Chapter Text
Since Moose had football practice, Midge had ridden to Pop’s with him in his Lexus, wearing a flouncy skirt with no nylons or tights to hide her long, tanned legs. But Reggie hadn’t so much as placed his hand up on her thigh.
“Mantle, what is going on with you?” she said, her voice a mixture of annoyance and concern. He flashed her his patented rakish grin and ran a hand through his hair, which was stylishly ruffled.
“Nothing, babycakes. Just eager to get you alone.”
Midge had smiled coquettishly and she was mercifully silent until they pulled into the parking lot.
As Reggie was pulling his long legs out of the car, he heard her gasp.
“Who is that?” she almost whispered.
Reggie rolled these eyes. These chicks and their drama. He reluctantly turned his gaze to where she was looking and saw a blonde step out of a shiny silver Audi. Reggie admired the girl more than the car, since her legs were tan and long as she swung out of the car. Blond curls covered her face, but Reggie recognized Betty Cooper in an instant.
He felt a warmth bloom in his chest. He hadn’t seen much of her in the last few months, except the few moments she’d waved at him while walking to class, arm in arm with her new ginger suitor. What was it with the Riverdale girls and redheads?
Speak of the devil, Adam came around the corner of his Audi. Which he parked backwards into the parking space like a douche, Reggie thought, his skin turning hot at the way Adam put his hand on the small of her back, leading her into Pop’s.
“Bets!” Midge squealed. “Your hair is so pretty when it’s out of that ponytail!”
Which was a backhanded compliment in Reggie’s opinion, but Betty just smiled at her.
“Thanks, Midge.”
“Is this your new boyfriend?” Midge asked, sounding uncharacteristically innocent.
Betty blushed down her neck and Reggie couldn’t help but wonder if the blush reached down between her blouse, between her perfect, apple sized breasts, and maybe if it hid hickeys.
The thought made his stomach roll, and he must have looked pale because Betty placed a hand on his shoulder. An electric shock ran up his arm, and Reggie briefly wondered if they could see that his hands were inexplicably shaking.
Adam grinned, showing off white teeth and dimples. “I’d like to think so,” he said, and pulled Betty to him, away from Reggie, his hand on her hipbones.
Reggie looked away when Adam went in for a kiss, but he saw it in his peripheral vision and it made his blood boil.
He excused himself and fled to the bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his face, which felt flushed.
He looked in the mirror, mussing his hair just so. “Get it together, Mantle,” he mumbled to his reflection. “She’s just a girl.”
A girl who he’d once had his palm against the front of her pink silk panties. A girl who had moaned against his mouth when he’d cupped one of her breasts.
Unbidden, he remembered something decidedly less sexual about Betty Cooper.
He’d been proud of the B he’d gotten on his midterm essay in senior English, because it was a subject he had actually put some effort into. He’d even read the book, Great Expectations, which had turned out to be interesting enough that he hadn’t just read the cliffnotes.
His father had been drinking scotch when Reggie knocked on the door to his father’s home office.
Cigar smoke hung in the air. “Dad?” he’d said, hesitantly.
“Make it quick, son. I’ve got a conference call in 20 minutes.”
Wordlessly, Reggie had handed over his midterm essay.
His father glanced at it once, giving it no more than a second glance, and said, “B’s don’t get you into Harvard, boy.”
Reggie felt something rise in his chest. “I thought-“
“Mantles don’t think, Reginald. They do. You’ve got to be a man of action.”
Reggie stood there a few more minutes, watching his father sip his scotch and focus his eyes on the computer screen.
His face feeling hot, Reggie closed the door softly and made a beeline for the front door. On the way by the foyer, he glimpsed his mother sitting on the leather couch, snoring softly, surely passed out from her endless supply of Valium.
He took his father’s Rolls Royce without asking and drove aimlessly through the near empty streets of Riverdale. He swung by the liquor store, where Chuck’s older brother worked, and slid him a $50 to let him buy a couple of six packs.
He found himself at the park, and as he approached the swings, he saw Betty on one of them, not swinging, just sitting with her head down.
He sat on the swing next to her, swinging lightly without letting his feet touch the ground.
He wordlessly handed her a beer.
She took it, cracked it open, and took a long swig. She looked up at him with shiny blue eyes. Wiping her face, she said, “Are you ok, Reg?”
His heart skipped a beat when she reached for his hand but he held it anyway. Her skin was soft.
“I’m supposed to be asking you that, Bets,” he said, but his voice cracked, and part of him wanted to tell a joke, but he couldn’t seem to get it out.
She didn’t ask him to talk about it. She didn’t ask him what was wrong. She just took his hand again and squeezed it, and they sat there in silence.
He drove her home because she’d drunk three beers to his one, and she was tipsy, her eyes half lidded and her head lolling against the seat.
“Reggie,” she said, and her voice wasn’t slurred, just soft.
“Yeah, Bets?”
“You’re not a bad guy, you know.”
Reggie chuckled, and although he’d meant it to be light, it ca
me out bitter, low in his throat.
“Underneath all the bravado, all the Mr. Ego stuff, you’re really a good person.”
Reggie had a lump in his throat when he answered her. “Those Coronas really did a number on you, Cooper.”
“Nah. I’ve always thought so, you know. Ever since we were kids. You used to pull my hair and make fun of me for my knock off clothes, but when I sprained my ankle during cheerleader practice in junior high, you carried me to the nurse’s office.”
“I did? Must have been an off day,” he said dismissively.
They had pulled into her driveway, now. He turned to tell her goodbye, and he wanted to thank her but he didn’t know how. He wanted to tell her that her hand in his had made his father’s indifference hurt less, but he didn’t know how to say that. He didn’t know how not to be Mr. Ego. He was trying to think of a quip when he locked eyes with her.
They weren’t half lidded, now, but shining and so blue it hurt his heart to look at them.
She leaned in toward him and put her mouth on his and her lips were so soft. The kiss was chaste but sweet, and he felt heat behind his eyes.
“You don’t have to be who everyone thinks you are, Reggie Mantle. You can be whoever you want. You can be that boy who sat with me in the nurse’s office until my mom came. You wiped my tears away with your thumbs and told me I was tough and I could get through this. Do you remember?"
Reggie didn’t want to answer her, but her eyes made it impossible not to. “I remember, Bets.”
“Don’t lose that boy, Reg. He was the best.” She smiled at him, flashing her straight, white teeth, and got out of the car.
When he went back into Pops, Betty was standing there, waiting for him. “You sick?”
“Nah, doll. Just admiring my reflection.” He said, running a hand through his hair rakishly.
Betty rolled her eyes, but her lips were turning up at the corners.
Reggie started toward the gang, but Betty took his hand. He turned towards her.
She was biting her lips, which was doing things to his groin.
“What’s up, Cooper?”
“I need your help,” she said.
He stood silently, waiting.
She was blushing again, and biting her lip, and he wanted to take that full bottom lip in his mouth, push her against the wall hear her moan.
He stood stock still, ignoring his impulses.
There was an awkward moment where she didn’t speak either, just looked at him, and then she averted her eyes and said in an almost whisper. “I want you to teach me –“
Reggie chuckled. “You’re the tutor, Bets.”
“No, not like that. I want you to teach me about….sex.”