Touched by his soul

Chapter twelve

"I gotta go, Betts," Jug chuckled softly, trying to undo her arms from around himself. The girl only whined, still half asleep, and held onto him tighter. "You know you're a baby when you're tired?" he murmured, having noticed that with the three weeks she had lived there.

"Please don't go," Betty sighed, looking up at him. "I'll miss you."

"Aww," Jug chuckled, stroking her blond hair softly. "I'd love to stay here, but I have a feeling your mom would notice when I didn't come to work at the bar tonight... I'll take you to Pop's tomorrow morning, okay?"

Betty sighed, loosening her arms around him. "Okay," she murmured, now starting to wake up normally.

"You could always... come with me?" he asked carefully.

"I'm tired, Jug," she said quietly. It wasn't exactly a lie, but she was definitely lying. Her nerves wouldn't let her meet anyone new. She and Jug had been over Archie's a couple of times, but other than him, she hadn't really met any of his friends. And Kevin, of course.

"Okay," he said softly, kissing her forehead. "If you change your mind though, your mom's there tonight anyways. So, if you want to come, let somebody drive you there or call me, okay?"

"Okay."

She didn't go that night, wondering there will be too many people around for her and she'd get overwhelmed. But she did go a few days later, when he had a morning shift. She told her mom that his friends were there, and Jug wanted for her to meet them, even though she wasn't entirely sure if this was true... His friends were there, yes. Jug wanted for her to meet them? Possibly. (She hoped so.)

"Thanks, mom," Betty said after getting out of the car, and pushed the door shut. Alice clearly was going to wait until she got inside, so Betty buried her hands into the pockets of her light purple hoodie (Alice didn't mention her choice of clothing by some miracle) and went inside. She could hear her mother driving away and sighed quietly, knowing there was no way back now.

As she entered, everyone's heads turned to look at her. She tried to ignore the eyes on her and smiled a bit when she saw Jughead sitting behind the counter on the barman's side, two boys and a girl on the stools behind it, playing cards. She relaxed her hands in the front pocket of her hoodie and walked there, Jug already smiling at her.

"Hey," he greeted softly. "What are you doing here?"

"I wondered I should like... Show myself."

Jug smirked at that but kept observing her as she stuck her hand forwards, towards Sweet Pea who was sitting the closest to her. "I'm Betty."

"No wonder he keeps ditching us if you look like that," the tall boy smirked, looking at the blonde in front of him. "Sweet Pea." He accepted her hand, giving it a squeeze and shaking it strongly.

Betty smiled at the first part, and then pulled herself up onto the stool next to her, feet off the ground. She learned the other two's names too; Fangs and Toni. She had heard them before from Jughead, obviously, but they looked a lot different from what she had previously thought.

"You want something to drink?" Jug asked her.

"Uh... You have Mountain Dew?" she asked, unsure.

"Yeah, sure," the boy answered, pushing himself up from his seat.

"So, Betty," Toni, the purple-pink haired girl smiled. "You're from New York, right?"

"Yeah..." she said, dropping her eyes for a moment.