Chapter Text
“Hey, turn this one up,” Kevin requested from his cozy position in one corner of the back seat of Veronica’s car, his feet tucked up, his elbow resting on his knee, his head against the window, his eyes on his phone.
“Kevin, it’s already kind of loud,” said Archie, half-turning in the front passenger seat. “Ronnie and I are having a pretty intense discussion up here.”
“About dogs – yeah, I know,” said Kevin, barely hiding his disdain. “That’s why, Archie: I can still hear you. You’re, um—” he grinned tightly, trying to control his impatience, “you’re actually talking over Arianna.”
“It’s fine, Kevin,” said Veronica with a smile, reaching a perfectly manicured finger over to tap the volume control on the car’s touchscreen.
She was in a strangely upbeat mood, Betty thought, considering they were currently hurtling their way out of civilization and into the wilderness for a three-night canoe camping expedition. No pillow-top mattresses, no room service, not even a rustic cabin – just tents on the ground, hot dogs over the fire, and four days of paddling down a river, finding their own campsites. This whole outing was very un-Veronica, but she, along with Archie, had apparently planned it themselves, right down to reserving canoes from a tour company that would meet them at the end of their four-days’ journey and drive them all back upriver to their cars.
“It’s a chance for us to reconnect, Betty,” Veronica had said, trying to convince her to come. “I know Archie and I have been spending a lot of time together lately, and I don’t want to be that girl, you know? The one that deserts her best friend when a new guy comes along.” She had put her hands on Betty’s shoulders, the corners of her pretty red lips drawn up in her winningest smile. “Please? Come! Share my tent! We’ll stay up talking and dish all our secrets like we used to do at sleepovers way back when we were kids.”
“Okay,” Betty had finally said, honestly warming up to the idea, feeling nostalgic for those good old days of crushes, makeovers, and homemade fudge.
Their first year of college had been a time of excitement and big changes, but also of pressure, stress, and insecurity. She and Veronica had moved from their small town to a big-city college and gotten an apartment together. And while Veronica never had to worry about covering tuition, making rent, or even drinking eight-dollar lattes, Betty was in a very different situation. She had – thankfully – won a scholarship, but it depended on maintaining stellar grades in an incredibly competitive program. And it didn’t pay for books, rent, or food. And through some miracle of self-discipline, Betty had managed to balance school, a part-time job, and adjusting to living on her own, finishing the year with excellent grades.
Now it was July. She was burned-out, ready for a break, and – truth be told – kind of lonely.
Veronica, meanwhile, had met a boy late in the fall and gotten immediately wrapped up in his social world, which consisted mainly of Archie’s childhood-best-friend-turned-roommate Jughead, and Toni and Cheryl, a couple who lived next door in the boys’ high-rise apartment building. Betty knew them a little bit, but not well – she was always grateful for the times they had come to her apartment to hang out, but neither her schedule nor her pocketbook had allowed her to tag along on many outings with the group.
“I thought we had divided up the cars by musical taste? Did we not do that?” Kevin groused quietly, almost rhetorically. “Isn’t that why I’m in here, and Joaquin is with the others?”
(And then there was Kevin – a classmate of Betty’s from English class, and a co-worker at the college library. The first thing he had ever said to her, as they were shelving books together in the art history section, was a whispered “you have amazing skin.” They were instant friends. Joaquin, his boyfriend, was in the other car – the “alternative/indie/rock” car.)
“It was kind of a loose arrangement,” Betty observed, smiling at Kevin in a conciliatory way.
“I mean,” Kevin continued in an undertone, rolling his eyes, as Archie and Veronica discussed the relative merits of greyhounds and whippets, “I guess we don’t all share the same definition of ‘EDM-inflected pop,’ but come on.”
“Are we talking about music?” Archie suddenly asked, rebounding from a lull in his conversation with Veronica. “Lemme put something on for you guys,” he enthused, as Kevin’s song faded out.
The opening notes of the song Archie cued up featured a piano riff, snaps, and a male vocal characterized by extreme twang.
Betty looked over at Kevin, whose face had frozen in uncomprehending horror.
Then the female vocal – high, expressive, and agile – joined in the harmony, and Kevin’s expression almost softened, but was gradually overtaken by abject disgust by the time they reached the chorus.
“It’s Florida Georgia Line,” Archie announced, grinning widely.
Kevin had closed his eyes and was pressing his fingers to his eyelids.
“Veronica, you and I could totally sing this as a duet!” Archie cried, grabbing her arm.
“Oh, Archiekins,” she crooned in response, flashing him a smile from behind her massive sunglasses – a melting, lovesick sort of smile, Betty realized – and putting her hand on his knee. He makes her so happy, Betty thought, genuinely pleased for her friend. God only knows why, she mused, laughing inwardly.
“Are we there yet?” Kevin mouthed at her across the car, tying his sweater around his ears.
---
“Hey guys! Let’s sing a canoeing song while we paddle!” Archie suggested, grinning widely and churning his paddle vigorously through the water.
True to their word, the tour company had prepared four canoes for the group’s arrival, all ready to be loaded up and paddled down the river in search of a campsite for the first night of their trip.
It was beautiful, Betty thought, setting her paddle across her lap, filling her lungs with pure air and appreciating the warm sun and the lush green forest surrounding them. The river was beautiful: wide, lazy, sandy on the bottom, and a perfect temperature for swimming. The gentle current would make their voyage an easy an comfortable one. She was already glad she’d agreed to come.
“Is he ever not totally stoked?” Kevin asked as the canoe he was sharing with Joaquin pulled up alongside Betty and Veronica’s.
“A canoeing song, Arch?” Jughead echoed skeptically from the back of their shared canoe. “Is that an actual genre of song? What, like a follow-up to ‘Row Row Row Your Boat?’”
“'Row row row!'” cheered Archie, and burst into song. Others joined in haphazardly, unsure at first, but gradually getting into the spirit of it. Pretty soon, as they drifted along, still testing out their paddling and steering techniques, and figuring out a formation, they were singing in a round – until uncontrollable giggles took over, and the singing stopped.
“Kevin,” Betty called over, “is Veronica still in the front of my canoe?”
“Yes,” he replied, looking over and furrowing his brow.
“It’s just… I can’t see her over all this stuff,” Betty teased.
“Betty, darling, you didn’t expect me to pack light, did you?” Veronica responded, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head and turning to smile at her friend.
“Veronica,” Jughead called over, “if I so much as hear the first syllable of the g-word, so help me, I’m gonna jump right out of this canoe and swim back to civilization,” he declared, holding up both palms to signify his seriousness.
“First of all,” Cheryl shouted, “where is your paddle, you hobo?”
“Eh, Archie’s got this,” Jughead replied, waving a hand dismissively.
“Secondly,” Cheryl continued, “what, pray tell, is ‘the g-word’?”
Jughead opened his mouth and raised a finger to caution Cheryl, but “Glamping,” Veronica answered pre-emptively, and loudly, in a tone of mild exasperation. Clearly, she and Jughead had had this discussion before. “The word is glamping.”
Jughead shot to his feet, and the canoe rocked perilously from side to side. “You were warned, Veronica. You leave me no choice,” he stated, putting one hand over his heart, and threw himself in – boots, head-to-toe black outfit, crown beanie, and all.
The group erupted with laughter, shouts, and clapping as Jughead re-emerged several feet away from the canoe he’d just jumped out of and swam over to hang on the side of Betty and Veronica’s boat, where the giggling raven-haired girl teasingly hit him on the head with her paddle.
Jughead looked over at Betty through the dripping hair that partially covered his eyes, doffed his soaking cap with a squelch, and greeted her with a mock-genteel “Betty.” She laughed in response, inclining her head in a lady-like acknowledgement and his smile widened, reaching all the way up into the corners of his steel-blue eyes. She had always thought of him as sort of moody and quiet in a group – when he wasn’t zinging someone with a mumbled one-liner – but the fresh air and the dip in the river seemed to be loosening him up.
And – gosh… has he always been so… cute?
The question popped into her mind all on its own, and it took her quite by surprise. She actually couldn’t remember the last time she’d noticed a boy – any boy. Between essays, midterms, seminar prep, work, and sleep (when she could get it), she’d had a full plate. Boys were not on the menu.
Calm down, Betty, she told herself. It’s just your post-semester brain coming back online.
Also, “cute” seemed like a funny word for someone who always dressed in black, listened to Very Serious Music (on vinyl), and got into heated political discussions with Joaquin (a poli sci major) on the regular anyway.
Maybe… handsome? She came back to the thought, giving herself permission to really look at his face as he treaded water, pretending not to hear Toni taunting him about fish swimming into his pants. And for the first time, she noticed that as angular as his face seemed in some ways – strong lines in his jaw and nose – it was soft in others: a wide, expressive mouth, full lips; a certain softness in the apples of his cheeks, softness around his eyes, which – she now saw – had an impish sparkle to them.
Jughead was swimming back to his canoe now, dodging pokes and splashes from everyone’s paddles along the way.
Okay, Betty, enough, she thought to herself, and tucked the question away for good.
“Listen up, campers!” Veronica was shouting over the general merriment. “We’re losing daylight! Let’s get going and find a spot to stop for the night!”
“Row, row, row your boat—"
---
Finally, when the sunlight was starting to get heavier, more golden, and their arms were about ready to fall off, Betty and Veronica, who were leading the group, spotted it: the most perfect spot you could imagine for camping – a sandbar. Wide, dry, soft, beautiful, and right in the middle of the river.
“This is—” Betty shook her head, blown away by the natural beauty of their surroundings.
“It’s perfect,” Veronica squealed, clapping her hands. “Land ho, everybody!”
One by one, the canoes were pushed up onshore and the campers hauled their supplies into the site. Tents popped up to dot the island, camping chairs were arranged in a circle around what looked like the perfect spot for a campfire, and out of the coolers came copious snacks and cans of beer.
Not too shabby, Betty mused: from wilderness to cozy domestic scene in under an hour. She rolled out her sleeping bag inside the state-of-the-art tent she and Veronica were sharing. It had built-in lights, a raised floor, and was made of material that could somehow heat, cool, be waterproof, and breathe.
And then there was Veronica’s sleeping bag: it looked like something an astronaut would lie in to hibernate on her way to a distant galaxy. Betty reached out a hand to feel the fabric – it was unnaturally soft, pink, iridescent, and generally unsettling, she decided. “Isn’t this so great, B?” Veronica gushed as they arranged their things inside the tent. “It’s going to be just like all our old slumber parties! I can’t wait to just talk and giggle all night.”
“Me too, V. This was such a great idea. Thank you so much for organizing it.” The girls shared a fond smile and wrapped their arms around each other in a hug. Satisfied with their set-up, they re-emerged onto the beach.
“Jug,” Archie was saying, lugging a cooler and frowning at his best friend, who was lounging, still wet, in one of the chairs, working his way through a bag of chips, “the tent is all set up. Why don’t you change out of those wet clothes already?”
“Clothes?” Jughead scoffed. “Oh no, I didn’t pack clothes,” he said, to a chorus of vaguely disgusted sounds from the rest of the group. “I needed all that room for food,” he explained, looking more than a little surprised that people didn’t seem to understand his logic. “And books.”
Kevin exchanged glances with Toni and Cheryl. “The straights are at it again,” he observed dryly.
“Hey, don’t lump us in with him,” Archie protested.
“Are you wearing cargo shorts right now?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah--”
“Are you wearing those sandals with all the complicated Velcro straps?”
“Yeah, but--”
“Then I rest my case.”
Looking befuddled, Archie wandered over to the cooler to get himself another beer. “Anyone up for a game of touch?” he queried enthusiastically, and was met with almost complete silence.
“I guess we should start getting some firewood together, huh?” said Toni, who had changed into her bikini and was grabbing a canoe to bring over to the shore in the hopes of finding some combustible material to bring back.
“I’ll help,” Joaquin offered, rifling through one of his bags and producing a machete.
“Jesus Christ, Joaquin,” Toni exclaimed, recoiling when she saw the knife. “Kevin, nice to know your boyfriend is low-key psycho.”
Kevin smiled mischievously at Joaquin, who tossed the machete into the canoe with a chuckle. “It’s just a tool, people, calm down. Pretty handy for cutting brush, too.”
“Alright then, Crocodile Dundee. Lead the way,” said Toni with an eye roll.
“Don’t take too long,” Cheryl cooed from the shore with a roguish smile, settling herself on a towel with a glass of rosé. Toni turned to blow a kiss over her shoulder and waded into the river.
---
When the hotdogs (or veggie dogs, for Toni and Cheryl) had all been roasted and eaten, a good number of beers had been downed, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, Archie fetched his guitar out of his tent and there was a general stifled groan. But then he began strumming, very quietly and lazily, and Betty was surprised at how nice it was, how well the mellow sound complemented the mood of the moment.
“This is nice,” she murmured to Joaquin, who sat to her right. Beside him was Kevin, then Jughead.
“As long as we don’t need to hear any of Archie’s own super-personal angsty stuff,” Joaquin said quietly, so as not to be overheard, wincing a little at the memory of past performances.
“Yeah, Archie really does see himself as America’s answer to Ed Sheeran, doesn’t he?” Kevin mused.
“Yikes,” said Jughead with a snort, tossing back the last of the beer in his can. “That’s not saying much.”
“Guys,” Betty chastised, “come on. He is actually pretty talented.”
Their faces got shifty.
“Ok, well… he is our friend,” she pointed out. They acquiesced.
“Betty,” said Jughead, standing up and shaking the empty can. “Another one?”
“Please,” she smiled. Then, looking across the campfire at Archie, “it sounds great, Arch,” she called, and he smiled back. Veronica had moved her chair right up against Archie’s and was gazing adoringly at him as his fingers moved across the strings.
A can suddenly appeared from above, obstructing her view: Jughead had come back around behind her and snuck up to pass the beer to her over her head. “Thanks,” she said sarcastically, laughing. He smiled at her, holding her gaze as he walked back to his chair.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down and looking around. “Where are Cheryl and—you know what? Never mind, stupid question, not sure why I even said that out loud.”
“So, Jug,” Betty said, clearing her throat and looking for a way to change the subject, “Veronica tells me you’ve got a summer job in a bookstore? That sounds cool.”
“Yeah!” his face lit up – very uncharacteristically, Betty thought, marveling at his ability to go from less than 0 to 60 in a split second when he got animated enough. “It’s a little independent store, they sell mostly used books but some new also. The other week, apparently,” he lowered his voice, conspiratorially, “Toni Morrison came in. Like, just to browse… not a book signing or an appearance or anything.”
“Get out!” Betty leapt to the edge of her chair, excited and filled with envy. “She is my favorite novelist. Of all time. Seriously, Jug, that’s unbelievable!”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows at her in a cocky sort of way as he took a sip of his beer, and she saw his expression suddenly turn to one of concern. Following his gaze, she looked over at Veronica and Archie, who were now fully making out as Archie continued to play the guitar.
She looked back at Jughead, and the two exchanged an amused look that said, simply, wow.
“Now that’s talent,” he observed wryly, lifting his beer in Archie’s direction. Betty struggled to bite back a laugh and the guitar fell out of Archie’s grasp as he pulled Veronica onto his lap, making a discordant, jangling thud as it landed.
“And with that,” said Kevin, looking over at Betty, and then Jughead, slapping his knees with his hands and standing up, “we will bid you goodnight.”
The blonde looked at her beer, and at Jughead’s. They’d just opened these, and Betty wasn’t sure about Jughead, but she wanted to finish hers. It had been such a pleasant evening, out under the stars among good friends, with the sweet smell of forest air filling her nose and her lungs, Betty hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages. So, trying to distract from the scene unfolding on the other side of the fire, “tell me more about this job of yours,” she asked, leaning over toward him, resting her chin on her hand. “I have to say, I’m super jealous already.”
With a soft laugh, fiddling with his beer can, he looked down as he replied. “I mean, the store seems really cool. The job itself is just… like, shelving books.”
“Hey, that’s what I do,” Betty observed archly. “If you ever need pointers,” she teased, “please know I'm available to mentor you.”
They both chortled as they sipped their drinks. Looking up, she noticed that their friends were no longer sitting across from them. As she was about to make a comment about this to Jughead, she heard the loud zing of a tent zipper opening, followed by a similar sound signifying its closure.
Wordlessly, she and Jughead looked at one another, both knowing exactly what was happening.
“That’s my tent,” he whispered indignantly.
Then, there was another, quieter zipper sound, and Jughead was suddenly on his feet. “Hey,” he stammered, “wanna take a little midnight stroll to the other end of the island right now? No reason.”
“Yeah,” she said, “let’s go.”
Once she had turned away from the fire, she realized the air was much cooler, and she shivered a little as they made their way to the southern end of the sandbar, where they sat down to finish their drinks. She pulled her hood up over her head and scratched at the sand absent-mindedly with her index finger.
“So much for ‘hanging out with my bro,’” Jughead said scornfully, making air quotes. He was, as usual, being sardonic, but Betty detected a definite note of disappointment in his voice, something she was feeling too.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, shaking her head with an ironic smile. “This trip was going to be all about ‘reconnecting’ and ‘reliving the good old days of slumber parties,’” she said.
They sat in silence for a few moments. Betty pushed her toes into the sand, over and over, and settled her feet into the cool, wet pocket she'd made.
“He is really crazy about her. Man,” Jughead observed, chancing a look over his shoulder at the tents.
“It’s kind of cute, actually,” said Betty. “And he’s so good to her. As her best friend, I approve. He’s a good guy.”
“Archie is – what’s that expression? Salt of the earth,” he said, a pensive smile on his lips. “You know, we really are kind of like brothers. Growing up, my parents… well, let’s just say there were some problems at home. He sort of figured that all out without me ever saying anything – he was twelve, Betty – and his dad took me in. Just like that. He is – yeah, one of the best people out there, actually.”
“God, Jughead – I didn’t know,” Betty said, and impulsively laid a hand gently on his arm, then wondered if that was an ok thing to do, or too patronizing, or too much touching, or—
He looked over at her with a soft smile. I guess it’s ok, she thought.
“Sorry,” she offered, meeting his eyes as she took her hand away. “I’m glad Archie and his family were good to you. You know, Veronica definitely comes from money, but there wasn’t a lot of stability in her life growing up, either. Her dad was in jail for a while – I’m not sure whether she’s ever mentioned—”
“No, Jesus, no. She didn’t. Wow, that’s too bad. Funny, though – we’ve got that in common, I guess,” he said with a nervous chuckle, genuinely fascinated by this shared fact about their childhoods, but clearly also a little shy about having disclosed such sensitive and sordid pieces of his past.
They sipped their beers for a while, looking at the stars reflected on the rippling surface of the river and enjoying the peace of its constant white noise.
“They’re not coming out of there anytime soon, are they?” he observed grimly.
Betty cringed. “I guess not.”
He blew air out through his cheeks, stretched his legs out, and crossed them at the ankles. “You don’t have to…”
“Have to what?”
“Wait up with me,” he said, and tried to twist his now-empty beer can into the sand like a screw.
“Oh, I’m not,” she replied, making a little round pile of sand with one hand.
“I mean you should go to bed – if you want to,” he said.
“I know I could,” she said. “I guess it is getting kind of late.”
“I’ll be fine out here,” he said.
“What? Jughead, no,” she replied, adamantly. “You cannot sleep out here. It’s already getting pretty cold.”
“Eh. I’ll just sleep in one of the chairs by the fire.”
“Don’t be silly,” she admonished, sitting up straight to make her point. “There’s a perfectly good sleeping bag – okay, well, it’s perfectly weird and terrifying, to be honest, but it’s the latest and most expensive thing, and it's not being used – in my tent.”
“Betty, you don’t have to—”
“I know, Jug. I’m the one offering, remember?”
“But it’s so awkward,” he moaned, covering his face with his hands, then pulling them away to look at Betty with a remorseful expression. “They’ve made this so awkward. I'm sorry.”
“It’s only awkward if we make it awkward,” she corrected him. “I know we don’t know each other really well, but come on. Just use the tent. It’s not a big deal at all.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, squinting one eye and allowing himself to look hopeful all of a sudden.
“Yes.”
“Thank God,” he breathed. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”
“Come on,” she said, in her briskest possible voice, sounding even to herself like the plucky heroine in a 1940s film.
“I promise I won’t take up too much room,” he said, getting to his feet, his voice – for once – devoid of irony. And something about his soft tone, mixed with what he’d just confessed about his rootless childhood, made her heart squeeze a little in her chest.
“I don’t mind,” she replied with a warm smile. He smiled back at her, and in the moonlight, the blue of his eyes was as dark and deep as the river.
---
And then they found themselves in the tent. Together. And the reality of sharing a space the size of a bathroom stall with someone she barely knew – a boy – all night caught up to her and her heart was thumping like she'd had too much espresso.
She was hyperaware of the sound of his breathing. She was hyperaware of the sound of her own breathing. She was hyperaware of each and every little rustling noise either of them made as they shifted around, trying to get comfortable on thin mats.
She was hyperaware also that they were lying there together practically half-naked: although both had snuggled right down into their zippered sleeping bags before removing their pants and sweatshirts, the reality was they were both now lying side-by-side wearing next to nothing.
She was hyperaware of how very, very close their faces were inside that tent, and that he smelled like mint and woodsmoke.
“Good night,” she whispered in a vain attempt to somehow turn all of that off so she could get to sleep.
“Good night,” he replied, also whispering, so close his breath fanned her cheek. And maybe she was tired, or it was the beer she'd drank, or the warm fire, or maybe the fresh air was going to her head, but at the sound of his voice – breathy, scratchy, low – a tiny firework went off inside her stomach. Glitter twinkled dimly in her chest.
Well, that wasn’t going to help. She rolled over to face the wall of the tent.
“Don’t tell Veronica I said this,” he hissed, “but this sleeping bag is fucking amazing.”
Betty smiled in the darkness, closed her eyes, and tried not to imagine his body inside that sleeping bag, covered in nothing but underwear.
Too late.