The four times Jughead apologized and the one time he didn't.
Betty Cooper walked into her bedroom with an intense expression on her face. Jughead Jones glanced up from the screen of his laptop and raised an eyebrow.
"Something wrong?" He asked, looking back down at the edited version of his latest article. He'd stopped by her house to go over the article before it went into the next day's edition. The interview with one of their history teachers about Civil War re-enactment had been postponed repeatedly and he'd only just completed it that afternoon. In order to make the latest issue, he'd gone to the Cooper residence to finish.
After her last edits, she'd stepped out to shower and get dressed for dinner. She was meeting her parents to celebrate her mother's birthday, but her mother was fairly understanding of her delay. As owners of a newspaper, Hal and Alice Cooper had missed their share of family dinners to meet a deadline.
"Yeah, my zipper's stuck." The pretty blonde grunted softly with both hands behind her back. She wore a pale green linen dress that suited her warm coloring. The straps drooped over her bare shoulders, where her long blonde hair rested, and she stalked over to her vanity table and picked up a tube of lipstick. "Can you help me?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
Jughead unfolded his long legs and crossed the room to stand behind his friend. She was bent at the waist and looking in the mirror, focusing on her lipstick application. Her dress was zipped above her waist, leaving her back and shoulders naked. He stared for a moment, unaccustomed to seeing this much skin on Betty Cooper. If it had been summer, and he'd been prepared to see swimsuits and shorts, he might not have reacted in a predictably embarrassing way. He'd been hanging around the frilly pink bedroom too long, and his resistance to Betty's femininity was weakened.
Betty didn't seem to notice Jughead's discomfort. She pressed her lips together, setting her lipstick and withdrew the fluffy wand from a tube of dark brown mascara. Her smooth skin was pale and smelled fresh from her shower. No heavy perfume, just some kind of moisturizer that left her looking dewy and with a trace of floral fragrance. He blinked and moved his eyes from the lacy edge of her bra where it fastened in the middle of her back and focused on the troublesome zipper. He gently gripped the metal slider and tugged upwards.
The bottom of Betty's skirt lifted slightly when Jughead pulled, so he quickly dropped it again. He used his thumb and forefinger to hold it and with the other hand he attempted to work it free from a snarl of thread that had come loose. Betty dropped one of her earrings on the carpet and reached down to pick it up. Her round bottom pressed back against the front of Jughead's pants, causing him to grip her waist, quickly. He did his best to hold himself away from her, attempting to avoid poking her firmly with his uncomfortably stiff erection. His thumb grazed her bare skin of her lower back and he desperately wished his pretty friend would exercise some of the Puritanical restraint her mother attempted to instill in her. She didn't seem aware of the suggestive nature of her request to him, or perhaps he was so far into the friend zone that she no longer saw him as male.
Betty found her earring and looked back into the mirror to fasten it. She felt Jughead's warm, broad hands leave her waist and return to her zipper.
"Can you see what it's stuck on?" she asked, taking a delicate gold chain from her jewelry box.
"Yeah," he replied, quietly.
Betty noted some tension in her friend's voice and looked from her own reflection to his. His lips were tightened and he looked focused and intense. He met her gaze and held it for several heartbeats before giving a hard tug and jerking her zipper down, instead of up. Betty's thigh banged against the edge of the vanity when she stood up and turned around too quickly.
"Juggie-" she began.
"Sorry," he said, quickly. "It was caught in some thread above it, and I had to get it loose." His hand stayed on her hip and he was still standing close. He glanced down and Betty thought he was staring at her mouth. She started to lean back but his hands were at her waist and gave her the barest tug forward before settling at the small of her back.
"Um-" she began before her throat closed on the words.
"Don't move." His gaze was intense and he lowered his head a tiny bit. Before she could react, she saw the corner of his mouth twitch and felt his fingers close on the quarrelsome zipper. It slid smoothly to her nape this time.
"Thank you." She pursed her own, pink lips. Her belly had been fluttering over Jughead Jones, who had been helping her with her zipper. She felt silly for being affected by him, and reading into his actions. But he didn't move away.
He lifted the delicate gold chain from her unresisting fingers and brushed her hair back from her shoulder. He carefully unfastened the clasp and lifted it to her collarbone, bringing his hands around her neck and leaning over her shoulder to fasten it. Betty could feel his warmth through his clothes and the gentle pressure of his hands when he lifted her hair. She fisted her hands at her sides to suppress the urge to hold onto his shirt. She felt the cool metal settle against her neck and he dropped the silky mass back to her shoulders.
"Anytime, he said, giving her an appreciative glance that was purely male.
Betty blushed prettily and rolled her eyes, sighing heavily. She pushed past him with annoyance and he chuckled.
"You're a funny guy," she said, trying to sound annoyed to cover for her burning cheeks.
"I might not be a walking pile of testosterone like Reggie and Chuck," Jughead said, picking up his laptop and walked to the doorway of her bedroom. "But I'm still a man." He rapped his knuckle against her door and left. Betty stood, cheeks burning, until she heard the front door close and then let her jelly knees give way and she sat in her chair while she waited for her heart rate to return to normal.