Jughead practically sprints out of the bar in the direction of the subway entrance.
The rejection he's feeling consumes him, his blood boiling with a potent mix of resentment and jealousy.
Sweat covers his brow as he waits for the downtown 6 train, and he wipes it angrily on his coat sleeve.
He feels like a twig snapped in two. His fragile white bark exposed.
It's only during the transfer through the labyrinthine 14th Street–Union Square station that his heart rate returns to normal.
Counting the vertical white glass tiles on the track wall until the Q train arrives helps to numb his brain.
But his thoughts don't settle for long.
Fucking Adam, he thinks with a scowl as the train takes off toward Brooklyn.
Betty had been so close to breaking and actually talking to him when that smarmy-faced prick arrived to claim his territory. Of course, she had clammed up.
He bets she left with him, too, to do god knows what.
Jughead grips the metal stanchion tighter, his eyes constricting as he pictures Adam leading Betty by the small of her back into a cab. Touching her arm as he makes her laugh on the ride to his apartment. Leaning over the seatbelt to kiss her.
Fuck, he inwardly screams.
Going to the Dark Room was a mistake.
The assured confidence he'd assumed in the office about following her to the happy hour is now fully splintered. Revealing the ever-present doubts beneath the surface.
That he's not good enough. That Betty clearly doesn't want him. Or, if she does, she'll never admit it or let herself go there.
God, he's an idiot for thinking one stupid kiss would turn her head.
Jughead jabs his boot toe into the subway car's rubber flooring.
He should have fucked that girl last Friday or gotten the bartender's number. Toni was trying to flirt with him, wasn't she? At least she laughed at his jokes.
But he knows himself well enough. His real crutch for comfort has always been food and not a stranger's arms.
What he really wants is Pop's. Despite his abhorrence of all other things Riverdale, the diner is his soft spot. It's never failed to wrap him in a security blanket and keep the rest of the world out.
Unfortunately, he'll have to make do with the next best thing. Samm's.
He heads straight there after exiting the train, settling into a booth by the window and ordering a cheeseburger and fries without so much as glancing at the menu.
Jughead practically inhales his meal when it's placed before him, impatient for the feeling of a full stomach. Enough to appease the hunger inside him for something more than food.
When the waitress comes to clear his plate, Jughead asks for a cup of coffee. He may as well sit back and try to make a dent in the latest novel he's been assigned to review, so this evening isn't a total wash.
He silences his phone from distractions and studies the book's back cover, words like time travel and pre-grief sticking out to him.
Seems appropriately depressing, he thinks.
But as he turns the pages, he realizes he's barely reading, his eyes filming over as he skims through paragraphs whole. He can't focus. He's too agitated.
Jughead slams the book shut and prepares to pack up.
This night is bound to end like all his other nights do.
Sprawled out on the couch with too many snacks, debating between watching a highbrow foreign film or one of the familiar B-horror movies he's adored since adolescence.
He'll continue to pine for Betty in the recesses of his mind. Clinging to the tiniest speck of hope the softness he detected in her voice at the bar wasn't a fluke.
Betty closes the door to her apartment softly behind her.
She can smell the thick, pungent scent of soy sauce and red ahi tuna. Veronica must have ordered sushi.
Her stomach gurgles uneasily, the nausea not yet really subsided. Especially after a lurching ride uptown.
Betty hangs up her coat and pads toward the den area of their living room to find Veronica curled up on the dark gray chenille sofa. Their Netflix queue is turned to some reality dating series.
"Hey B," Veronica greets her.
"Hi," she says distractedly, settling in beside her friend on the couch.
She watches the screen in silence for a few minutes, half-listening to the manufactured drama playing out about which girl was flirting with which guy's fiancee.
It should be mind-numbing, enough to dull her senses. But it doesn't. Not even trashy television can transport her from the rollercoaster in her mind.
Betty's eyes glaze toward the white wall of books to her left. The fiction shelf, specifically. Jughead's short story collection is there. Her stomach somersaults at yet another unintended reminder of him.
Veronica begins to laugh beside her and Betty inadvertently flinches, as if she's been caught red-handed.
"I'm pretty sure half these people are psychopaths," Veronica says.
"Hm," Betty replies, not really paying attention once she grasps Veronica is talking about the show and not her hedge maze of a love life.
Unfortunately, her monosyllabic response has Veronica looking toward her quizzically. Her spidey senses tingling with the realization something is up.
"Wait," she says, her brow furrowing. "Didn't you text me you were going out with Adam again tonight?"
Betty avoids Veronica's discerning brown eyes. She reaches toward the white knitted afghan folded on the sofa's arm and begins to fiddle with the fringes at its end.
"Change of plans," she says.
Veronica raises her eyebrows but doesn't say anything.
The mention of her canceled date is enough to open the floodgates, though. Betty can't help but run through the long list of reasons she's cataloged to explain her bolting at the last minute, turning them over in her mind like a copper penny between her fingers.
She bites her lip.
It all comes back to Jughead. Her brain is racked with image after image of him.
She should have talked to him after the kiss. At the office, at the bar. She'd had plenty of opportunities.
Betty runs her fingers through her hair, pulling her tight ponytail loose in the process. She winces at the sudden stimulation to the nerve endings on her scalp. Her fingers travel to the nape of her neck to fluff out the blonde strands and ease the sting.
Veronica watches her thoughtfully.
"Want to talk about it?" she asks, offering Betty a sympathetic glance.
Betty sighs. "Adam's great, but…" She trails off.
"But…?" Veronica prods gently.
Betty squeezes her mouth together, feeling like she's gone mute. She's not sure she herself knows how to explain it.
Veronica's eyes take on a knowing expression.
"There's someone else," she supplies.
Betty's eyelashes droop down. "We kissed," she reveals in a hushed voice.
Veronica's face knits together.
"Excuse me?" she says, trying to process the disparate threads of information Betty is providing her.
"Jughead," she confesses. "My work 'nemesis.' In the supply closet. He kissed me."
Veronica lets out a pleased, high-pitched squeal and Betty almost has to cover her ears.
"I knew it!" Veronica proclaims. "Elizabeth Cooper, you little vixen. Pretending there was nothing there. When underneath all that so-called tension, you both totally want to rip each other's clothes off."
Betty reddens at Veronica's suggestion. Although she's not wrong. The number of times Betty has imagined undressing Jughead in the last 12 hours—or, more accurately, him undressing her—is not insignificant.
Veronica adopts a satisfied grin at seeing Betty's rosy flush. "Was I right or was I right, B?" she trills.
"V, stop," Betty says weakly, blushing even deeper. "It's not like that. It just happened."
Veronica looks like she wants to argue the point. Until her lips suddenly curl into a frown, seeming to remember Betty's long face upon walking through the door.
"Was it not a good kiss?" she asks, starting to pepper Betty with questions. "Oh god, did he try to stick his tongue down your throat like some uncouth juvenile? Blech." Veronica takes a moment to grimace at the horrid thought, before rambling on. "What did he say after? What did you say? Please tell me you didn't start fighting again."
"No… it was…something," Betty stammers, babbling an inchoate answer to Veronica's initial query.
Veronica stares at her wide-eyed, dogged for more information. "But?"
Betty rushes the words out in a low, embarrassed whisper. "I kind of freaked out and told him it was a mistake and ran away. And then I spent the whole afternoon avoiding him like the plague."
"Oh, Bettykins," Veronica says, shaking her head in disapproval. "Way to break a guy's heart."
Betty looks down at the couch cushion, taking an embroidered throw pillow between her hands and hugging it against her chest.
"It doesn't make sense, V," she says. "I thought he hated me."
"Well, clearly not," Veronica replies, shooting Betty her best I-told-you-so face.
"I don't know what to do," Betty moans, burying her nose in the pillow. "I can't go to work tomorrow and sit next to him with this thing hanging between us. God, I feel like such an idiot."
"So call him," Veronica says, like the solution is obvious. "Ask him to meet for a drink."
Betty makes a face. "I can't do that," she protests. "It's late. And I don't have his number."
Veronica rolls her eyes. "It's 8 pm, B. And you work with the guy. I'm sure you can find it somehow."
Another excuse bubbles on Betty's tongue, but the unimpressed look Veronica is now sending her is truly terrifying. There's no way for Betty to worm her way out of this.
"Fine," she grumbles, reluctantly pulling her phone out and opening the office's Slack channel to search the employee directory.
Betty clicks on his number and hits the call button. Nerves build in her stomach with each ring, until reaching a fizzy fever pitch at the sound of a click.
But it's not him. Only his voicemail. He doesn't pick up.
Disappointment spirals like ivy through her veins. She hadn't realized how much she actually wanted to talk to him. How it's all she can think about now.
"He's not answering," she tells Veronica, hugging the pillow closer to her like a protective shield.
Veronica's face scrunches together. "Do you know where he lives, or anywhere else he could be?"
Betty searches his mind. "There's this one place. Samm's. He always carries take-out from there. But it's in Brooklyn…"
"So go there."
Betty laughs in disbelief. "You're not serious. That's crazy."
"I am serious," Veronica says. "Crazy? Maybe. But it's obvious you want to talk to him. And I'm sure he'd like to hear from you, too. So what are you waiting for?"
Betty blushes at the accuracy of Veronica's logic, but still tries to protest. "V, come on."
"B," she says, the expression in her eyes turning softer, pleading almost. "Take a risk for once. I promise it'll be worth it."
A shiver races down Betty's spine. The entreaty to be daring sparks something hot and unruly inside her. The slivers of recklessness she's suppressed for years. Tingles rise on her skin as she imagines herself actually doing something impetuous. Of acting on the naked impulse that kissing Jughead has stirred.
It's destabilizing, but also enticing. She can't say no to it.
"Okay," she agrees, the word slipping out of her before she can think twice about it. "Okay, I'll go."
Veronica squeals again. "Really?"
"You've already convinced me," Betty warns her with a nervous grin. "Don't backtrack now."
Veronica smiles slyly. "Alright," she says, standing up and clapping her hands together. "Get your coat on. Let me order you a car."
"V," Betty starts to object. A ride that far at this time of night is too expensive. "You know I can just take the train."
"Bettykins, the train is for plebians without indulgent friends," she waves off. "I may be willing to send you out into the night to a strange neighborhood in Brooklyn, but there's no way I'm letting you travel some 20-odd stations alone on the subway to get there."
Betty stifles a giggle, wondering how Veronica even knows how many stops on the Q train it takes to get to Prospect Park. But she can't think about it for long, because Veronica is already whisking her off the couch.
She's barely able to button her coat before Veronica literally drags her out the door and into the elevator. The car arrives within minutes.
Her stomach flutters the whole ride, brimming with anticipation. She cracks open the backseat window as they cross the FDR Drive, letting the cool November air scrape her cheek. It's exhilarating. It's spontaneous. It's so not her.
Betty thanks the driver as she gets out, securing the door shut behind her. She peers around at the unfamiliar surroundings. The bustle of people in winter coats brushing past. She's never been in this part of the city before. She squints at the various shops until she spots the diner's fluorescent sign.
Jughead is in a booth by the window, moodily placing a barely cracked paperback between the pockets of his messenger bag.
A wild sense of relief streams through her at seeing him.
He crouches on the vinyl seat to drain the last dregs of a cup of coffee before getting up from the booth.
Her feet assuming a mind of their own, Betty steps closer to the entrance to meet him as he comes outside.
She takes a deep breath as he opens the door. A bell tinkles.
"Hi," she says.
She's here. Right in front of him. Outside his go-to diner in New York City. Second-favorite in all the world. This is not a drill.
The door to Samm's slams shut behind him, but he doesn't even process it.
Is he hallucinating? He must be hallucinating.
But when he blinks open his eyes, she's still there, staring at him nervously. Her pupils wide, her plump bottom lip between her teeth. Wearing that innocent pout that drives him crazy.
No, Jughead, he tells himself. You're mad at her.
But his anger is currently being drowned out by a wave of downright shock.
"What are you doing here?" he asks testily.
"I thought I'd try the famous Samm's," she says, shifting awkwardly on her feet.
Jughead gives her an incredulous look, not buying her poor attempt at a joke. He grips the strap of his messenger bag tighter, as if prepared to walk away.
Betty exhales, her face taking on an apologetic grimace. "Jughead," she says softly. "We need to talk."
Her presence coupled with her contriteness silences the devil's voice telling him to give her a taste of her own medicine and leave her standing alone on the sidewalk.
He feels himself nodding, a little lost for words.
"Somewhere private?" she suggests.
Betty immediately blushes as the words come out and despite his anger at her Jughead finds himself suppressing a smirk. She must be aware of how suggestive that sounds.
"I live a few blocks away," he offers, trying to keep his voice neutral. Which is hard considering he's inviting her back to his apartment. A fantasy he's entertained on more than one occasion.
Although he never expected it to come on the heels of feeling out-and-out rejected by her.
"Okay," she agrees.
The walk over is quiet, Betty struggling slightly to match his quick pace.
But he doesn't slow down. His body is too jittery to dawdle.
He still can't quite believe she's here. Even as he ushers her through the brightly lit lobby of his brick pre-war building, or as they ride the rocky elevator up to his apartment on the sixth floor together.
"I live on the sixth floor too," she blurts out.
He hums in response, still not really trusting his voice.
When they get into the apartment, he shrugs off his bag and jacket to hang in the hall closet. She slowly unbuttons her coat beside him. He swallows as he watches her.
It's far from a strip tease and yet his mind wanders, even as he attempts to maintain a certain aloofness. He takes the coat from her, trying to ignore the tremor in his arms as their knuckles brush.
"Do you want something to drink?" he asks.
He needs to do something with his hands that doesn't involve flinging a finger in her face and yelling at her for ignoring him at the bar. Or pushing her up against a wall and ravaging her senseless.
No, he repeats to himself. That's not what this is.
Except, from the way Betty is shivering as he delicately wrangles her coat onto a hanger, it could very much be what this is.
"Oh, no, that's okay," Betty says, eyes darting around the hallway. He can tell she's lying, probably out of a desire to appear deferential.
He nearly rolls his eyes.
"I'll make tea," he says decisively.
She nods, a small smile slipping over her lips. "Thanks."
Jughead steps into the kitchen, Betty wandering deeper into the apartment behind him. As he brews the water, he watches her examine his mishmash of belongings.
She walks toward the two clashing couches—one brown velvet, one gray wool—that sit in a backwards L-shape around a large antique wooden coffee table in the far end of the apartment. Her gaze falls on the books overflowing from the shelves that run along the north-facing wall. Followed by the typewritten pages of his manuscript on the rolltop desk opposite. Her eyes widen slightly when she notices a split-leaf philodendron in a white planter in the corner. A present from Jellybean he's just managed to keep alive.
Betty looks back toward him, catching him observing her. He braces himself for some sort of judgmental comment about the abundance of dust or his flea market furniture, but it doesn't come.
"Your place is nice," she says instead, grinning shyly at him.
He mumbles a thank you. She seems overly sincere, which makes him worry she's offering a consolation prize before breaking the bad news that she and Adam are together. He swallows down the thought.
Betty walks closer to his desk, her green eyes lighting up when she spots the vintage typewriter. It makes his heart twinge with affection. Followed by a flash of anger at himself for thinking it atones for anything.
"The Outcasts," she murmurs, her hand trailing over the loose sheaf of pages beside it. "Your novel?"
"Yeah," he says gruffly.
The teakettle hisses noisily behind him and Betty jumps a little at the sound.
Jughead pours the boiling water into two mugs and douses a tea bag in and out, curling the string tightly around his index finger.
"I like the title," she tells him.
He says nothing, his eyes focused on the swirls of color filling the clear glass mugs, tinting the water greenish brown. He adds a sugar cube to each.
"What's it about?" she asks, as he carries the tea out from the kitchen. She follows a pace behind him as he heads toward the couches.
Jughead sets the mugs down on the coffee table, placing them atop two brightly colored coasters from his beat poet five-piece set.
Betty's lips curl up at the writerly paraphernalia. "Cute," she says.
He nods, waiting for her to get to the point. But she just stares back at him, that same frozen smile on her face, as if waiting for him to speak first.
It aggravates him.
He wants to know what exactly Betty's come for, not play some bizarre parlor game of politeness with her.
Jughead's jaw clenches. Her smile dampens.
"Is that why you're here, Cooper?" he cracks, more sarcastically than he intends. "To interrogate me about my novel?"
Betty flushes at Jughead's blistering tone, unsure of how to reply.
Jughead responds by clicking his tongue in annoyance and plopping down on the gray couch, even though it's an awkward angle to reach from the coffee table.
It's the longer of the two, she notices, so there'll be more space between them.
He's cautious. Standoffish. Afraid almost. It throws her off. He's usually so confident.
Jughead stares at her impatiently, waiting for an answer.
"No," she says, gingerly taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch. She blows on her tea before sipping from it.
"Then why?" he continues, folding his arms across his chest. "You seemed more than occupied when I left the bar."
Betty frowns. She can sense the underlying hurt in his voice, beneath the hostility. But it doesn't stop her indignation from flaring up at his brusqueness.
"Why are you such a dick to me?" she asks.
If he's surprised by the seeming randomness of this question, he doesn't show it.
"I'm a dick to everyone," he dismisses.
Betty bites her lip. She didn't intend to argue with him, but it seems unavoidable, considering how defensive he's being.
"That's not true," she asserts. "And even if it were, you're an extra special one to me."
Jughead looks primed to fight with her, but when her eyes probe his with a plea for no bullshit, he reluctantly bows his head. He acknowledges her point with a curt nod.
"Why?" she presses.
"Why are you so sweet and perky all the time?" he deflects with a sneer.
Betty shoots him an unamused glance. "You think I'm perky when you piss me off?"
Jughead snickers at that. "Except then," he concedes. "But otherwise, yes, all the freaking time."
"That's just who I am," Betty says, shrugging.
"It's annoying," he tells her.
"Is that why you kissed me?" she mocks. "Because I'm so annoying?"
Normally, she'd never ask something so forthright, but she's too irked by his petulance to care.
Jughead's eyes burn a hole into hers. They both know she's challenging him. Although she can feel his resistance, he also looks fired up.
"I kissed you because you're fucking smart," he spits out. "And feisty when you think no one's watching. It's impossibly sexy."
Betty flushes. She gets cute. Pretty, too. But she can't remember a man ever calling her sexy before.
She stares at him, the blush rising in her cheeks at the intoxicating way Jughead is now looking at her. Like he wants all of her. All at once.
"How long have you thought that?" she asks quietly, fiddling with the small silver hoop in her ear.
He takes a sip from his mug before responding, looking irritated by the question, or by the tactical error of having shown sincerity. She watches him carefully. He seems to be waging an internal battle with himself between staying sarcastic and unresponsive or breaking down the wall he's already let crack.
Finally, he sighs.
"Since the first day," he divulges. "When you sassed me after I was a jerk to you."
"I thought you hated me."
"I wanted to," he says matter-of-factly.
"Why?" she asks. Her voice lowers, turning bashful. "Because of the delivery guy thing?"
Jughead winces at the reminder, swallowing down another sip.
"I'm not the greatest when I feel judged," he says by way of explanation.
She studies his face. It's more open now, a little less circumspect. Enough for her to understand without him having to elaborate.
"Imposter syndrome?" she asks.
His hands tense and he rubs his palms on the knees of his black jeans. "Something like that."
"I get that," she says. "I have it, too."
He looks at her in disbelief. "You?"
"Yes, me," she chides.
His lips curl into a ball as he appraises her. She holds his gaze and something like recognition flickers in his eyes.
"Did you also grow up in a trailer park and have a shit childhood?" he asks.
He tries to sound like he's joking, but his voice comes out high and twisted. She watches him kick the toe of his left combat boot into the persian-style rug under the coffee table.
So that's it. Without knowing any details, Betty can see from his edgy posture that it was bad. Maybe worse than he wants to admit. Her heart breaks a little for him. This fact explains him in so many ways, she realizes. The defensiveness. The sarcasm. The suspicion of others' motives. It's not an excuse, but she understands him better now.
"No," she discloses. "But there was always a lot of pressure to succeed. Sometimes too much."
He nods, but doesn't say anything
"I used to get really bad anxiety," she tells him. "About being perfect. I'd dig my nails into my palms, until the skin broke. Sometimes I still want to."
Jughead looks at her with a well of understanding. She'd hazard a guess he knows a thing or two about coping mechanisms.
But while she appreciates the sympathy in his gaze, it's not what her brain is telling her she needs right now.
She needs to know him. Really. To understand fully.
"Define shit childhood," she implores.
"The usual," he tries to flit away. "Dad drank too much. Parents split. Nothing a thousand romans à clef haven't been written about before."
She peers over at him, saying nothing, but seeking more. Her eyes fill with all the kindness she can summon. It seems to force a tiny bit else out of him.
"My mom bailed," he says with a sigh. "Skipped town with my sister. She left me…with him."
Betty wishes she could reach over and hug him. "That's awful, Jughead. I'm sorry."
He shrugs. "It is what it is."
"That doesn't mean you didn't deserve better," she tells him.
He looks at her and she shudders at the intensity in his blue eyes.
"Thanks," he says in a small voice.
There's quiet between them then. An intimacy beyond their physical proximity. She thinks it's time she made her own confession.
"I wasn't judging you, you know," she tells him after a beat. "In the elevator that morning. I was trying to flirt with you."
Jughead's ears tinge red for a moment, before he begins to smirk at her. "Oh yeah?"
"Quite badly, apparently, but yes."
"Why's that?" he asks. His voice is light as a feather now, teasing.
Duh, she thinks to herself. Because you're ridiculously good-looking.
His smirk broadens and Betty feels a dozen butterflies in her stomach. Shit, did she say that aloud? She must have. She blushes furiously.
"And now?" he asks. He sounds sure of himself but also greedy for her confirmation. "Do you still think that?"
The frightened part of her wants to lie to him, or to retreat. To tread back to the safety found in a cocoon of ambiguity. But a bigger part insists she has to take this leap. To be fully honest.
"That doesn't just go away," she murmurs to him.
Jughead's whole face seems to transform. The curve of his mouth grows more confident, his eyes radiating heat. His expression is so temptingly similar to the moment just before he'd leaned in to kiss her in the supply closet that Betty's knees begin to quake.
"Is that why you kissed me back, Cooper?" he asks.
"Did I, Jones?" she counters, a little breathless.
He sidles closer to her on the couch, his body now hovering mere inches away.
"Yeah," he whispers hotly. "You did."
Before she can issue a halfhearted denial, his fingers reach out for her chin, lightly stroking the smooth underside of her jaw. A tiny mewl escapes her throat and he grins.
He keeps his fingers there as his eyes begin to sweep over her face. The blush covering her cheekbones, her long lashes, the angelic green irises, the mole on her chin.
"I'm going to kiss you again," he tells her, his voice gentle but adamant.
Her eyes flitter shut, her heart pounding. She mouths the word "please" just before she feels his lips softly meet hers.
Jughead's fingers drift up to cup her cheek, pulling her in closer so their shoulders touch. He tastes delicious. Like sugar and fresh peppermint. It's addictive.
Betty sinks into the kiss, her mouth dipping open to let the tip of his tongue graze her lower lip. He nips at it, before slowly slipping his tongue inside her.
His breath is hot and sweet on hers as they trade kisses. Their lips pressing together incessantly, their tongues tracing against each other.
She can feel his hand skimming up her side, just as she moves to cradle his head, her fingers running through the silky strands of his hair.
Their bodies inch closer together, their legs intertwining until she finds herself lifting up a thigh to straddle him over the couch.
Jughead grips her tightly, securing her knees so they bracket around his waist. His kisses grow needy, more insistent.
Betty's hips strain against him, seeking friction for the budding ache between her thighs. She can feel his length stiffening against her stomach, and she can't help but grind herself onto him again.
Jughead hisses Betty's name into her mouth.
He pulls roughly at the nape of her neck, breaking the kiss. His other hand clutches her lower back where her sweater's ridden up. His calloused fingers tender against the bare skin.
He stares at her, his blue eyes dark and feral.
"What do you want?" he asks her, his breathing ragged.
There's no thought to it, no moment to catch her breath and mull his question over from every possible angle.
Her response is instinctive, urgent, true.
"You," she says.
