Lipgloss and Marlboros: A Collection of Drabbles

Juliet (Please forget your Romeo)

"You keep calling me Juliet."

She looked me dead in the eye as if she was almost mad, never had I seen such a reaction to what most girls would consider quite a compliment from the circles of romantic literature.

I more or less see it as either a satisfying comment to make a girl fall for you or the most annoying and unsatisfactory series of events that lead to nothing but frustration. Is that not the love ballad of Romeo and Juliet?

She tightens her long blonde ponytail and then spins on the balls of her feet to look at me, slapping her hands to the sides of her hips. "And can you please find another way to get up here!" she says rushing to the window, scowling at my ladder leaning against her window. "My parents will kill me, Romeo!"

I try not to make it so obvious that my voice has hitched in my throat and I straighten my beanie before smiling at her. "Don't say I'm your Romeo, Bets. I never have been."

She frowns a bit and I can almost hear her mind ticking. Betty Cooper has always had a way of expressing her thoughts through the looks on her face. I have known her for so long, I was somewhat of a clairvoyant to a small group of people that we call our friends.

She must have felt she had offended me, forgetting that good ol' Juggie doesn't have the sensitive heart that her beloved Archie does. "But-bu-" I cut her off.

"But that would be fair Archie Montague," I say, giving her a wink which earns me a shove on her behalf.

She sits back down on the edge of her bed and lays back, her lacy dress riding up and as much as I wanted to look away, be a decent human being and the respectable young man I have tried oh so hard to make myself into, I couldn't help but notice how her blushed skin was reaching further up and up and...

"Jug!"

I snap my head away from her smooth legs and quickly up to her face. "Yeah?"

"I got a message from V, you interested in a bit of a bite?"

I didn't want to admit it, but I was hunting for an excuse not to go. I had blown Archie off but unfortunately, he is not blind and he will see the ladder leaning against Betty's picket fenced house. My hands had been so deep in my pockets for a while now and I wonder if she's noticed but I shake my pockets. "No money."

Betty laughs and runs her teeth over her bottom lip. "And I will have your back – or Veronica will."

My face blushes but it shouldn't – dad had given me a one hundred dollar bill when I crossed him in the street just yesterday which I start fingering in my pocket. "Bets..."

"If it's too much of a girly date for you, we'll call Arch to join us."

I cock an eyebrow. "And detach him from the string and wood connected to his side? I dunno Bets," I say teasingly.

I scan around her room while she lays down with her head in her hands. So many trinkets, such a big room. So much space and flowers and photos of her and Archie, photos of us three when we were kids, polka dots, lace. So much lace. "So much lace," I voice out loud.

She sits up and sniggers a bit. "I hate it..."

"So much lace from the top of your bed to the edge of your thighs," I mutter but I immediately bite my tongue because why the hell did I say that out loud? The lace may be pink and creeping up her body like a vine but I should not be paying so much attention...

Betty sighed and ran a hand over her hair. "It's so girly. I keep saying that but I never do anything about it."

I shrug and sit down next to her. "Make it womanly then?"

Betty rolls her eyes and shoves me again, making my body move and unbalance. "Nothing about me is womanly..." she looks down and blushes, red spreading along her face and neck. "Sorry Juggie, I'm being awkward..."

Again Betty Cooper has left me with a lump in my throat and I try not to make it so obvious. "Well, your shirt tells me otherwise," I say, reaching over and brushing my fingers along her collarbone and begging to brush the swell of her breasts.

She forms goosebumps where my fingers were and shudders a bit. "Have you always been good with your words?"

"Are they working?" I ask a little too loudly. "I'm joking, it's like a coping mechanism – the more I use my mouth, the less people ask of me. It's like they don't know what I'm talking about half the time."

She licks her lips and rolls over on her bed to face me. "I wonder how well you use that mouth, Jug," she seems to say in a whisper but I think I have turned supersonic because it feels like it is the loudest thing I have ever heard. "But I am more intrigued in wondering what that brain knows."

Her chest rises and falls and her hands move up to rest on my forearm. The many times that I've stared into the blue eyes of Betty Cooper have not seem to have prepared me for how deep a blue her eyes are or the spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Not the meet ups in the tree house, not the sleepovers at Archie's that she would crash, not the years we've spent in the same class had prepared me. Nothing prepared me and I appreciate not being prepared because she seems that much more... sexy?

"My mind?" I try and say steadily. "Well, my mind tells me that you've moved on from the Romeo that is Archie."

Her gentle hands seem so heavy as they move down my body, edging the end of my shirt and then long fingers touching my skin along my hips and onto my torso. "I want to be brave, Juggie."

I turn to her too now, gripping my lip with my teeth, trying not to shake or feel too much of her hands on my skin. My lips and teeth can feel the heat of her mouth. Shit, if this is what gets me riled, then so be it. Connecting of the minds first has definitely played it's role in my longing for Betty. As much as I wished I still thought of Betty as my friend, the wishes were being pushed out to the side, punched and mauled by what I am starting to detect is... love?

We stared. She smiled. Her lips brushed mine. Her hands grew bolder, they moved up and down me, her chest pushed against mine. She opened her mouth and took my lip from my own teeth and in between hers.

"Looks like you're the brave one, Bets."

My hands snake up under the lace, my teeth are on her neck and the smell of vanilla is so strong, my nose burns. She arches her back to get closer and I use that mouth she had just questioned to show her what it can do.

Author's Note: Hey fellow Bugheads! Just a quick drabble that I may add to if I gain enough interest. Taking a break from Harry Potter at the moment so if you enjoyed this small snippet, let me know and I will continue!

PS, this story will only be a series of one shots/drabbles - not a full blown story... at this stage at least.