[Modern Family] Ch: 42 [Stress Rising... Gloria Incoming] (Patreon)

The Cheesecake Factory bar was just loud enough to swallow their conversation. Penny sat in the middle. To her left, Alex was sipping a strawberry mocktail. To her right, Haley was sipping something neon orange with enough fruit crammed on the rim to qualify as a centerpiece.

Penny, meanwhile, had tequila.

Three shots, to be exact, which felt like a totally reasonable precaution for the conversation she was about to have. She knocked back the first, winced, immediately chased it with the second, and slammed both empty glasses onto the bar. Exhaling hard, she leveled a look at the two sisters.

"Alright. Seriously. What is the deal with this guy?"

Haley and Alex just looked at her, waiting.

Penny threw her hands up. "Okay, fine, I'll say it. He's got the stupidly handsome face, a pretty great body-not that I've looked under his shirt, but I have eyes-a killer smile, way too much confidence, and..." She grabbed the third shot, downed it, and shivered. "God, those eyes are dangerous. So, lay it on me. What's the catch? What am I missing?"

Alex took a slow sip of her mocktail. "Well, for starters, you missed that he's incredibly intelligent."

Penny pointed a finger at her. "Right! He casually brought up tax brackets over dinner like he was reading the weather."

"I actually tested him during my debate prep," Alex said, leaning against the bar. "It wasn’t a standardized assessment, so I can’t assign a legitimate IQ score, but based on his processing speed, memory, and how fast he dismantles unfamiliar arguments? I’d put him comfortably over a one-eighty."

Penny just stared. "You gave your boyfriend a pop quiz?"

Alex shrugged, totally unapologetic. "I was curious."

Haley lazily stirred her neon drink with a straw. "Ignore her. She just gets turned on when Jason argues with her over nerd stuff."

"That is an aggressively crude oversimplification," Alex snapped.

"But it's true," Haley shot back, turning her attention to Penny. "Also, he’s an amazing kisser. And ‘pretty great body’ is a massive understatement."

Penny raised an eyebrow. "Did you guys come here just to pitch him to me like a timeshare?"

"We’re not pitching," Alex said. "You asked what his deal is. The deal is that he is annoyingly comprehensive."

"Exactly," Haley agreed. "Which is why sharing him was actually our idea."

Penny froze, her hand hovering halfway to her glass of water. "Wait. Hold up. Jason made it sound like you two hashed this out and agreed. Are you saying he didn't suggest this whole setup?"

"Nope. All us," Haley said, popping a cherry into her mouth. "We were fighting over him like idiots. I liked him, she liked him, he liked both of us, and neither of us wanted to back down. So I finally just said we should both date him."

Alex pushed her glasses up her nose. "For the record, Haley proposed the concept. I evaluated the logistics, drafted some parameters, and eventually agreed."

Penny blinked. "Wait, did you write relationship bylaws?"

"Guidelines prevent unnecessary chaos," Alex corrected smoothly.

Haley leaned toward Penny, whispering loudly. "She totally wrote bylaws."

Alex ignored her sister. "We agreed on absolute honesty, no keeping score, no making executive decisions for the other party, and communicating when jealousy arises instead of bottling it up until someone explodes."

Haley beamed. "See what I mean? Hot, rich, funny, smart, great kisser, oh and too much stamina, and somehow actually listens when you talk. Did you really think either of us was gonna look at all that and politely step aside?"

Alex gave her a sidelong glance. "That might be the most shallow, yet completely accurate, summary you’ve ever produced."

"I’m taking that as a compliment."

"It absolutely wasn’t," Alex deadpanned, "but I knew you would anyway."

Penny laughed, finally taking a sip of her water. "Okay. Okay, I'm starting to get the picture here."

Alex tilted her head, studying her. "So, are you considering it?"

"Honestly?" Penny traced the rim of her glass. "Because I had a stupidly good time with him. He didn’t spend the whole day trying to flash his cash, even though he easily could have. We got Slurpees, talked about random crap, watched a movie... I felt more relaxed around him in one day than I have with guys I’ve known for months... years actually."

Haley softened. "Yeah. That’s Jason."

"And then," Penny went on, "he drops the bomb that he's dating two girls, which should’ve been my cue to run. Except... he told me before taking me home. Before I got attached. He handed me the perfect excuse to bail, completely at his own expense, just so I’d have all the facts." She shook her head, a frustrated smile tugging at her lips. "He ruined my nice, simple plan to reject him."

Haley let out a laugh. "Welcome to the club."

Penny leaned forward. "But seriously, you really don’t mind sharing him?"

Haley’s smile faded into something more genuine. "I mean, yeah, I mind sometimes. I get jealous when he kisses Alex. She gets jealous when he’s with me. We’re sisters, Penny. We can turn someone eating the last yogurt into a six-year blood feud. Magic doesn't make this easy."

Alex nodded in rare agreement. "The jealousy is a factor, yes. But the difference is, neither of us has to sit around wondering if he secretly prefers the other one. We just talk about it."

Haley jabbed a finger at Alex. "Plus, I wasn't about to lose him just because she liked him too. I definitely wasn’t backing down."

"The feeling was entirely mutual," Alex said dryly.

Penny grinned. "Ah, there's the sisterly rivalry I was waiting for. I was wondering when that was gonna show up."

"We’re working on it," Haley quipped.

"Statistically speaking, we are vastly improved," Alex noted.

Penny shifted her focus back to Alex. "And you’re genuinely okay with adding me to the mix?"

Alex took her time answering. "I don’t know you well enough yet, so I’m not going to pretend I’m perfectly fine with it. I’m currently evaluating whether I could become comfortable with it. There’s a distinct difference."

Penny nodded slowly in appreciation. "That is probably the most honest answer I've gotten all day."

Haley raised her glass. "My answer is way simpler. If you’re cool, you don’t play games, and you don’t act like you’re coming in to replace us? I’m open to it."

Penny looked amused. "And if I do play games?"

Haley offered a blindingly sweet, terrifying smile. "Then we're gonna have a problem."

Alex side-eyed her sister. "That sounded vaguely threatening."

"It was supposed to sound specifically threatening," Haley corrected.

Penny laughed a bit too loudly, having to set her glass down. "Okay, yeah, I definitely see the family resemblance now." She wiped a tear from her eye. "So, what exactly does Jason get out of this setup, besides living out every teenage boy’s ridiculous fantasy?"

"Stress, mostly," Haley answered without missing a beat. "Like, so much stress."

"She’s actually understating the sheer volume of it," Alex confirmed.

Haley started ticking items off on her perfectly manicured fingers. "Two girlfriends who argue, two completely different personalities, two schedules, double the jealousy... and now, potentially, a third woman who requires tequila before attending relationship meetings."

Penny glanced at her empty shot glasses. "In my defense, this entire situation is objectively tequila-worthy."

Alex’s mouth twitched into a rare half-smile. "Fair point."

Penny’s amusement settled into something quieter. She hesitated. "Does he actually treat you both well?"

The lighthearted banter vanished instantly.

Haley dropped the sassy attitude, her voice softening. "Yeah. He really does. He actually listens to me, even when I’m talking about stuff Alex thinks is completely stupid. He never makes me feel dumb. And when he thinks I’m about to make a huge mistake, he tells me without treating me like some idiot who needs to be managed."

Alex stared down at her melting ice cubes. "He doesn’t ask me to make myself smaller so other people can keep up. I can go off on a tangent for twenty minutes, argue with him, correct him, directly compete with him... and he never gets insecure or bored. Do you know how rare that is?"

Penny studied them both for a moment.

They were a mess of jealousy, rivalry, weirdness, and logistical nightmares that would drive any sane couples therapist to drink. But beneath all that, there was genuine, undeniable affection.

Penny reached for a phantom fourth shot, stopped herself and picked up the glass of water again.

Haley caught the movement. "Whoa. You’re really stopping at three?"

Penny smirked. "Yeah, I think I finally have enough intel to make decisions while legally operating my own brain."

"Always a sound strategy," Alex noted approvingly.

Penny looked between the two sisters, letting out a long breath. "Alright. I’m not saying yes to anything tonight... but I’m also not running for the hills."

Haley clinked her ridiculous glass against Penny's water. "That sounds suspiciously like a 'maybe'."

Penny tapped her glass against Alex’s next. "Let’s call it 'pending further evaluation'."

Alex smiled. "I appreciate the terminology."

Haley rolled her eyes. "Of course you do, nerd."

Penny took a sip of water, a sudden spark of curiosity lighting up her face. "Okay, now that the heavy interrogation is officially over, I do have one really important question left."

Alex narrowed her eyes, instantly suspicious. "What exactly are you defining as 'really important'?"

Penny leaned in close, lowering her voice like a conspirator. "Which one of you kissed him first?"

Haley’s breezy expression instantly locked up.

A devastatingly smug smile spread across Alex’s face.

Penny looked at Haley's scowl, then at Alex's grin, and burst out laughing. "You know what? Never mind. I definitely just got my answer."

..

[Meanwhile...] 

Jason tied the thick yellow strings of the sixth heavy-duty trash bag, pulling them tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He wiped a dirt-streaked forearm across his sweating forehead and surveyed his handiwork.

The front yard was finally clean. He had also cleared the backyard because he had time.

He had been doing manual labor since seven in the morning, aggressively landscaping his way through the sheer, unadulterated stress gnawing at his stomach.

Because right now, a few miles away at a Cheesecake Factory, Haley, Alex, and Penny were having a "girls' day out."

Which was just a polite, terrifying way of saying they had formed a tribunal to decide his fate.

Jason hoisted the final heavy bag, marched it down the driveway, and shoved it into the overflowing green bin by the curb. He slammed the lid shut and exhaled a long, shaky breath.

'What were they talking about? Was Alex pulling out a whiteboard? Was Haley testing Penny with unreasonable hypotheticals? Was Penny already running for the hills?'

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked up at the sky. “Yeah, cleaning the entire property was definitely easier than sitting around doing nothing,” He mumbled to himself.

“Finally decided to declare war on those bushes?” Jay called out. 

He was standing outside the main gate with a cup of coffee.

Jason laughed, wiping a streak of dirt off his forehead. “They were starting to win. Had to send a message.”

Jay nodded in quiet approval. “Looks good. You do all that yourself?”

“Every last leaf. Figured I needed a distraction today.”

“Good exercise,” Jay said, taking a sip from his mug. “Also a hell of a lot cheaper than paying some guy eighty bucks to trim three branches and then disappear for a two-hour lunch.”

Jason grinned, leaning on the rake. “That sounds oddly specific.”

Jay gave him a flat, deadpan look. “It happened Thursday.”

Jason chuckled.

“Anyway,” Jay continued, waving his mug vaguely toward his own house. “Sonia's sister, Gloria, is coming into town tomorrow, which means Sonia has decided to turn the whole afternoon into a family circus.”

Jason froze slightly. He already knew exactly which sister Jay meant.

'Gloria.'

He kept his expression perfectly neutral.

“We're doing a barbecue around noon,” Jay grumbled, though there was a hint of tired fondness beneath the gruff exterior. “Nothing fancy. Just food, drinks, yelling, and probably Manny quoting some dead poet about love while I'm just trying to eat a damn hot dog.”

Jason smiled. “Sounds entertaining.”

“Come over if you're free,” Jay offered casually. “You live thirty feet away, so you can't use traffic as an excuse.”

“Yeah, alright,” Jason agreed. “I'll come by. Thanks, Mr. Pritchett.”

“Don't thank me yet,” Jay muttered, turning back toward his house. “Noon tomorrow. Bring beer.”

Jason watched him head inside, his eyes lingering on the Pritchett house with considerably more interest and mild dread than five minutes ago.

'Gloria is coming.'

Apparently, the universe had decided his weekend wasn't nearly complicated enough already.

First, he needed to survive whatever Penny, Haley, and Alex were plotting tonight.

Tomorrow could create its own problems.