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“The sun is a hole. It’s where the souls of the good reside. It’s a giant hot tub, actually, where the temperature’s always right; you’re always swimming past the one that got away; and the view to the rest of the solar system is divine,” Jughead reads out loud, slumped over the bar.
Veronica looks at him like a teacher cleaning beer glasses for the summer—which, she is actually, these days. “That sounds different to the standard Jughead Jones prose I know.”
Jughead almost smiles at the acknowledgement of his prose. He never thought Veronica continued reading any of his work past graduation. “It’s not mine. I was paired up with some Avant Garde philosopher for one of my writers’ critique groups.”
“I thought critique groups were for unpublished undergrads,” Veronica says, turning around to browse through the liquor shelf.
“And busted one-hit wonders,” Jughead responds.
“Studying other people’s words isn’t going to help you write better. Or sell more books, for that matter.”
She’s picking up bottle after bottle off the shelf now, cradling them all in her arms as she tries to turn around carefully. They get placed on the counter, sliding right under Jughead’s nose. Oh. The Grey Goose already looks rancid. No, thank you.
“Bartending a useless party for a night isn’t going to make you feel like a regular person,” Jughead snipes, for no reason at all.
Veronica starts mixing the first vat for whatever starting drink she’ll be plying their friends with tonight.
“You know, Jughead, you could be reading in any quiet nook of the town right now—and yet, here you are. Ground zero for the biggest party the town’s ever seen in years, complaining to the bartender, who has been very generously running beer on tap for you all afternoon.”
Jughead rolls his eyes and sets his book down, lending her a hand with one of the shakers.
*
Veronica makes drinks faster than Jughead could assemble an entire burger. Seriously, what is this woman made of? They have trays of jello shots, piña coladas, alcohol pops and strawberry mojitos ready to go by the time their friends start pouring into the Whyte Wrym. Jughead feels like he’s been working all day, but Veronica continues to cook up drinks tirelessly.
It’s summer and the skies are cooking up a storm in Riverdale, so naturally, they all had to hunker down for the big reunion, despite everyone being dressed in their brightest skirts and shorts.
Archie and Reggie wander towards the bar, Hawaiian tees completely soaked.
“Did you boys run a marathon to get here?” Jughead asks them, as they both pick up the strawberry mojitos. Jughead notices the matching cork bracelets they’re wearing. Doesn’t seem like Reggie’s style, is all he manages to think about it.
“Just a sprint, car broke down on the way,” Reggie answers, gulping the entire drink down. “Damn, Jones Where’d you learn how to make these? I thought you were the whiskey and tea type.”
“What?” Jughead squints.
“Boys,” Veronica suddenly appears with a fresh tray out of nowhere. “Jughead’s been my co-bartender for the afternoon. Once you’re done with those, will you help me sample these? They’re like eggnogs, but for the summer, and much lighter.”
“Sure thing, Ronnie,” Archie beams, picking up the shot glass and sipping it. He looks at Reggie, who has the same stunned expression on his face. “You have to make more of these.”
*
Amidst the chaos of the party, Jughead’s book gets inevitably nudged onto the floor at some point. Cheryl trips over it, dramatically falling into Toni’s arms, who later picks it up and tosses it back to Jughead. Veronica raises an eyebrow as she’s turning on the dishwasher. After safekeeping the book, Jughead saunters over with their first drinks for the evening.
“Ready to sit back now and let the night take the wheel?” Jughead says as they clink their drinks together.
“This is Riverdale. We’d just end up with another murder on our hands, or something equally as horrible.”
“So, that’s what this is about? Control?” Jughead questions her, who’s already sipping on her whiskey tea. Her wine-red lips leave a stain on the white ceramic cup.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me,” Veronica says calmly. She then adds, “Everyone’s having a good time. Letting loose. They’re not thinking about whatever monsters are waiting for them when they get home.”
Jughead frowns. “Like you are?”
Veronica hasn’t looked at him once during this entire conversation. Jughead doesn’t know how else to broach the subject without overstepping, or massively triggering her.
So, he goes back to square one. “Do you really think heaven would be a giant hot tub?”
“What?” Veronica laughs softly.
“You know, that book I was reading earlier. I thought the metaphors were nonsensical at first, but I’d like to hear your opinion.”
“I’m not the person you go to for literary opinions, Jughead—”
“Precisely why I need you,” he says, and she looks up at him.
Their eyes meet somewhere in the middle of confused silence.
Jughead quickly recovers, “—to give me your opinion. You never tell people what they want to hear. Only what they need to.”
Veronica lets out an exhale. “Will you read it again to me?”
*
“It’s where the souls of the good reside. It’s a giant hot tub, actually, where—” Jughead’s reading it to her, but Kevin interrupts them, asking them for a refill of the mojitos which they’ve stopped making an hour ago. Jughead tries to explain this to him.
Veronica just pats him on the shoulder and slips out of the barstool. “No worries, I’ll make a new batch and bring it to you, Kev. Just sit tight with Fangs over there—I’ll put the extra mint in for his glass.”
“You’re the best, Veronica,” Kevin says, pulling her face in for smooch on the cheeks. He runs off again and Veronica smiles, warm and content.
Jughead notices the way her neck starts flushing red after she’s had a few drinks. Her pearls still sit comfortable over her collarbone, although—and he’s never noticed this before—it starts looking worn on her. Pearls don’t do that. Not ones that cost as much those ones do, anyway.
So, it’s Veronica, he decides, who’s outgrown them.
“Sorry about the interruption,” Veronica says, vigorously crushing ice like she’s trying to unearth some ungodly corpse in the Arctic. “The divine hot tub? That’s made me think of something else. Remember that one time we went to the lakehouse?”
Jughead has been trying not to think about that all evening.
“I do,” he says.
Veronica’s ice-cold fingers brush against his hands, as she hands over the mixers.
“We never talk about that,” she says.
There’s no preparing Jughead Jones for the look Veronica Lodge gives him, right then and there.
*
The party isn’t even close to winding down and neither Jughead nor Veronica have actually been present at any point. They’re in the kitchen now, slipping their mint-stained fingers in each other’s hair, carefully teasing out all the sensations they’ve been numb to feeling this entire time.
“Cheryl wanted more shots,” Veronica says, as Jughead quietens her lips with a kiss. For the first one they’ve had in eight years, it lasts far too quickly.
“I don’t care what Cheryl wants,” Jughead tells her. “You have plenty to deal with on your own.”
“I can care about a lot of things,” she says, fingertips lightly scratching the back of his head and neck, as Jughead relaxes into his shoulders, icy exterior melting away. “I want to know your answer, though. Why do you care about my plight?”
“Well, your problems are bigger than my problems. It makes me feel better about mine.”
Jughead relishes the smile that forms on Veronica’s face and the eye-roll that follows.
“You’re never getting into hot-tub heaven, Jughead Jones,” she says, this time, pressing their bodies closer together until he can practically feel her skin underneath her thin, cream pink, silk-cut dress. She’s come back with new resolve, it seems.
His hands drop down to her open back, muscles moving under his touch like a serpent.
“I know,” he says, tilting his head back as her thumbs dig into the dips of his hips.
As her lips start biting into his neck, he's already picturing the wine-purple marks on his skin. Why is he so into that.
“Yeah?”
He's kissing into her hair now, in between tiny, stilted whines, “I’m just stuck here, in this pit of a town, with you.”