Since Knight had no life, due to his current circumstances of being confined to my quarters, he had decided to constantly annoy me with his presence. We lay on our stomachs on my bed, our sides touching, much to my annoyance. Because Knight thought it was necessary to hit me in the arm, with force, every time he got scared. And Knight was a wuss.

"Quickly, download episode seven!" Knight demanded, tapping my arm incessantly.

"I am!"

"Well, hurry!"

After the crazy whirlwind of events at the group picnic yesterday, it was good to spend Saturday decompressing at home with Knight before my clear-Hartley-from-my-traitorous-brain date. Thankfully, I had the next two weeks off school to keep him entertained; he seemed about ready to start tearing pillows up when I was off being educated to garner my attention. He really was like a new puppy that you had to leave with toys.

Ten minutes into the episode—the only thing getting Knight through life, it seemed—Jace barged into the room and interrupted the marathon of a lifetime. "Hey, guys, what are you up to?"

Transfixed on the screen, Knight and I muttered, "Shut up, Hartley," in perfect unison. "Who even let you in?" I added.

"Liv." He came around to stand beside the bed, peering over our shoulders. I tried to ignore the feeling that diffused within me at his close proximity, mentally squashing it with a spiked heel of a Prada heel. "Is that... the Vampire Diaries?"

"Also goes by the greatest show of all time," said Knight. "I would straight up die for like 50% of these people. Mostly Katherine. And Caroline."

Without taking my eyes of the screen—unwilling to miss Caroline bone down with Klaus, one of the greatest moments in television history—I threw a pillow at Jace. "What part of shut up Hartley did you fail to comprehend?"

"Um, the part when a pause button hadn't been invented."

I looked up at him and gasped. "You can't pause The Vampire Diaries."

Knight nodded, still looking at the screen. "You can't pause The Vampire Diaries."

"Oh, did Netflix remove the pause button on Damon Salvatore's behalf? That seems like an interesting financial choice."

I shoved at his legs. "Oh, go away Hartley. Isn't there some hole you can go and fall into?"

Hartley sat down on the edge of the bed, clearly intrigued by Katherine's general gloriousness and badassery, but trying to pretend he was a cultured man who liked critically acclaimed indie films and had opinions about the current state of the economy. "I thought we were friends now."

"I tell all of my friends to go die in holes. Knight, go die in a hole."

"Can I finish the episode first?"

"Of course, I'm not a sociopath," I said. Then I smiled up at Jace. "See?"

"The kindness just radiates," he said, gesturing around me as if feeling a warm aura of sweetness, generosity and generally non-sociopathic tendencies.

I grinned.

"I don't know if you completely forgot, but we were supposed to work on our project tonight," said Jace.

"Sunday was project day," I corrected. "It is Saturday."

"No, you changed the date," said Jace, pulling out his phone and reading the text from the screen. "Hey H Man. Can't do Sunday, I'm throwing a party. By the way, I guess you're invited. Bring me a present." He looked up at me. "It's not even your birthday! And, for all that is good in the world, please never again call me H Man."

"Firstly, H Man is a nickname of friendship and camaraderie and you simply just have to accept it. It's going to catch on. Soon you'll be known as the H Man. At your wedding? It'll be 'Do you, H Man, take the missus'. I'm going to write your obituary, and it's going to be the H Man. Cop it."

Jace sighed. "Is this your final act of revenge on me? Was friendship just a rouse?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," I said, winking. "And secondly, I can request presents anytime I like. Maybe I just like presents, Hartley, did you ever think of that? Knight and Jonah have bought me one already."

Knight nodded, still entranced by Katherine and her general sexiness. "It's awesome, you'll love it."

"So, you're hosting a party tomorrow for shits and giggles, but presents are required?" Jace confirmed.

"Strongly recommended," said Knight. "But if you don't bring one, you're not allowed any of our custom ordered cupcakes."

Jace raised an eyebrow. "Why do you care if I bring Lena a present?"

"What's hers is mine," he said serenely.

"That's not even a little bit true," I complained. "Knight, I've already told you, like, a million times to get out of my stuff."

Knight nodded. "Respectfully, no."

Jace laughed at that.

I had no illusions that anything I did would keep Knight from using anything and everything he felt like of mine, aside from straight up kicking him out. Which, apparently, I was unwilling to do. He had some sort of sympathy witch voodoo, clearly, that made me feel bad for him. He was just like a kicked puppy.

Jace tapped me on the shoulder. "Project, Lena. We have to submit our outline by midnight tomorrow, and neither of us will do it tonight or after consuming copious amounts of alcohol tomorrow."

"But don't you think that would be a blast?" I said.

"Oh, definitely," said Jace with a grin. "But I would like to avoid my mothers beheading me for using words like dope and sheebob in my essays."

"Parents suck," Knight contributed. "Like, why can't they all just accept that you're a failure that will amount to nothing, like mine?"

"Yes, I hope my parents kick me out and leave me homeless," I said. "It's an elusive dream."

Jace gave me a look of impatience, nudging me with his hip.

"Ugh," I groaned. "Fine. You are a spoilsport and life ruiner."

"I'll put it on my resume."

Jace began to stroll towards my playroom. He'd now been in my house enough times that he felt comfortable—could predict where to go and didn't need instruction. Only Knight and Jonah had ever spent so much time in my house that the feeling of being a guest had worn off, and it seemed that Jace was now added to the special few. It was slightly disconcerting.

With a sigh that could probably be heard next door, I unfurled myself from the comfort of my bed and followed Jace into the playroom.

"But... Katherine?" Knight protested.

With a mournful look back at him, I said, "Don't get your panties in a twist, Knight, I've seen it hundreds of times."

"I wouldn't have to wear panties if you just bought me manly jocks like a normal person!"

"My money, my rules," I sung, closing the door behind us. Knight looked heavily disgruntled, but I had the feeling Nina Dobrev's glorious hair would soon improve his mood. Sadly, it couldn't improve mine, because I was missing out. Because Jace, my homie, broskie, mate, was officially Satan again. Temporarily.

"Hey, by the way, how's Daria?" I asked.

She'd driven herself home after the situation with Nate, resolving to break up with him for his harsh words. I hoped she would go through with it—finally remove that asshole from her life—but Daria was steadfastly loyal, even to those who didn't always deserve it. If Nate allowed a single tear to fall, or allowed one apology to fly from his lips, I didn't doubt that Daria would be sucked right back in again.

It wasn't that she was weak. She was one of the strongest people I knew. But it was just that she didn't always recognize the line between the people who deserved to be fought for, and the ones best left in the mud.

Jace sighed. "She's okay, I think. She's with Jonah now. She broke up with Nate, but she's not really ready to advertise it yet. I think she's scared she'll be psyched back into the relationship, but she knows that this is for the best."

"With Jonah?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," said Jace, with similar surprise. "He's been kind of great with all of this stuff. Daria said he's been ridiculously supportive."

I shrugged. "Good for Jonah. He's never really had the energy or, like, common sense to be much help in any of these situations."

"It seems he's stepped up for our good friend," said Jace. He smiled slyly. "Did you talk to him about the whole childhood passion for you?"

I laughed. "I'd almost forgotten about that. No, I haven't. I'll definitely have to make fun of him for it tomorrow. But it seems he's moved on to comforting other girls." I pretended to wipe a tear away. "He never did that for me."

Jace looked at me with scepticism. "Is that because you have, like, never once in your life needed comforting. You always just needed calming down. I've known you for, what, 15 years now? I don't think I've ever seen you cry."

"What do I have to cry about, I'm awesome?"

"Blindly narcissistic rings more true for me."

"Oh, shut up."

We were silent for a moment, Jace pulling his laptop from his bag while I collected mine, searching through our google doc outline and reading over anything we'd previously done. Jace's section was, unsurprisingly, excellent. He was, I could admit, exceedingly talented.

When I looked up to ask him a question, I saw that he was already looking over at me. His expression wasn't neutral, nor was it happy. It was a strange mixture; hurt and sadness and frustration. But when he saw me looking, he quickly schooled his features back into careful nonchalance.

"Hey, are we all good?" I asked Jace.

"Yeah," said Jace, softly. "We're all good."