Chapter Text
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Chapter 3
Two days after New Year’s Day found Jughead and Betty on a plane to Salt Lake City for qualifying rounds to make the team to go to the Olympics.
Betty was sitting up straight beside him, paging through Real Simple while she listened to music. He could hear strains of Strauss coming through her earbuds. She was the perfect picture of poise but he knew she was anxious about the impending results of their skate. Had seen it in the way her hands trembled when she’d showed the flight attendant her boarding pass.
Jughead would deny it if anyone asked him but he was feeling a little nervous too. It was the first time he’d be skating in a competition without Toni and even though he had great chemistry with Betty. . . that together they were magical, he knew it wouldn’t be the same. He still wasn’t used to her and she would take some getting used to.
He opened his book and tried to make sense of the words but finally gave up after reading the same line half a dozen times and reached for his iPod. He put on the playlist Betty had put together for him of the songs they were skating to and closed his eyes, trying to memorize the rhythm and imagining himself gliding across the ice with Betty as he did. It was a technique he had used forever and was usually helpful in learning a new routine.
Betty had chosen a piece from the 2016 War & Peace. It was an unexpected selection, given her penchant for musical theater and pastels. He was impressed that she knew what it was outside of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. Any girl who had gotten through Andrew Davies 6 part mini-series was worthy of his respect.
He shook the thought away and tried to focus but realized it was useless, so he abandoned Martin Phipps for his 90s grunge playlist and his journal. He jotted down a few things about how he was feeling about the upcoming competition but found his pen wandering to the blonde beside him. Before he knew what was happening, he’d filled two pages with observations he had made about her after getting to know her better.
She had always been a good athlete, somebody he had always liked watching even though they were usually competitors. She was a force to be reckoned with and he had always been attracted to that.
He shook his head, he hadn’t thought about his childhood crush on her in years.
He hoped he wasn’t in danger of crushing on her again. He didn’t nearly have enough time to pine after a girl who didn’t have the time for relationships herself.
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Betty threw her phone like it was a poisonous snake. She usually tried to avoid all her social media platforms like the plague before she skated but sometimes, she saw things by accident. Especially because Cheryl Blossom was so ruthless in making sure she saw every derogatory thing she tweeted about her.
Jughead craned his head to look at her. “What’s going on, Betty?”
Betty took a deep breath and gathered her hair up in a bun. “Cheryl. She’s just trying to make my competitive life miserable. Still.”
“Ignore her,” Jughead answered.
“I try but she goes out of her way to make sure I see things like the news article about how her and her brother are the ice skating couple to beat at the Olympics,” Betty said. “She literally tagged me on Twitter in an article Sports Illustrated posted on their website today.”
“That’s because they haven’t seen us skate yet,” Jughead answered.
“I don’t need you to placate me or stroke my ego,” Betty told him. “She just frustrates me. You have no idea, Jughead. You’ve flown under her radar all this time but now that you’ve hitched your star to me, she’ll go after you too.”
“I can handle it,” Jughead assured her. “I’m not a delicate, shrinking flower who needs to be protected.”
Betty stabbed her hair with a bobby pin and forced a smile. “Good, I’m not either.”
“Why were you looking at your phone anyways?” Jughead asked as he combed his hair. “Isn’t it some sort of personal tradition that you don’t look at it until you’ve been scored?”
“I don’t but I got the notification when I was turning my phone off,” Betty answered, shrugging. “I was morbidly curious when I saw it.”
“Just like anybody else would be,” Jughead answered. “I guess you couldn’t wait to look at it until afterwards?”
“No,” Betty admitted. “I tried but I really wanted to know and I knew if I didn’t read it right now, I would have been thinking about it the whole time we were on the ice.”
Jughead nodded. “Okay but you shouldn’t really let it discourage you. Take it to heart and think about it and channel it into making this your best performance ever. Make sure everybody knows we’re ones to watch too. Or we’ll show them all we are the ones to watch. That we’re the ones to beat.”
Betty shook her head. “Come on Jughead, you know I’ve always been second best to Cheryl my whole entire career.”
“You want it though. We both know our shelf life at the winter games will expire soon, we should try and win gold at least once before we go. You’re America’s sweetheart, I saw the article Sports Illustrated wrote about you. Everyone wants to see you win.”
Betty opened a tube of pink lipstick and applied it evenly before spritzing setting spray on her face to keep her makeup intact. “I’m sure there’s a few girls out there who would love to see you win too. You’ve got that whole brooding, loner aesthetic thing working in your favor.”
Jughead grinned at her. “It’s almost our turn. I guess we better get out there and make them want us both to win as a team.”
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When her blade touched the ice thoughts of Cheryl Blossom disappeared. Her nerves fluttered away on the first notes of their song and she skated to her position, waiting for her cue. As they started their routine, everything disappeared including the sportscaster’s commentary faded away and she was just aware of herself, the ice, and Jughead.
She thought about what he had said in the dressing room and channeled all her energy into doing better than her best. Jughead followed suite and kept up with her brilliantly.
By the time they were finished, she was sure they were going to be in first. She raised her arms in the air with the grace of a ballerina and her world came back into focus with thundering applause.
Betty looked at Jughead and smiled at him because she was sure they weren’t at the point where they would hug after a job well down. She had never even gotten to that point with Dilton in their relationship. He was rigid on and off the ice. Sometimes Betty thought if she had hugged him, he would break figuratively and literally.
Jughead smiled in return and raised his hand to high five her. Betty met him in the middle and then skated back with him to the kiss and cry to get their scores.
TBC. . .
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