At 24 years old, Jughead Jones was objectively successful. He was gainfully employed as a writer at a small online magazine, one of few people in his generation putting his degree to use. It wasn't exactly his dream job, but it was as good a place as any to start, he supposed. He had a small group of friends he had known for most of his life, and he was objectively happy, one would say. In the – I can pay my rent this month and still afford a trip to the coffee shop daily – kind of way.

Archie Andrews and Jughead Jones had known each other their entire lives, a privilege afforded by their parents. Jughead and Archie's dads, FP and Fred, had been friends since their high school days, so when both of their wives became pregnant around the same time, it was a no brainer. As the boys grew up together, often times they shared birthday parties and combined family outings. Over the years it changed from Archie joining Jughead's family sometimes to Jughead joining Archie's family all the time. Few people find the kind of kinship Archie and Jughead shared, and they knew they were lucky for it. Growing up together made them feel more like brothers than friends, and they often referred to each other as such.

The second one of Jughead's friends was Archie's newly-minted fiancée, Veronica Lodge. Veronica moved to their hometown of Riverdale their sophomore year of high school. Archie, in an instant, declared his player-like ways null and void upon the raven-haired princess' arrival. After tip toeing around their feelings for a few months, they finally connected and have been inseparable ever since. That was almost 8 years ago, and now they were still as sickeningly sweet together as they had been when they first started dating. Veronica and Jughead hadn't always seen eye to eye and bumped heads for the first year of their shaky friendship, but the genuine connection he sensed between her and his best friend, eventually won him over. He now knew Veronica to be one of the most fiercely loyal people he had ever met and was grateful to be a friend rather than a foe to a Lodge.

Last, but definitely not least in their friend group was Betty Cooper. Betty, Archie, and Jughead were inseparable in their younger years. She was Archie's neighbor and nursed an obvious-to-everyone-except-Archie crush on their ginger haired friend for most of their lives. Jughead was relegated to the sidelines and watched time after time as Betty pined after their oblivious friend. Too many times he saw Archie ask Betty to a dance, as a backup of course, only to bail at the last minute because his newest crush decided to reciprocate his feelings. When Veronica moved to Riverdale, Jughead was confused when her and Betty wound up becoming fast friends. Betty was friends with Veronica long before Jughead, he held his grudge on Betty's behalf well past the time she decided to wave the white flag. It wasn't until Betty started dating her first boyfriend, Adam what's-his-name, that Jughead decided Veronica's freeze out was no longer warranted.

This brings Jughead to his current predicament, Veronica and Archie had achieved a new level of sickeningly sweet as a result of their recent engagement. Veronica, unsurprisingly, seemed to be floating around in a love-fueled haze. Now that she and Archie had moved to the next level of their relationship, she felt the need to push her friends to find the same happiness. Veronica had been pestering Jughead about setting up an online dating profile for months. She had suggested Tinder, Plenty of Fish, eHarmony, and in a moment of extreme sarcasm, . Jughead had been dodging the topic for a while, but she now had him cornered in his apartment while Archie was packing up his belongings in the other room. Archie and Veronica were finallymoving in together, thanks to said engagement, and the friends had already decided they would essentially be switching roommates.

One of the perks of being Veronica Lodge's boyfriend's best friend, was the apartment he currently lived in. Her parents were wealthy; not your typical upper class, private school wealth, but disgusting, generations worth of accumulation, type of wealth.

They owned the building the friends were living in and Veronica was gifted the penthouse level at the start of their college years. Two identical two-bedroom apartments took up the entire top floor. This arrangement allowed Veronica and Archie easy access to each other, while still upholding her parents' version of how courtship should go. Everyone was surprised Hiram and Hermione Lodge were even letting Archie and Veronica move in together while merely engaged, not yet married; but no one second guessed it for fear of making waves with the raven-haired spitfire.

Thus, Jughead found himself in his apartment, previously shared with Archie, soon to be shared with Betty Cooper herself, cornered by Veronica while she tried to snap a 'flattering' photo of the beanie-wearing boy.

"Look at the camera like it's a hamburger", knowing his weakness for all things food, Veronica was intent on setting him up a profile herself. All she needed now was a photo of him. "Double cheese, pickles, mayonnaise…" She droned on about toppings hoping to catch a good angle but Jughead's hands came up to cover his face, the blush on his cheeks growing with each additional topping named.

"Stop it Veronica!" he groaned while trying to inch his fingers up to pull the crown shaped beanie over his eyes, simultaneously hiding his face. "I'm not going to do this." His fingers finally reach the knitted cap and pull it down to act as a shield.

"Fine… but Forsythe" she said cunningly, to convey the severity of her next statement, "You had better have a girlfriend to bring as a date to my wedding, because I will not have the best man attending stag or with some last-minute stand in."

He heard a huff of annoyance and felt the weight of his phone drop into his lap. Hearing the click clack of her, no doubt Louboutin, heels down the hall, he fell back on his bed and let out of a sigh of frustration. The wedding was only three months away, which was very short notice considering Jughead's limited dating history. The probability of him actually meeting someone new worth dating in the next three months… well that was looking near impossible.

Due to their long courtship, Jughead was convinced Veronica had planned the entire wedding by their five-year anniversary and was (not so) patiently waiting for Archie's proposal. She had everything picked out before Archie had decided on a ring and needed only a few phone calls to kick off the process of bringing her dream to life.

Jughead awoke a few hours later to a silence that was absent before his impromptu nap. Deciding to brave the possibility of Veronica trying to set him up for a second time that day, he got up and tip toed to the door. Glancing out in the hall, Jughead noticed Archie's haphazardly packed boxes and hampers full of random objects had all been moved. In their place sat about a dozen boxes, all the same size, all with perfectly penned labels indicating which room they belonged in.

"Hey Jug, sorry if I woke you." Betty was in the apartment she now called home unpacking the boxes labeled 'Kitchen'. He couldn't make out the smaller print underneath it, but guessed it listed the exact contents of the box – knowing Betty's type A tendencies.

"No, my phone went off with an email from my editor, I didn't even know you were in here." He rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit he never had been able to shake, and moved into the kitchen to assist her.

Betty was clad only in pink fuzzy pajama pants and a lighter shade pink ribbed tank top. Her trademark ponytail barely intact after a day of moving everything she owned from one apartment to another. She was sitting with her legs crossed on the kitchen floor, elbow deep in a box, so Jughead decided to join her. Reaching into the same box, he began unpacking the small appliances and they fell into easy conversation.

Jughead and Betty hadn't started out exactly as best friends. Their mutual friend Archie was the crux to their triad in the beginning, and it wasn't until they entered high school that they connected one on one. They were both on the school's newspaper staff and had most of their AP classes together. They seemed to always be around each other for one reason or another, and found themselves thrown together alone from time to time. Some of those times, Jughead would let his teenage mind run to places he realistically knew it shouldn't be. Betty was always beautiful, that was just a fact to Jughead, just like one plus one equals two, and grass is green – Betty was beautiful. Her golden blonde hair and emerald eyes were the picture of perfection to anyone with eyes, Jughead would think.

She was his first crush, and when he noticed her affections for Archie, he developed methods to deal with it. Being just friends with Betty was better than not being friends with her at all, in his mind. But over the years, she had dated off and on and so had he. They never seemed to be single concurrently for more than a month or two at a time, and Jughead had been holding his crush on her close to the breast for so long, it was second nature to shelve his feelings.

That is, until Veronica and Archie got engaged. Betty and her last boyfriend broke up over two months prior to the proposal and Jughead hadn't had a girlfriend in nearly two years. Things only got more complicated when the apartment switch idea was proposed to them both over a far-too-expensive dinner with a ridiculously priced bottle of champagne. Neither one wanting to dampen their best friends' dreams, Jughead and Betty agreed to share Jughead and Archie's apartment, while Archie would move his stuff into what was previously the girls' apartment.

One complication after another landed Jughead in the predicament of being hopelessly in love with his best friend who happened to now be sleeping about twenty feet away from him. Seeing her in her pajamas only exasperated his frustrations and he knew his next plan was probably a bad idea, but proceeded with it anyway despite all the warning signs.

"All Veronica talks about anymore is the wedding" Jughead scoffed while moving onto the last box in the kitchen. "She basically gave me a direct order to have a girlfriend by the time they get married because I'm not allowed to attend stag." The words left his mouth as his brain was screaming at him to stop. He knew this was a bad idea, but there was no going back now. He tilted his head up slightly to catch her reaction and was pleasantly surprised she wasn't obviously appalled.

Betty looked up with a lopsided smile, and Jughead was entranced, "I know what you mean. She's been on me too. 'My maid of honor can't be single at the wedding! That is unacceptable!'" Betty mocked, with a certain emphasis on the last word.

They both laughed and Jughead decided to dive in head first, "Why don't we just let them think we're dating. It would seem natural, move in together, develop feelings for each other, yada yada yada." Jughead tried to sound casual but his heart was thumping against his chest faster than it ever had. He could hear his pulse in his eardrums as he waited for her response.

"Yeah, why not. We could both dodge a bullet" she easily replied, but wouldn't meet his eyes. He could see the faintest hint of pink on her cheeks and decided she must just be warm from moving around so much… there's no way she was blushing because of him—right?

All at once, he felt the air leave his lungs as he tried to regain his composure. "Good", he said.

"Good" she echoed. He couldn't think of anything else to say and sat in silence for a minute.

When would they start their charade? Who should they tell first, Archie or Veronica? Would they believe it? Just then, his mind wandered a bit farther and his high school self emerged the tiniest bit. Would he get to hold her hand? Would he get to kiss her? Would it only be in public?

Breaking him from his thoughts, Jughead heard Betty clear her throat and he felt the need to fill the silence. "So, when should we tell them?" Jughead threw out jokingly, not fully expecting her response.

"Probably in a week or two, maybe we just casually cuddle on the couch and leave the door unlocked for them to walk in on." She sounded like she had thought this through in the same span he was questioning the entire arrangement, and he quirked an eyebrow at her response.

"Good", he said once more and immediately felt embarrassed by his suddenly handicapped vocabulary.

"Good." She echoed once more with the smallest smile tugging across her perfectly plump lips. Jughead couldn't break his gaze from her lips and he found his thoughts wandering into dangerous territory once more.

Jughead realized this was going to be far more difficult than he thought.