The Ride
…~*~...
The wet wash rag sloshed over the lacquered bar top, pushed and pulled, back and forth lazily by perfectly manicured french tip nails. Sweet Pea had been watching the back and forth motions since the hot little blonde behind the bar had slapped the rag noisily on the counter to clean up after the drunks that had vacated the Whyte Wyrm. It could have been twenty minutes, maybe an hour, it didn't matter because no one had ever washed the bar before. No one had given two shits whether there was staphylococcus lurking in the peeled back urethane layer, seeping into the exposed wood grain where hundreds of hands, arms, faces, and worse had lain. But here she was, Betty Cooper, River Vixen and Serpent, honor student extraordinaire cleaning the years of grime from the bar top right before his very eyes. He was enthralled, thoroughly entranced by the simple motions and those sweet white tips under a shimmer of pink. He'd taken to watching her at practice after school, in her tight little shorts and those tall white socks; he salivated at the thought. Sitting up in his chair, he regarded the half full bottle had long since forgotten and set it lightly on the table.
"Hey blondie, need a hand?" He said, leaning an elbow on his jeans clad knee; earning bewildered looks from his comrades.
"Uh, sure. Come get a clean rag. I threw those old ones out." With a wrinkle of her nose, Betty set a soapy bowl of water on the bar top, followed by a pristine white wash cloth.
"No problem. I have the tables, cool?" Waiting for a response, Sweet Pea took hold of the cloth, dipping it into the water then ringing it out.
"That would help a lot, thanks Sweets." Flashing the taller boy a smile that could give him a toothache, Betty began scrubbing again when he returned the gesture.
"You have a ride Betty?" He asked, wiping down a table in eye shot of her.
"I have to call my Mom when I'm finished. She's with FP, so I might be here awhile." Worrying her lip a little, she chanced a look at Sweet Pea. Black shirt sleeves rolled up over sinewy muscled biceps, her mouth almost watered.
She'd caught him looking at her on more than one occasion, earning her that wide toothy grin he brandished like six shooter at his hip. His dark eyes roamed the expanse of her creamy thighs when she ran drills with the other girls after school. He watched her when she got inked by Toni weeks ago. They'd been partying after she got knuckle dusters to her delicate cheekbones, Dr. Marten rubber soles to her rib cage, the beginnings of black eyes appearing under the light shimmer of her eyeshadow. Sweet Pea handed her an ice cold PBR to soothe her bruised and rapidly swelling lips, while taking the edge off of her first carving. Toni just winked and went to work on the snake bite on her shoulder blade.
"Nah, I can take ya home. 'Sides, I think they might have went down to Sweetwater River. They act more like teenagers than we do." Chuckling to himself, Sweet Pea came back to the bar, dunking the dingy rag into the water, watching as the filth fell freely into the bowl. "You don't always have to rush out of here, you could stick around for a bit." He let the sentence hang in the air between them as he rung his rag out. Swiftly whirling around on his boot heel, he wiped down another table.
"Oh, I-" Not knowing what to say, Betty stood motionless pondering several things at once. The notion of her prim and proper Mother in FP's truck bed, hair falling wildly from its usual hairsprayed perfection. Then there was the matter of nestling herself behind Sweet Pea on his bike, she swallowed thickly at the thought. Her whole body was prickly with heat, her cheeks felt like campfires of summers passed, roasting her cheeks to a nearly candy apple red. Could she bring herself to sit on another Serpent's bike? Would Jughead lose his mind and cause a scene? Of course he would. How could he possibly be level headed and act like he was nearing adulthood? Impossible.
"You?" He'd cleaned half of the tables that side of the pool table and jukebox. He was almost done, and there she stood, silently over thinking her choices until her heart pounded out of her chest.
"I think hanging out with you in view of Jughead would be disastrous." Dunking the rag and then ringing it out, Betty took a deep breath and looked directly at Sweet Pea this time. Wrinkling his brow for just a second, he shook his head and looked at her. "When you drop me off, maybe come in and watch a movie or something?"
That boyish grin spread across his handsome face, and in three steps he was right in front of her, leaning on the clean bar top. "Hell yeah Cooper, but no sappy chick flicks."