Falice 2

Alone

Alice looked out her window as she enjoyed her usual cup of coffee in the morning. Out on the sidewalk, she could see her fellow next door neighbor, Fred Andrews. At his side was his ginger son, Archie. She had watched him grow up the last sixteen years, especially when her daughter tutored the boy in elementary school. He was a lot like his father with his charismatic personality.

What she had noticed however was the beanie wearing boy often with them. Sure, she knew the teenage boys were best friends, but she felt like she had been seeing more of him throughout the day in the neighborhood. On another note, it was usually the trio rather than a pair of fathers and sons.

Alice could see the three all laughing. Fred slung his arms around the boys' necks, pulling them down an inch. The boys scooped him up by the legs. As Fred was in the air he tried to convince them to put him down. "It's too early for this, boys." His feet swung in an attempt to touch the floor.

"How about we trade the ground for a round of pancakes?" Archie looked at Jughead with a mischievous smile.

"Arch makes a good point. We could eat, Mr. A."

"We can stop by Pop's on the way to my office. How about that?"

"Deal," The boys carefully put Fred down. Fred stood still for a second. He glanced fairly quickly at the boys before sprinting to the truck. "Just beat me to the truck!"

"Hey, no fair!" Archie ran after him.

"Touché!" Jughead picked up his pace. "Hey, wait up!"

Alice watched as they caught up to the man. Instead of getting behind the wheel he stood on the passenger's side of the truck. He picked his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Jughead. He knew that out of the two boys Jughead was the one with experience driving. "Why don't you chauffeur, Jug?"

"Really?"

"Go ahead. I don't mind."

"Cool," Jughead made his way around the front of the truck.

Archie turned to his father. "I call shotgun."

"You almost scratched my truck when I took you driving last week. You're riding in the middle seat."

"Almost," Archie pointed out.

"Get in, knucklehead." Fred shook his head playfully.

"Next stop, the best place in town." Jughead said as they climbed in.

"You don't have to tell me twice." Fred had grown an appetite thinking about it.

*

After work, Alice ran into Fred walking Vegas around the block. "Howdy, neighbor." Alice exited her car.

"Hey," The man kindly smiled. "How's it going?"

"Good, thought I'd enjoy some fresh air with this rascal." Fred patted the dog's head.

"I take that Archie is pretty busy hanging out with Jughead these days."

"Yeah, they're often teaming up to cause me trouble. They're practically like brothers."

"So you Andrews men have been well aquatinted with the Jones men lately?"

"Oh, uh." Fred rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. In reference to FP, "We're not really on good terms right now." He wanted to leave it at that, hoping she wouldn't question it any further. The men had a falling out not so long ago. It resulted in a halt in FP and Fred's friendship and the reason Jughead was staying at the Andrews residence. He doesn't go into too much detail because he doesn't think it's fully in his place to discuss it.