Chapter 6: you have taken all my senses and I am getting all the heat
The dress was jet black. Tightly fitted and falling to her mid-thigh. It had a high neck covered by a pinafore collar and ruched three-quarter length sleeves. A zipper ran up the back.
Betty stared at herself in the mirror of the dressing room of Veronica's boutique. She knew, objectively, she looked good, chic, the dress's solid blackness contrasting gorgeously against the creaminess of her long legs. But she didn't feel sexy. She felt nauseous.
Jughead was supposed to pick her up for dinner in 5 minutes and all she wanted was to tear off the stylish dress Veronica had picked out for her to wear, along with the strappy black heels on her feet, and run away.
She hated herself for feeling this way, but was unable to stop it. Things had been going so well between them. Too well. They'd continued to text and meet up for the previous two weeks. To form an attachment, if she were to be fully honest with herself. Picnics at Sweetwater with burgers and milkshakes she'd picked up from Pop's. Movies and late-evening coffee at the Bijou. Stolen kisses that quickly turned into heavy make-out sessions behind the trees of Fox Forest and in shadowy parking lots in his car. It had all felt almost magical, like they were in their own suspended, secluded little world, discovering each other, falling into each other.
And then, of course, her sad reality crashed in.
She'd come home from an evening coffee date with Jughead on a Tuesday night several days before, his sweet kiss still tingling on her lips, when she'd been accosted by her parents sitting on the couch with judgmental glares. As if they'd been waiting for her.
"Hello Betty," her mother said, coolly.
"Uh, hi," she said, feeling like a burglar the way they were looking at her. She slowly approached and sat down across from them.
"You've been going out a lot recently," Alice said.
Betty tried not to flush or get agitated, but to keep her voice even, neutral. "Yes. I've been seeing a friend." It wasn't a secret and she knew she ought not to feel ashamed for it. But the way her mother was looking at her with such open-faced disappointment was disconcerting.
"Oh," Alice said, pursing her lips. She shared an unreadable look with Hal for a moment, before suddenly announcing, "It hurts me, Betty, that you don't seem to care about your sister's passing."
The savage words came out of nowhere and hit Betty like a slap in the face. She could feel her fingernails curling inside her hands in frustration from the sheer ridiculousness of Alice's statement. But the comment also immediately tapped into the residual remorse she'd been trying to contain at not being there when Polly got sick, of not rushing to be by her side, of not telling her goodbye. She felt she was choking on the air in the room and it took her a moment to react.
"Mom, what are you talking about?" she finally said, managing with every inch of patience inside her not to immediately start screaming. She looked to her father, but Hal seemed distracted by the black & white movie playing on the TV in the background. As usual, he would be no help in assuaging her mother's latest emotional outburst.
"You're out gallivanting most nights. You're barely home during the day. You don't seem to be grieving at all," Alice said, getting tearier with each accusatory jab. "I haven't heard you talk about Polly even once."
A familiar anxiety pounded inside Betty watching her mother cry. Alice was clearly hurting. Her tendency to criticize and complain about everything exacerbated tenfold since Polly's death. Betty knew she shouldn't take her mother's admonitions as truth. They were a cry for attention to the daughter she had left, a byproduct of crushing loneliness and missing Polly desperately. But watching her mother tear up and hearing her harsh, stinging words tore Betty to shreds. Her inherent perfectionism and desire to please hated receiving criticism. Even more so, she hated seeing her mother so upset. She'd never been good at letting anything Alice said go, at not internalizing every disapproving remark or grievance, no matter how irrational or unbalanced she knew it to be. She'd always been the one to talk her mother down, to calm her, never her father or Polly. Even now, after her sister's death, the same paradigm held.
"Mom, I'm not home during the day now because of my job," Betty explained, trying to sound calm and appeasing, her own eyes slowly filling up with wet droplets of her own.
Her stomach crunched, knowing arguing would be futile. It was easier just to apologize and pretend her mother was right.
"If you need me to be more present in the evenings and during the weekend, I'll do that," Betty continued. "I'm sorry if you feel I haven't been around enough or there for you and dad."
Alice nodded, seemingly placated, and began wiping her tears away. Betty took the opportunity to wish her parents a quick goodnight before escaping up to her bedroom.
She slumped before her vanity mirror and watched herself as she let the tears fall. Bitterness sizzled across every patch of her skin. Betty knew she wasn't doing anything wrong by working or even dating. Trying to live her life didn't mean she wasn't grieving. It didn't mean she didn't think of her sister every day, multiple times a day. That she didn't sob spontaneously when the acuteness of Polly's absence hit her. That she didn't feel like screaming up into the sky most mornings when she went outside to start her day that it wasn't fair she was only 25 and had to deal with losing her only sister. To never be able to repair their strained relationship or reminisce again with the one person who would ever understand what it meant to grow up in this house with these parents. And yet, each cracked wail heightened the torrent of emotions swirling through her, tapping violently into the ever-present guilt. Her mother was right. She never talked about Polly with them, only ever with Jughead. Wasn't that messed up? What was she doing running around on dates and opening up to some guy she'd just met? Especially at a time when she needed to be focused on her family, on the children her sister had left behind. How could she even ponder any kind of happiness with him when Polly was dead? Who was she kidding? The devastation of loss would always suck her back.
She went back and forth for the next three days, overthinking, fretting over Jughead and what was going on between them. The thoughts were always in the back of her head, a slow, anxious burn she couldn't turn off. Even when he sent her funny, flirty messages and expressed his excitement about their upcoming date Friday night, she'd feel her heart rate spike in a burst of gaiety before shooting back down in dejected panic. She didn't want these intruding thoughts. She hadn't asked for them. She wished she could just listen to the logical part of her brain that said to ignore her mother and to trust her instincts about her feelings for Jughead. To understand grief was individual and there was no right or wrong way to stagger through its loop. And that life was unpredictable. It didn't follow a set order of when sorrowful or joyous things could happen to you. She might have succeeded at keeping the doubts at bay, focusing through sheer willpower on the strength of the connection she felt to Jughead, if that same unpredictability hadn't reared its head anew, dredging her past relationship up to the surface.
She was sitting alone in the back office of the boutique early Friday afternoon, going through the store's social media profiles and thinking of ways to boost engagement, when her phone went off. At first she ignored it, figuring it was spam, but when the phone kept ringing, she finally fished it out of her bag. Adam's name on the screen froze her in place. She stared at the phone for several more moments before finally answering and silencing its shrill ring.
"Hi," she said, her throat feeling as if it were filled with sawdust. She couldn't quite believe he was really on the other end of the connection. She hadn't heard from him in nearly eight weeks.
"Hey Bitsy," he said, the cutesy nickname she'd never really liked trailing off his English-accented tongue like the recognizable sprinkles of sugar in her coffee.
"Hi," she said again, standing up to pace the small room despite the shakiness of her legs.
"How are you, babe?" he asked, and while her first thought was to snap at him for calling her that since she clearly wasn't his "babe" anymore, the familiarity of the expression stirred something stomach-churning yet comforting and she held back.
"I'm okay. How are you?" She knew she sounded robotic, but she was still in shock that he was actually on the line, speaking to her as if everything between them were normal.
"Good, good. Finishing up at work. It's been crazy lately."
Betty rolled her eyes. It was always crazy. Ever since she'd moved to London, it had been crazy. A convenient excuse for why she had been alone so much all those years. "Oh," she said, unable to think of anything to say and already on pins and needles for him to get to the point. She knew Adam wasn't just calling out of the blue for no reason.
"How are Alice and Hal?" he asked, his voice becoming more quiet and subdued, sounding as if he actually cared.
This softened Betty slightly, her armor of caution slipping. "The usual," she told him.
"So driving you mad?" he teased gently, and Betty felt the corners of her lips turn up, sniggering in spite of herself.
"You could say that," she admitted.
"How are your niece and nephew?" he asked next, his voice still soft.
"They're really cute, but tiring," Betty found herself answering honestly. "They need a lot of attention after everything. It's hard, especially with the new job I started and everything else going on." She spoke in more detail now, the genuineness of his questions skirting by her defenses and inching her guard down.
"You started a new job, babe? That's great."
Betty swallowed, realizing she'd told him more than she intended, especially taking into account the discomfort she felt about their current status to one another. Not to mention Jughead gripped to the back of her mind.
"Yeah," she responded, before pausing, trying to think of how to direct the conversation away from her and any chance for him to use her vulnerability against her. "How are things with you?"
"Everything is fine," he waved off, as if what was going on with him was unimportant compared to her. "Work is going well. We have a new deal with a hedge fund in New York. They want me to come for a week of meetings. In June."
"Oh," Betty said, now understanding the purpose of his call and feeling a sick sense of dread come over her at what she knew he was about to ask. But she also felt a weird yearning, if not for him, then for the impossible chance to return to a place before everything fell apart.
"I thought you could come stay with me in the city," he added, his voice taking on a smooth, cajoling tone. One she'd always given into before. Without fail. "We could spend the week together."
"I…I don't know, Adam," she replied, feeling tongue-tied and unsure of how to tell him no.
"I miss you," he said, his tone now even more persuasive and Betty could feel her mind start to, if not succumb, then at least respond viscerally to his coaxing. "Maybe it was a mistake to end things the way we did."
"I'm not sure, Adam," she virtually repeated, biting her lip, feeling torn and confused.
All she'd ever wanted from him in the last few months of their relationship was to make a gesture that showed he wanted her. But he never did. Now here he was doing it, but it felt wrong, off-putting. Way too late. Yet she couldn't deny a small part of her was still clinging on to what he was offering, self-destructively hungering for that unsavory taste.
"I know the situation is complicated, but I think we could work something out if we tried." He paused, and when she didn't say anything, he added, "Just think about it, Bitsy. It'd be a shame after everything we had together, don't you think?"
"Yes," she squeaked, unable to stop herself from acceding to his graceful manipulations, but simultaneously hating herself for it.
"Promise you'll think about it," he said. "I'll call again after the weekend, okay?"
"Okay, Addie," she muttered, her old pet name for him slipping out uncontrollably.
"Good, talk to you soon, babe."
Betty let the phone fall slowly from her hand and clatter onto the desk. She took a few sharp intakes of breaths, trying to calm herself from the sensation she was drowning and there was no hope for air. It helped a little, but couldn't stop the conflicting thoughts running through her head. She had feelings for Jughead. She knew that. He stirred something in her she'd never felt before. But was she ready to embark on a new relationship now? When she barely felt like herself? When everything she'd thought mattered had been upended by Polly's death? She'd been with Adam for five years. They'd been through so much together already. She knew him, she knew what being with him meant. Maybe she should settle for the safe and familiar. There was something inherently comfortable in that, more so than in venturing into the scary volatility of another person who dazzled her more than she felt she could possibly handle. But then, that glittering intensity was also in its own way too powerful to walk away from.
Goddamnit, Betty thought, grinding her knuckles against the table in frustration and trying not to cry. She felt sick and unhappy. The thoughts consumed her all afternoon and she could barely focus on anything else, let alone work. It would be so easy to give in to previous patterns, especially when she already felt at a low point and in doubt over her undefined relationship with Jughead. But regardless of her misgivings over what exactly they were doing, she was at least positive in not wavering on her feelings for Jughead as a person. He was so incredible—honest and sensitive, intelligent and funny. Everything she had always pictured in an ideal partner, but never dreamed it was possible to really have. Even though she could somehow cloudily envision walking away now before entering too deep, the thought of doing so cleaved her from the inside out. That desire to see him, to be near him, touched and soothed by him, was the sole reason she didn't call Jughead to cancel, despite knowing she was in no shape mentally to go on this date.
"B, did you fall into the mirror?" Veronica called, breaking her thoughts. "Show me so I can make sure you look perfect before he comes."
Betty took another deep breath before opening the crushed velvet curtain to reveal herself to the impatient brunette.
Veronica stared at her up and down with a satisfied smile. "You're a total smokeshow. The dress looks amazing. Jughead won't know what hit him."
"Thanks," she said, managing a shaky smile, the exact moment she heard a knock at the boutique door. She flinched visibly, but luckily Veronica had already turned to answer and didn't see.
Betty's eyes flitted to the ground, her heart beating tensely, until she heard the soft click of the door behind Veronica and Jughead. She looked up slowly, keeping her eyes from fully meeting his, but staring at the rest of him all the same. He wore dark pants, a light blue button down, and those damn suspenders. He looked so attractive, her heart melted and fell at the same time.
"Wow," Jughead said, chuckling appreciatively when he saw her, and she felt some of her own apprehensions and confusions settle down slightly. "You look stunning."
"Thank you," she said softly, the ghost of a real smile appearing on her face.
"Shall we?" he asked and she nodded wordlessly, preparing to follow him out.
"You two kids have fun," Veronica called after them mischievously, shooting Betty a wink, which just rumbled the blonde's stomach in anxiety even more.
She followed Jughead to his car, managing another smile as he held the passenger door open for her. His hand trailed gently down her exposed lower arm as she entered and she shivered slightly against the warm May evening. His touch was still electrifying, despite the unsteadiness in her stomach. She got into the car and buckled herself in, as he entered from the driver's door.
"How was your day, Betts?" he asked, smiling over at her, as he started the car and pulled out of his parking spot.
"It was okay," she fibbed, reverting to an earlier self who had been taught since childhood not to make problems or admit when something was wrong. Where would she even start to tell him the truth? "How was yours?" she asked instead.
Betty listened as Jughead told her about the latest internal drama with the reading list he and the other Riverdale High English teachers were compiling for the next year. She tried to smile and ask small follow-up questions when the timing demanded. She knew she didn't seem like her usual engaged self, if the brief, curious looks he shot her every few minutes were any indication, but at least she was managing to stay mostly present.
And then they pulled to a stop. Her heart sank as she recognized her surroundings. Miranda's was the Italian restaurant Polly had worked at in college. A wave of memories hit her—visiting as a family the night of Polly's first shift, Polly returning home red-faced and agitated after a tough dinner service, various meals they had cooked together as children with Betty as designated sous chef—and her face blanched.
Jughead looked over at her. "All good, Betts?" he asked, gently squeezing the back of her palm, which was digging furiously into her thigh, before unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Yep, fine," she lied, badly, pursing her lips in a straight line. She felt angry—angry at Jughead for bringing her here, angry at Adam for throwing her around like a ragdoll, angry at her mom for challenging her feelings of grief, angry at Polly for dying. It hit her all at once, and the rage coupled with the sheer exhaustion of her overworked brain from days of feverish back and forth had her going silent, shutting down.
She could see Jughead frowning slightly, but she purposely ignored it, getting out of the car and going inside the restaurant with him without another word.
"Do you want to share?" he asked hopefully, after they were seated. "I thought we could try a couple of different dishes."
"I just want the chef's salad," Betty responded flatly.
His dark blue eyes widened in surprise, betraying a mix of hurt and irritation. But he simply nodded, making the order when the waiter came.
He tried a few more times throughout the meal to engage with her, but Betty barely responded, hardly even touching her salad. She let herself simply dissociate into the recesses of despair and disorientation churning inside her. She felt livid and miserable all at once. She knew she was behaving heinously, that Jughead was getting really annoyed, but all she could think about was how fucked up this all was. How fucked up and complicated her life had become compared to the carefreeness other people her age and how it wasn't fair at all.
After a nearly wordless meal that she was sure couldn't have lasted more than 30 minutes total, Jughead paid and stood up to go. He just narrowly looked back to see she was following him before marching silently out to his car and getting inside. He waited until she was seated and buckled before setting off. He didn't say anything until they turned onto the highway back to Riverdale. But then he pulled his eyes off the road for a brief moment to look at her intensely.
"What's going on with you?" he asked, his voice clearly strained, but attempting a measure of cool. She could see he was upset, but was trying to control it, to give her one last chance to explain what was bothering her, before he stopped making the effort.
She didn't take it. "I'm fine," she muttered.
"You're not fine," he prodded. "I know you."
"You don't know me," she hissed, shocking even herself with the extent of venom shooting out of her lips. It became even worse with the next sentence she spat out in spontaneous wrath. "Just because we've hooked up a few times doesn't mean you know me."
"Wow," he said, a chuckle eerie in its complete humorlessness escaping from his lips. "Okay."
An awful quiet descended on the car, with Betty soon realizing she'd gone too far and trying to walk it back. "Jug," she said, although he now refused to look at her. "Jughead, please. I'm sorry. Come on, I didn't mean it like that."
"Really?" he finally said, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "How did you mean it, Betty? Because I just assumed you knew by now that this was never about hooking up for me."
She hung her head, her humiliation at acting like a total jerk for the last hour finally hitting her and enveloping her in shame. "I only meant that if you'd known me, you wouldn't have brought me to that restaurant," she said quietly. She looked at him, the corners of his irises glancing toward her as his eyes stayed trained on the road. "Because Polly worked there," she explained.
"Oh, grow up, Betty," he said, after a moment, his voice a disappointed sigh.
"What?" she asked, taken aback by the coldness in his tone. He'd never been less than understanding with her and the sudden detachment threw her completely off, reigniting the resentment she felt toward him.
"Grow up," he repeated, his voice sharp. "You could have told me and I would have gladly taken you somewhere else. Instead, what? You decided to throw a tantrum? What are you, 16?"
"Fuck you, Jughead," she spat out. "You have no idea what I'm going through." Part of her knew she sounded just like an angsty teenager, thereby proving his point, but she didn't care.
Jughead shook his head, the same mirthless chuckle from before rolling out of his throat. "I know exactly what you're going through," he said with agitation, a hint of condescension thrown in. "In case you forgot, I was 25, too, when my dad died."
"Really?" Betty asked angrily. "Do you?"
Jughead opened his mouth, but she steamrolled on before he could answer.
"Tell me," she questioned, her voice starting to rise. "Did your mother also inform you that you weren't mourning properly because you were going out to see a new friend? Or that despite feeling miserable for most of every single day, it's not enough. You have to feel all this pain, all this weight all the time, or you're not really sad, you're not really grieving."
She was nearly shrieking by this point, the emotional tumult she'd been holding in since that night three days ago beginning to spill out of her bit by bit. Like a balloon slowly being opened and drained of air.
"Betty, I…" he started to say, his voice softening, his eyes looking down at her with sympathy.
"Were you this angry?" she screeched, her face contorting and tears starting to form. "I'm so mad, Jughead. I'm so mad at my sister." She ignored the droplets in her eyes, letting the saltwater stain her face as she imploded. "She was always such a huge fucking mess. Terrible at school. Running away every other night. Pregnant at 22 with no husband. Financially and emotionally unstable. And me? I always had to be the good daughter. The one who didn't screw up. The one who did everything right. Impeccable grades. Yale. Handsome, sensible boyfriend. And now?" Betty asked facetiously, a strangled, watery laugh escaping her throat, "Now she's made the biggest mess of all. She's dead! She's dead and she left us behind with the burden of two kids to take care of. She made them and then up and left them. Classic fucking Polly."
Betty paused, choking in a breath, before exposing the ugliness she felt inside her totally. "I hate her sometimes. I hate her so much. And then I feel awful. I feel so bad I can't breathe. Because I miss her. And I know how sick she was and how much she suffered. She was alone and I wasn't there. It should have been me, Jughead. I feel so guilty it wasn't me."
She bowed her head and struggled to breathe, just letting the tears fall harder.
When she finally managed to stop crying and come up for air, she realized the car was no longer moving. Jughead had pulled over to the side of the road near a patch of maple trees and was watching her, his hand coming up to carefully caress her face and dry some of the tears from her cheek. She burst into even bigger, wetter sobs at the gesture, and before she knew it, Jughead was out of the driver's seat, coming around to her side of the car and slowly pulling her out and into his arms against the rear door. She clutched onto him, digging her nails into his back, her head falling against his shoulder, sobbing harder.
"I don't feel like myself, Jughead," she gulped between tears. "I don't know this person. It's me, but it's not. Nothing seems to matter but then everything matters too much. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted."
"I know, hon, I know," he said, holding her close, his hand palming her scalp, his fingers intertwining in the strands of her hair.
When Betty's tears finally slowed, her body going limp in his arms, he released her from his grasp slowly. She felt she could barely stand on her own, and she leaned her palms against the car door, trying to regain her balance. She looked up at him, her lips twitching as he appraised her solemnly, intuiting she had more to confess.
"Adam called me," she whispered into the evening air. "He's coming to New York. He wants me to come stay with him."
Jughead's lips pursed, his neck bobbing slightly, and he looked away for a moment, straying a few steps away from the car, approaching nearer to the trees. "I see," he mumbled. When he looked back at her, a twisted smirk played on his face. "And how fast did you tell him no?" he joked, his voice laced with acerbity.
She couldn't help but let out a small, sad giggle at his attempt to instill a bit of humor into this moment. He grunted a tiny chuckle between his teeth in response. "Jughead," she chided half-heartedly.
He stared down at his feet for a moment, his brow wrinkling, considering. When he glanced back at her, she could see the trepidation in his blue eyes, but he soldiered on with the necessary question. "Do you want to go?"
"I…I don't know," she said falteringly, unable to look at him, even though her answer was only half-true.
Jughead locked his eyes shut, wincing. When he opened them, she could see the pained expression remaining on his face, but also a thick determination in his eyes. "What don't you know, Betts?" he asked, somehow keeping his voice impossibly gentle, despite his obvious hurt.
She took a deep breath, trying to put into words the thoughts that had been trapped inside of her head for days. "I've never felt the pull I feel toward you, Jughead. I swear."
He offered her a wistful smile at that, before letting her resume.
"But it scares me. It scares me to be falling for you, because I'm clearly not okay," Betty explained. "Because even though I want you, so much, I worry it's not really me, but this grief-induced state, just trying to grasp at something that will temporarily make me feel better. And when he called, saying he missed me, it made me question everything all over. Because going back to him, that would be easy. And easy is a relief. But you, being with you, even though I can't deny how thrilling that seems, it's so completely terrifying too."
"I understand," Jughead said huskily, his intense stare on her once again. She watched as he approached her slowly and she felt her stomach flip over, a spontaneous flood of want for him washing over her acutely, despite the confusion over her feelings she'd just admitted to.
"You do?" Betty asked softly, as he hovered mere centimeters from her.
"Yes," he murmured, before curling his hand around the door handle behind her and opening it slowly and gazing at her determinedly. "Let's sit down. I want to say something to you."
She nodded, struck into silence by his seriousness and resolve. She followed him into the backseat of the jeep, angling her body to face him.
"Betty," he said, looking at her intently. "I know you're questioning everything now. You've been through something utterly traumatizing and you're only beginning to navigate the fallout. But you're still you. Strong and beautiful and empathetic. I know it's hard to see it now, but I do. I see it clearly. I fell for you too, Betty. For you, not a grief-induced state as you call it, but you."
He paused, collecting his thoughts. He looked past her out the window for a moment, before turning his head back to meet her eyes and placing his fingers delicately on her knee.
"When I lost my dad," he murmured, "I was so angry. Nothing made sense. We'd finally repaired our relationship and then he was just gone. I started drinking more. I lashed out at everyone. I couldn't write for months."
He looked at her more closely, as her fingers instinctively brushed a few strokes over his hands in sympathy.
"Grief isn't linear, Betty. It has ups and downs, and those drops down can be torturous. Trust me, I know. But I promise you'll be okay. You'll laugh again without feeling like you're betraying the missing part inside you. You'll find joy in the little things you love. And you won't be afraid to keep living. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but you will."
His inky blue eyes pierced into hers, willing her to hear him, to believe him.
"Everything you said about this pull between us, I feel it too. Our connection is special. It's rare. Too rare, I think, to put aside. I don't want to wait to see what it means. I don't want to waste that time. I want you now. But I know you're still struggling, and I know even contemplating finding a glint of happiness feels impossible. I get it. So, if you ask me to wait or even to fuck off, I will. But I really hope you won't. I really hope you're willing to try. To take a leap of faith with me."
Jughead searched her eyes for some kind of response, tenderly lifting his hand from her knee to push loose strands of hair behind her ear.
"Okay?" he asked softly, and she nodded heavily to him, her eyes once again wet and glistening as she let herself look back at him with just as much force and intensity.
"Okay," he repeated in a half-whisper. "That's what I wanted to say."
He inched away from her, moving to open the left-hand door and return back to the driver's seat. Betty followed him to the front of the car wordlessly, absorbing the potency of his impromptu speech. The weight of his words had penetrated something so deep inside her core, and while she couldn't completely shake the doubts, they seemed to have lost their power over her. She felt lighter, her thoughts clearer. She was scared, so scared, but she knew she didn't want to wait either. She was sure now. She settled into the seat as Jughead started the car.
He looked over to her one last time. "Do you want me to take you home?"
"No," she said, trembling a little, but her voice steadier. She looked down at his hand on the gearshift, already moved to drive, and tentatively took it in hers, interlacing their fingers, and staring straight ahead.
He glanced down at their intertwined hands for a moment before nodding. He pressed his foot on the gas pedal, keeping their hands interlocked as he started the drive back to Riverdale.
