"It seems wrong to like someone else. Isn't it fickle?" That probably wasn't the right thing to say since Izzy liked to casually date, but Alec had never seen the appeal of that. When he allowed himself to consider being with someone, he'd wanted something more serious than that.

"I don't know how to enjoy it." He didn't have friends and he barely remembered when he'd done something that wasn't meant to improve his training or help the Institute. Maybe his music, but that was all. "I don't like that we fought twice in two days. It reminds me of when Jace first arrived at the Institute and he kept lashing out at me." But Alec had been patient then, waiting Jace out until the younger boy had finally learned that it was safe to trust him. "I'm not going to date someone just because he's cute."

Did he just call Adam cute?

Scowling at his sister when she mentioned the fake dating, he tried - and failed - to understand why she'd find that entertaining. "He didn't ask me if I'd be his pretend boyfriend. He told me that I was his pretend boyfriend and said he couldn't believe that we almost broke up after our first fight." Were all Mundanes weird?