. But walking around with a bodyguard always makes me feel so weird and the looks people give me when I am walking around with a bodyguard give me the creeps.

And I don’t need one anyway. I can take care of myself. But because my parents insisted that someone would come with us, I asked Jared. He owes me favor anyway.”, she grinned before she examined my outfit and turned her nose at it.

“I am so glad we are going to go shopping. You need new clothes.”

I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing ripped jeans and a comfy green sweater, which seemed pretty decent to me.

“What is wrong with my clothes?”, I asked therefore and crossed my arms.

She laughed.

“You can wear this when you are at home or outside when you are doing garden work, but not when you go out shopping in New York. You have to dress to impress.”, she explained and tossed her perfectly curled hair over her shoulder while I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Whatever. My clothes are perfectly fine though, and I am not exactly trying to impress anyone anyway.”, I responded, and Clary shook her head.

“But you will impress everyone at the gala because I will find the perfect dress for you. You will see, Damien won’t know what hit him.”, she enthused and gave me a cocky smile.

“He will so regret being such an asshole when he is going to see you dance with all the cute boys there.”

I just stared at her.

“What gala are you talking about? I don’t feel like partying. And I will certainly not dress up as a slut to impress anyone. Least of all Damien.”, I stated and crossed my arms.

Clary rolled her eyes at me but before she could answer Jared honked and we both jerked.

“You ladies move now, or I will leave. I don’t have all day.”, he said and even though his voice sounded annoyed, his facial expression told me he was rather amused.

“I will explain everything in the car, come on. It is getting cold anyway.”, Clary said, and I got in the back of the car after pushing the seat forwards. I wanted to point out that I, unlike her, was not only wearing a skirt, a blouse, and a cropped denim jacket. Therefore, I was perfectly warm and comfortable, while I saw goosebumps spreading on Clary’s legs.

In the end I simply shrugged and got in the car, which proved to be a little tricky and I bumped my head slightly and my ribcage started hurting again when I had to lean forward and climb in, but I didn’t mind.

I had gotten used to the slight twitching every now and then already.

“Are you okay back there?”, Clary asked slightly worried when she had seen me flinch, but I sat down and nodded.

“All good. But now explain what gala you are talking about.”, I demanded to know, and she grinned while she got in the car.

“The annual Woodward Gala. Have you never heard of it? It is the event of the year. But it is basically just a place where every rich person in New York gathers to show off in front of the press and to improve their image by donating millions of dollars to the national children’s fund at the auction. It sounds boring but is actually really fun sometimes.”, she explained and gave me a radiant smile.

“The tickets have been sold out for months but because I am the Chief Brand Officer of the Hilton Convention Planning Corporation -which is the most successful event-planning-company in the entire country and is coincidentally also responsible for planning the gala- I was able to get you another ticket.”, she squealed excited and turned around, apparently waiting for me to clap or something.

When I didn’t react, she rolled her eyes.

“You know, you could at least try to be a little excited about this. You are so lucky I got a job there because the gala is really-”, she started but got interrupted by Jared’s amused, but dry laugh.

“What?”, she hissed while Jared started the car and drove back onto the road.

“You do know that you just got the job because of your parents, right?”, he asked amused and Clary snorted.

“That is not true! I am really good at my job.”, she defended herself but Jared just grinned.

“Right… But why else would they hire you? You have a degree in Egyptology and Italian fashion from the 19th century and absolutely no work experience because every few months you quit and get a new job.

Last year you worked as a fashion designer, before that you worked at the financial department of your father’s company and before that you wanted to start your own catering business which failed miserably and also cost a lot of your dad’s money. And didn’t you want be a hacker at one point?”

Clary flushed and I started giggling.

“Are you serious?”

“Hey! I really loved Egyptology and it isn’t my fault that the job prospects for that degree aren’t exactly peachy! And the catering business was a fail, unfortunately. But the only reason I worked for my dad for some time was because he was mad because I wasted so much of his money.

And I wasn’t actually wanting to be a hacker, I just watched too many of these action movies and hacking seemed like such a cool thing to do! Also catering and event planning are related fields and I think this job could really be the one.”, she tried to convince us and crossed her arms again.

Jared chuckled. “Whatever, princess.”

I cleared my throat.

“You know Clary, I really appreciate your effort, but I don’t think I’ll go. These kinds of events aren’t really my thing.”, I said but Clary seemed to disagree.

“Of course, you are going. You don’t even have to be around Damien if you really don’t want to. Someone owed me a favor and I was able to change the seating arrangement and Damien and Talia will be sitting as far from us as possible.

Please! I really don’t want to go alone, and all my friends are going to be there with their boyfriends. And I don’t even like most of them. Come on, Ally.”

She gave me a puppy look and I sighed.

The last party like this had ended in me getting drunk and having a one night stand and getting pregnant at age 19. I didn’t have a boyfriend that could cheat on me this time, but I really didn’t want to have to see Damien.

“What about Charlie? I am not leaving him with some nanny that I have never seen before.”, I pointed out and Clary’s smile widened, and she put me off with a wave of her hand.

“Graham is going to take care of him. He doesn’t want to go to the gala. He has been a little weird in the past months but that doesn’t matter now. What do you say?”, she asked excited and I sighed.

“Fine. But like I said, I am not going to impress Damien or make him jealous. I just want to have a good time.”

Two hours later my feet hurt so bad that I barely made it into the next store.

Clary seemed to feel the same way but that didn’t surprise me because she was wearing heels.

I was actually quite impressed that she had made it this far without even thinking about taking off her shoes. She leaned against a wall next to the entrance and grunted while massaging her foot.

“Do you want to sit down for a second and take them off?”, I offered but she shook her head and stood back up, smoothing down her blouse that was tucked into the short leather skirt she wore.

“No way.”

Jared who was carrying a whole bunch of boxes and bags, rolled his eyes.

“You are so stubborn! And slow. The last store was literally only one block away but because of you it took us almost 20 minutes.”, he complained, and I giggled while Clary snorted.

“Well, that is a price I am willing to pay to look this good. And now come on. This is the store that sells the dresses for the gala. I bet they are already almost sold out. We are so lucky that all the dresses are unique. Imagine what a humiliation it would be if we turned up and there were women wearing the same dress.”