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Betty gives up the large house with its six bedrooms, landscaped backyard with sprinklers, and garage full of the girls’ baby stuff she’s kept for no real reason. She gives it up, without any real hesitation, for a much smaller place ten minutes away that has roses clinging to an arch around the front door and a tired bathroom that she finds strangely charming.
It’s closing Christopher’s office door that makes her sad. Nothing else.
She supposes she could’ve moved to Riverdale - have her mom closer to help out with the girls - but Polly isn’t there and her business is doing well and, actually, she figures she needs to learn to be on her own.
The weather is God-awful on the day they leave the big house behind. It’s late November so the driving rain shouldn’t really be a surprise, and yet Betty feels a little personally affronted when she wakes to hear the smack of it against her window.
There is a text from Jughead on her phone (there are often texts from Jughead on her phone now) wishing her luck for the move and reminding her that his offer of help still stands.
Betty quickly types back her thanks and declines his offer of help for the second time. Her mind keeps returning to the kiss they’d shared in his living room after returning from the hospital, and she can’t allow him to move her out of her marital home.
Whatever it means, it’s not fair to Christopher.
She drops the girls at school and then heads to her new home to join the movers in the redistribution of their family belongings. That night, after a dinner of a store-bought lasagne that Amelie innocently declares is the best she’s ever tasted in her whole entire life, all three of them share Betty’s mattress on the floor of her bedroom and the girls fall asleep to her retelling of the The Princess and the Frog.
Two days later, with the arrival of the weekend comes the crispest autumn day Betty can remember. She’s folding the sheets over Ella’s bed when there’s a knock at the door, which she assumes to be another of the neighbouring families introducing themselves. It’s a surprise when she opens the door to see Jughead and Luca, both of whom are clutching flowers.
“Jughead!” she exclaims in surprise. “What are you…”
“We came to help,” Luca announces proudly.
Betty looks back at his dad who is shifting his weight from one foot to the other, slightly embarrassed.
“I know you said you didn’t need any, but I thought about you lifting heavy furniture and… well.” He doesn’t finish, but holds out the potted shrub rose he’s carrying. “Happy new home. You said you liked the roses around the door so, uh… it’s a rose.”
There is something high in Betty’s throat that makes it hard to breathe.
“I brought flowers for Ella and, uh…” Luca trails off, forgetting the name of Betty’s youngest daughter.
“Amelie,” Jughead prompts, and she draws in a staggered breath that’s loud in its announcement.
“That’s very sweet,” she manages. “The girls will love them. Come in.”
Once the flowers are displayed in two small glasses (she hasn’t unpacked the vases yet) and the girls have proudly thanked Jughead’s son, the children head to the room which, under different circumstances, would have been Christopher’s office. With no need for space to house his huge desk, it has taken shape as their playroom and something flutters in Betty’s chest when she hears the three differing giggles coming from down the hall.
“You didn’t have to come,” she tells Jughead as she hands him a mug of coffee. It’s a little chilly in the house given she’d stood with the door open for a while and she rubs her hands up her arms to warm herself.
Jughead steps closer and just for a moment, Betty expects him to hug her - wrap his arms around her whole body so she’s warm - but he doesn’t.
“I know,” he says simply. “I brought my toolbox, just in case.”
By lunch time, almost all of the kitchen and living room are set up as Betty had envisaged when she’d first viewed the house. She makes everyone sandwiches while Jughead fixes the dripping tap at the kitchen sink and then goes to fetch their children from the playroom.
Instead of the doll house which is usually the centre of Ella and Amelie’s indoor play, she finds the train set Christopher had bought two Christmasses ago arranged into an elaborate design across the hardwood floor.
There is something strange about Jughead’s son playing with the gift neither of her girls had really entertained before - the gift Christopher had insisted they buy - but Betty is surprised to discover that it’s a good feeling.
“Lunch is ready guys,” she tells them, and they leave the trains on the track.
-
It is exactly the kind of house Jughead had imagined Betty Cooper would choose. He’d had the thought one day when they were lying in his bed in the trailer: imagined the roses around the door and a white picket fence surrounding the perimeter when she’d casually said we won’t always live in houses that reflect our parents Juggie.
He’s still embarrassed he’d ever let her lay on that sagging mattress.
“Dad!” Luca insists, and he realises he’s missed part of the conversation. Betty is smiling and it makes his chest ache a little.
“Uh, sorry. I guess I zoned out for a minute there.”
“Is it okay that Luca has a popsicle for pudding?” she asks gently, heading towards the freezer anyway.
“Yes, that’s… it’s fine.” Betty’s wedding and engagement rings catch the ray of sunlight cutting through the window. “Say thank you,” he reminds his son who does exactly as he’s told, and the children head outside into the back yard.
Jughead starts to clear the table, stacking the plates beside the sink as he switches on the tap.
“Leave those,” Betty tells him. “I’ll put them in the dishwasher later.”
He continues to rinse them anyway, squeezing dish soap into the swirling water.
“I don’t expect you to do the dishes,” she says softly, grabbing a towel anyway and taking hold of the first clean plate.
They finish the task quietly, looking out of the window at their children playing tag on the grass. It’s cold enough to see their breaths but none of them seem to care.
“I worry that he misses out,” Jughead admits. “By being an only child. Stuck with his old dad.”
“ Jug, ” her voice is soft in that way it always is when she’s reminding him not to be hard on himself.”
Betty has stopped wiping the plate. He wonders if she’s thinking about it too.
Their baby that never was.
-
They stay for the rest of the day. Ella, Amelie and Luca eventually come inside to resume their playing with the train set and Jughead continues to hang shelves so she can display the photos that have been tucked away safely in bubble wrap; installs poles for her to hang her curtains; fixes the closet door in Ella’s room so that it sits straight and doesn’t squeak when she opens it.
It’s only when Betty hears Jughead’s stomach growl that she realises it’s dark outside. They order Chinese food, not from the place they always used when they lived at the old house, but from somewhere called ‘Peking Palace’ which turns out to be significantly cheaper - even with Jughead’s amusingly large list of choices.
It arrives and he reaches for his wallet, but Betty stops him. “I’ve got it.”
“Betts no, I ordered… shit, I ordered loads, let me pay.”
She gets to the door first and so she’s the one who hands over the bills. “You just helped me sort the whole house. I think I owe you more than Sichuan Pork and dumplings.”
“And sweet and sour chicken,” he grins, and she rolls her eyes.
“Medical marvel, huh?”
He raises a single eyebrow and for a split second, she’s back in that tattoo parlour watching his adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows.
She clears her throat. “I should let the kids know dinner is here.”
They eat on the floor of the living room, laughing at how Luca devours food just like his dad, the low hum of the television playing Cars in the background. They eat the cupcakes her neighbour had brought round the day before for dessert and Betty can’t find it in herself to care when the girls copy Luca, swirling their index fingers around the frosting before licking it off.
“Are we having storytime on the floor tonight again mom?” Ella asks, the end of her tongue stained blue from the frosting.
“We’ll see,” she says.
“It’s so fun,” Amelie proceeds to tell Jughead. “Mommy’s bed is on the floor.”
Jughead looks quizically at Betty.
“My mattress,” she tells him, making to clear up the cartons.
Later, while the kids are having one last play with the trains, the cutlery washed and put away, Jughead says,
“I’ll put your bed together before we go.”
She shakes her head. “I can do it tomorrow - I just wanted to get everything else sorted first.”
“You’ll be tired. It won’t take long.”
“Jug - ”
“- Betts. ”
Her insides feel funny. She doesn’t put up any more of a fight.
-
Luca yawns his way to the truck and Jughead tosses his tools into the back, making sure his son’s seatbelt is fastened.
“Thank you so much,” Betty tells him quietly, folding her cardigan around her chest against the cold air.
“Any time.”
She lingers by the window and he can smell her perfume. He doesn’t want to leave.
“Call me when you get home,” she says.
“It’ll be late.”
“I know. Promise you’ll call.”
Smiling suddenly seems difficult. “Promise.”
It’s almost midnight when he steers the truck onto the driveway of their house in Riverdale, and he carries a sleeping Luca up to his bedroom. He wakes just enough to sleepily tug at his clothes so Jughead can redress him in his pajamas and then falls promptly asleep again, stuffed animal tucked under the sheets alongside him.
Jughead washes his hands and face, brushes his teeth and falls into bed with the realisation that driving in the dark without the radio on has left him exhausted. He calls Betty just as he promised he would, expecting to leave a message for her to get in the morning.
To his surprise, she answers on the second ring.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He can hear her smile. “You’re home?”
“I’m home.”
“Thank you,” Betty adds. “For everything today.”
“You’re welcome.”
There’s a pause.
“Will you visit again?” she asks. “Some time?”
He rolls onto his side. “Of course.”
He wants to tell her he’s missed her. Misses her .
“If things were different…”
“I know.”
There’s another pause.
“Goodnight Jug.”
“Night Betts.”
He waits for her to end the call and thinks of the dandelion clock inked over her ribcage.
-
Betty drives to Riverdale for the holidays. She loads the trunk of the car with presents for her mom and dad, for Polly and her family, for the girls too - at least, the ones that had arrived too late for her to send by courier. The train set she’d picked out for Luca is there too, wrapped in the same paper she’d used for her girls’ gifts, seated beside the little box for Jughead.
They sing along to Christmas songs when they hit traffic and Betty lets the girls eat a cookie each that they’d made the previous day. She knows there’ll be crumbs on the leather - possible a smudge of frosting too - but she can’t find it within her to care.
“Will we see Luca today?” Ella asks, despite already knowing the answer. He’d proved quite the hit after his visit with Jughead back in November.
“Tomorrow,” Betty reminds her. “We’re having dinner with Grandma and Grandpa tonight.”
The house on Elm Street is as it always was, a second car in the driveway next door telling her that Archie Andrews is visiting his dad, and after a pot roast dinner, Betty settles the girls in the guest room with a bedtime story from her own childhood collection.
They fall asleep quickly and Betty closes the door to, leaving the tiniest crack of light to filter into the room. She’s just about to take a shower herself when Alice meets her in the hallway.
“You have a visitor,” she says in a tone that tells Betty exactly who is downstairs.
“Jughead!” she exclaims quietly when she reaches the kitchen.
“I know it’s late, but I was passing and I saw your car, and thought maybe you’d like to get a cup of coffee?”
She looks at her mom, silently asking whether or not she’s going to make this difficult. Alice’s tone is carefully measured. “I assume you brought your key?”
Betty nods.
“We’ll be in bed by eleven and your father hasn’t oiled the door yet.”
She wraps her scarf around her neck, hiding the v of her chest which hadn’t been covered by her sweater, and slides her feet into the snow boots by the door. It feels strangely like they’re teenagers again, and perhaps it’s that - or perhaps it’s the biting cold - which makes her hug him as soon as they’re out of Alice’s sight.
“Pop’s?” Jughead asks.
She smiles. “Pop’s.”
A coffee turns into two and then a third for Jughead. Betty sticks to water. They talk about everything. About nothing. They laugh at Alice’s slightly burned brussels sprouts for dinner. Jughead tells her about the dog he’s finally bought for Luca’s Christmas present: a mongrel to be named Hot Dog.
There are two more grey hairs in that dark wave of his, she notes to herself when he ducks his head to take a sip of coffee. She feels guilty for thinking that it might, if possible, make him look even more handsome.
She is, however, still wearing Christopher’s ring.
Jughead is watching her intently when she looks up again. “What is it?”
The words slip out into the air. “Do you ever...”
“All the time.”
-
Christmas Eve comes and goes. Christmas morning arrives and Jughead spends it in a mildly regretful mood when his son’s new pet nearly tips over the tree on more than one occasion.
The ham he cooks does look pretty fucking perfect though, and he’s impressed enough with himself to feel proud at the spread on the table. There are mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts (not burned like Betty’s mom’s, but roasted so they’re tender) carrots and gravy and even stuffing this year. He hasn’t made the apple pie they’re having for dessert, but everything is a damn sight better than it had been the very first Christmas he’d cooked.
Luca devours his plateful - he is, quite definitely, Jughead’s son - and just as he’s clearing the final dish from the kitchen table, there’s a knock at the door.
“Betty!” he says in surprise.
“Merry Christmas,” she smiles, her voice quiet.
Her girls chorus it too, dressed like miniature versions of their mom and clutching a wrapped gift each.
Jughead invites them in, puts on a pot of coffee and tries to ignore the strange fluttering in his chest. He’s felt it before (tried to ignore it then too) and busies himself as the girls join Luca in tossing a ball for a disinterested Hot Dog to chase.
“How are you?” he asks.
She shrugs. “I’m okay.”
He’s not entirely sure he believes her, but there’s nothing screaming at him that she’s lying.
“How are you ?”
He can feel the corner of his mouth turn into something of a wry smile. “The same I guess.”
“Can we give Luca his gift now?” Ella asks Betty, and Jughead feels a pang of guilt. It hadn’t occurred to him to buy anything for Betty’s girls.
“Go ahead,” she nods, and Jughead watches as his son opens up a brand new train set like the one he’d played with when they’d visited Boston. The living room is very obviously not big enough to set up the train set, and the children disappear upstairs with the box leaving Hot Dog to finally fall asleep by the tree.
“I’m sorry,” he starts, “I didn’t think about getting your girls anything.”
“They have enough,” she replies simply, and quickly changes the subject. “It looks like the coffee’s brewed.”
He pours a mug each for them both and they rest against the counter as they had the last time she’d visited - right after his father had died.
They don’t stay long - nowhere near long enough - and just as they’re leaving, Ella notes the mistletoe above the door.
“You have to kiss, mama,” she instructs.
Jughead curses himself silently for letting the sprig stay up there. It had been Cheryl’s doing when she and Toni had visited and he hadn’t bothered to take it down.
“Ew, gross!” Luca giggles, and Amelie, possibly not understanding, laughs too.
Betty rolls her eyes good-naturedly and makes to kiss his cheek, only Jughead slips up and turns his head at the wrong time so that her lips land on his.
“Merry Christmas,” he finds himself saying gravelly.
Betty’s pupils are wide when she straightens up. “Merry Christmas.”
Only when she’s gone does he note the gift with his name on it.
-
They meet only twice more before she returns to Boston. The accidental kiss still feels fresh on her lips.
Jughead is wearing the same jacket he’d worn to the high school reunion and she recalls the way he had kept looking at her. “Thank you for the pen, Betty.”
His eyes are so dark. Her heart is thudding. It isn’t about the pen and they both know it. “You’re welcome.”
The air is freezing but she’s not cold. Not at all.
“When I asked whether you ever think about…”
“Us?” he offers.
“Yeah. It’s because I do.”
Jughead is staring at her, his adam’s apple bobbing and dipping again. “Betty -”
“-I know it’s… I know we can’t,” she says. “But I still think about it.”
“It would be amazing,” he says, but it’s laced with sadness because if they’re being honest, both of them know it won’t work. Not now. “But Luca’s life is here, and your girls’ life is in Boston. It’d be selfish to change that.”
Betty smiles, even though she doesn’t really want to. “You talk a lot of sense these days, Jughead Jones.”
“Huh,” he smiles, eyes crinkling slightly at the corners as he leans back against the truck. “Well how about that.”
They say goodbye the next day and Jughead watches as she climbs back into the Mercedes to leave for Boston. His lips are parted, exhaling air in bursts that rise out and up: tiny clouds of breath. Her own lips twitch in response and she wishes for a sprig of mistletoe somewhere - anywhere - so she has an excuse.
There’s a photo album tucked away at the back of the bureau in Betty’s living room. The cover had started off black but over time has turned to a faded brown-grey. Betty knows it’s there - not exactly hidden, but not on full display either - and it’s where she supposes that she expects it to remain for the rest of her life.
It’s a cold, snowy evening in early December when she finds the album open and in the hands of her eldest daughter.
“You’ve never showed us these,” Ella says, fingering the edges of a photograph of Betty and Jughead taken in the Wyrm Hole.
She takes a seat on the floor beside her and Ella shifts the album across so that it’s centred in between them both.
“Did Jughead give you your tattoo?”
Betty doesn’t answer at first, just stares at the face of the teenager smiling for the picture wearing shorts and a top that shows off the bottom of her tattoo as her boyfriend looks only at her.
“Mom?” Ella’s voice is insistent and Betty shakes from her head that memory of the summer before college - their last one together - hanging out on the South Side and riding on Jughead’s motorcycle; sneaking out of her bedroom after curfew (having Jughead sneak in too)
“My reasons for getting that tattoo weren’t good reasons, El,” she says. “That’s why I don’t want you to get one.”
Ella turns the page. “I’ll be in college soon.”
Betty knows this battle well and doesn’t bite. She’s just thankful that at seventeen, her daughter hasn’t yet run away with a boy she disapproves of.
“And you didn’t answer the question.”
“Yes, Jughead gave me the tattoo.”
She turns the page again and Betty smiles at the next picture: they’re parked by the river in the bed of FP’s truck, smiling for the selfie she’d taken. It had been her last night in Riverdale before college.
Ella strokes the page with her thumb. “Didn’t he drive from Riverdale when we moved here so he could help build furniture?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask him to?”
“No.”
Ella nods and Betty leans back against the piece of furniture. “What?”
“You’re an idiot.” She closes the album and hands it back. “He loves you mom.”
-
Spring arrives late in Riverdale for the second time in two years. The blossom barely lasts more than a week before it’s swept off the branches by a hot wind which brings a sharp rise in temperatures and cloudless skies. The letter arrives on a Tuesday while Jughead is at work and Luca is on his way to school.
“Dad,” he says in that deep voice which still surprises Jughead. It’s way deeper than his had ever been - even when he’d tried to be gruff - and he can tell by his son’s tone that it’s good news. “I got in.”
They celebrate at Pop’s. They always celebrate at Pop’s.
Instead of milkshakes, Pop makes them banana cream pie ice cream floats and their usual burgers are on the house. Jughead has a son who has won a part-scholarship to Yale.
Yale.
It’s Betty that he’s excited to tell.
He calls her later that evening, seated at the table with a mug of coffee, Hot Dog by his feet, and he finds himself smiling at her voice.
“Jug that’s so wonderful! You have to be so proud.”
He is. Completely and utterly proud that his boy has avoided every temptation that comes with living in a small town (on the wrong side of a small town) that comes too, from having a father who had to learn the hard way and a bank account that rarely has more than $400 in it.
They talk, as they always do, about their days; about the glorious weather they’re having; about Hot Dog’s escapades. And they talk about shared visits to New Haven.
Betty’s daughter will be going to school at Yale too.
Her acceptance letter had not come with a scholarship attached, but Jughead does know that on Betty’s late husband’s insistence, there are savings for this eventuality.
-
The summer passes all-too-quickly in a haze of parties, babysitting jobs, dances and shopping trips that Betty tries to savour. They buy all of the college essentials, the sweatshirt and the baseball cap, running shorts and a pennant for Ella’s room, and on the first weekend in September, Betty loads up the boxes and suitcase into the car ready to make the trip to New Haven.
As she closes the trunk, she thinks of Jughead, most likely doing the same thing back in Riverdale.
Jughead.
Even today, it’s him she thinks about.
The journey takes nearly twice as long as it should thanks to an accident on I91 and the inevitable traffic around campus, but eventually they arrive. Betty busies herself with putting the clean sheets on Ella’s bed, on helping unpack the books they’ve brought and the sandwich toaster her daughter had insisted on, and on trying to ignore the splintering in her chest.
It’s right as Ella is in a conversation with her new roommate about running track that Betty’s phone rings.
It’s Jughead.
-
He’s mad at himself. They should’ve left at least an hour before he’d calculated they needed to, and now here he is, driving around a one-way system and unable to find the right place.
Jughead is sweating by the time he finally parks the car, thankful - when he spots the Lexus and the BMW either side of them - that he finally upgraded the truck. He’s even more thankful when he spots Betty, dressed in a pair of jeans and an immaculate white shirt, clutching her phone.
“Hey,” she smiles. “You made it.”
“Dad doesn’t like the navigation system,” Luca grins, running a hand through his hair to push it back in exactly the same way Jughead knows he does.
Betty’s expression is knowing, but her eyes are glassy and he knows she’s trying hard for their benefit.
They each grab a box from the trunk and head towards Luca’s room. It’s Betty who helps put the sheets on the bed and who helps unpack the boxes; Betty who plumps up the pillow and then smooths out the creases; Betty who gifts his son the grey sweatshirt with YALE written across the chest.
They leave Luca chatting to his roommate and the two guys across the hall, and Jughead tries not to feel intimidated by everything. Betty’s fingertips brush against his and he takes her hand, locking their fingers and forcing himself not to look back.
The sun outside seems harsher than it had before.
“Do I look okay?” he asks once they reach the car. “I wasn’t sure what to wear.” He rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I didn’t want to get it wrong.”
“Jug- head ,” Betty says quietly, her voice breaking on the second syllable of his name. She reaches up towards him, fingers settling at his collar to loosen the top button of his shirt with watery eyes.
I want you to kiss me, he thinks.
“You look perfect,” she says.
They stand together, watching the other kids and their parents carry boxes and bags, suitcases and even potted plants across the grass.
“Are you okay?” Jughead asks her.
Betty sniffs. “No. Are you?”
His throat is very dry and that lump that’s been there all day feels like it might be about to choke him. “No.”
She turns at that, tucking herself under his chin and wrapping her arms around him. “Do you want to go get ice cream?”
“I think,” he says, resting his lips against the crown of her head. Her hair both smells and tastes like it did when they were in high school and he doesn’t quite realise what he’s done until he’s speaking again. “I think I want to get a drink.”
Neither of them make to move.
Eventually though, they end up at some hole in the wall place where the tables are sticky and the music isn’t terrible, and he can smell the lingering wave of cigarette smoke.
His mouth waters.
Neither of them are actually drinking alcohol but Jughead’s fingers itch for a Marlboro all the same.
“You know, they probably haven’t given us a second thought,” Betty says.
He chuckles. “Never a truer word.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier though,” she adds.
“You talk a lot of sense these days, Betty Jones,” he retorts, and they both laugh. He thinks of that night during the holidays - the one where they’d admitted (albeit in very few words) how they felt.
She looks up at him from the straw in her coke, suddenly serious. “Jughead, I…”
“What?”
She swallows heavily, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. “All I can think about is your hands.”
He thinks he knows what she’s saying. Hopes to God he knows what she’s saying. “Betty, are -”
“- Am I sure?”
It isn’t quite what he’d been about to ask, but it works just as well. “I guess that’s kind of what I was going to say.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve thought about it every day since you helped put all the furniture together at the cottage.”
“I’ve thought about it,” he admits aloud. “Haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
“We just dropped our kids at college. So the reasons we had before....”
“They’re not reasons anymore.”
She watches him for what feels like an eternity. His pulse is thudding in his ears and every single inch of him is desperate to kiss her.
Betty sets her glass down on the table. “Then let’s go.”
-
Her house is closer. She supposes they could get a hotel, but it’s been over twenty years and he’s all she’s thought about since… well, since Christopher died.
She hasn’t told anyone about the divorce papers she’d requested - not even Jughead - and it feels like to confess that now would be unfair on the man whose grave she lays flowers at each week.
Driving the two and a half hours without Jughead next to her is both torture and a welcome relief. She can see him in her rearview, never more than three cars behind her, and he remains there until she makes the right onto Beaufort Street.
He pulls up outside five minutes later, looking a little flustered and ruffled, clutching a bunch of flowers.
“I needed gas,” he says by way of explanation. “And uh… I saw these. Thought you might… You like flowers.”
Betty’s heart twists and she presses a kiss gently to his lips like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Thank you.”
Jughead follows her inside and up to her bedroom. Amelie is staying over at a friend’s house so shutting the door is redundant, but Betty does it anyway.
And then it’s just them.
It’s her who makes the first move, unbuttoning her shirt before he steps forward and replaces her fingers with his. They’re slow in their movements - trembling, if she’s not mistaken - until Betty covers them with her own.
“Juggie,” she says gently. “It’s okay.”
“Betts, I…” His voice cracks.
He kisses her instead.
She strokes her hand at the back of his neck, her fingertips sinking into his skin there as he works his way through the buttons on her shirt. His skin, his hands against her, makes her stomach clench in the most delicious way and she sucks in a breath expectantly as Jughead presses his lips to the swell of each of her breasts.
Betty works on the buttons of his shirt, sliding them out of the hole while kissing him, her eyes closed until eventually, she needs to see him.
Every part of his chest, it seems, is covered in ink. Dates. Names. Coordinates.
A dandelion clock.
She stops to trace the inking with her fingers, ghosting the skin and watching the goosebumps erupt beneath her touch.
“They match,” she finds herself whispering, shrugging off her own shirt.
He reaches a hand out to stroke her ribs and her legs turn to jello. “I thought you might not… thought you might’ve got rid of it.” He swallows visibly.
“Of course not.”
He kisses her again.
They move slowly, all clothes off, lying on top of the bed sheets with the pad of his thumb smoothing over every inch of her and her fingers tangling in his hair as he slips inside of her, face dropping to the crook of her neck.
Betty draws back so she can brace herself against the mattress; so she can circle her hips and push upward, and he gasps out a strangled,
“Fuck, baby,” into the air.
It’s everything she’s thought about and remembered, and yet it’s different too. Her body isn’t as smooth as it had been the last time he’d run his hands over it, and after all of those years of worrying about how she looked, she finds she now doesn’t care at all.
She comes with his name on her lips, and he tells her, almost inaudibly, that it’s always been her.