Miss Atomic Bomb (Jughead Jones)

Part 10

"Hey Juggie!" I greeted him.

"Sup, Mari."

I debated whether to hug him or not since I really didn't know where we were on the relationship scale at this point.

We had kissed and all that jazz, but we didn't really talk much about whether we were dating or still friends.

I decided not to hug him since Jughead didn't seem like the type for PDA.

"So I heard you, Archie, and Reggie got into a fight. What happened?"

He shrugged, "I put Reggie in his place and when he was about to punch me, Archie took the hit for me."

"Really?" I asked raising a brow, "I have eyes, You're not really in the best spot with Archie right now."

"He came over and talked to me, I think we're heading in the right direction." He stopped and remembered something. "I saw him and Grundy again, in the music room."

I gasped, "No way! I assumed it was a one time thing!"

"Well apparently not.  I went over to his house too.  He said he heard the gunshot and that he was telling Weatherbee what happened, no matter what Grundy said."

"Well that's good information."

I looked up at him.  We both were silently pleading for the other to ask the question we were afraid to.

"Are we a thing or not?" I asked while letting out a breath I was holding.

He looked down at me, "Do you want to be?"

Of course he found a way to redirect the question back to me.  On one hand I really liked Jug, I always had actually,  but I wouldn't admit it to myself. On the other hand I didn't want our friendship to be completely ruined if we broke up.

So with all the courage I had I whispered a small, "Yes."

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in closer to him and looked directly at me.

I searched his sky-colored eyes and smiled at him.

"Woah, woah, woah mister. I have some rules we need to put in place here."

He smirked at me and let go.

"I think we need to slow down this whole relationship.  That kiss was a kickstarter, but we need to take it down a few levels." I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, "No making out or anything crazy like that."

He nodded, "I can definitely agree with that one."

I laughed at him and took his hand.

"We'll act like we always did, but just more," I searched for the right word to say, "Cuddly."

"Cuddly," he repeated as he contemplated the word, "I can work with that."

Just then the Pep rally started.

The cheerleading squad ran onto the field to perform their routine.

It was surprisingly good for the few practices that they had. They were all smiles as they moved across the field doing flips and dance moves.

Veronica bent down in a not-so-appropriate way and slapped her thighs.

The dance ended and they all cheered and made way for the football team.

My eyes wandered over to a girl with long red hair and I gasped.

"Mom?" I whispered.

Jughead focused returned to me, but I was too caught up on the red-head to notice.