[Modern Family] Ch: 135 [Honeymoon Begins...] (Patreon)

When the hotel attendant opened the doors to their suite at The Alpina Gstaad on December 10, Haley had already decided that Switzerland was just too beautiful. Their luggage was already inside the room. 

She walked into the suite before Jack, taking off her gloves as she looked around. The suite had two floors. It featured a big living room with cozy wooden furniture, huge windows, and a fireplace that was already lit next to a comfy seating area. Outside, snow covered the roofs of Gstaad, and the mountains reached far into the distance under a light winter sky.

Jack thanked the attendant and then locked the door.

Haley looked around before her eyes fell on the outside view through the windows.

“Jack, no way. Are you seeing this right now?”

Jack came in after her, and two helpers carried their bags inside. “I guess you like the room?”

“Like it?” Haley turned to him. “Honey, this place is bigger than some apartments! And look at the view! It’s like we’re living inside a luxury snow globe.”

She walked to the windows and looked out. A private balcony overlooked the town. Christmas lights were strung between buildings, and smoke rose from chimneys.

Jack joined her and put his arm around her. “Welcome to our honeymoon, Mrs. Preston.”

Haley leaned against him, smiling happily. “Okay, not gonna lie... that sounds pretty amazing every time you say it, Mr. Preston.”

A moment later...

She looked at the bedroom upstairs, admired the huge bathroom, checked the walk-in closet, and spent a few minutes trying to figure out why their suite had so many different light switches.

Jack found her by the bed, looking at the fireplace in the bedroom.

“There’s another fireplace up here,” she said.

“Yep. Saw that.”

“And the bathroom floors are heated. Like, my toes are actually toasty.”

“Very important in the Alps.”

“Plus, we have our own private spa thing in there.”

Jack crossed his arms. “Are you writing a Yelp review right now, or are you trying to figure out squatter’s rights?”

She looked around, thinking. “Seriously though, how much do you think they’d charge if we just stayed here until the twins go to college?”

Jack laughed and pulled one of their suitcases toward the closet. “Let’s just get through the next two weeks first.”

Unpacking took much longer than he thought it would.

Jack had two suitcases with clothes, toiletries, some books, and his laptop. Haley had four big suitcases and another bag with things she said were important.

He watched her lay out a bunch of dresses on the bed. “Did nobody tell me we were going to the Met Gala every night?”

Haley held up a sweater dress. “No, obviously not, I just need vibes and options! What if we randomly end up somewhere super fancy?”

“Haley, we’re in Gstaad. We can just buy it here.”

“Hello? Why do you think one of the bags is half-empty?”

Jack looked at the already full closet. “Wait. You brought four giant suitcases so you’d have room to bring more clothes back?”

Haley smiled sweetly. “Look at you, catching on so fast. You're really a natural at this husband thing.”

Later, they sat on the couch downstairs with the schedule Haley had made on their flight.

Their private jet had made the trip easy, and Haley had slept through most of it. Jack had arranged a driver to take them to Gstaad, so they could enjoy the views instead of worrying about their bags or directions.

Now Haley looked through her plans while Jack stretched his legs towards the fireplace.

“Okay, so tomorrow we walk around the village, do some cute Christmas shopping, and find one of those cafés with the good hot chocolate. Then Wednesday is that private sleigh ride you booked.”

Jack nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Thursday, I want to look at the boutiques. Friday, we have a dinner reservation. Saturday, we could do the spa, as long as it's pregnancy-safe, and I want to try proper Swiss chocolate.”

Jack watched her scroll farther down the list. “Did you pencil in ten minutes for us to breathe, or is that extra?”

Haley looked up. “Ha-ha. Hilarious.”

“Babe, I’m serious. This is tighter than one of my studio call sheets.”

“We only have sixteen days, Jack! I don't want to miss anything.”

“And we won’t." He reached over and gently took the phone from her hand. “But we don't have to do everything tomorrow. We're on our honeymoon.”

Haley glanced toward the snowy mountains and then at the fire.

“Ugh, fine. I guess we can do a little sleeping in tomorrow.”

Jack smiled. “That's my girl.”

She leaned over and kissed him, and soon after, they forgot all about their plans. They had dinner delivered to their room, talked for a long time by the fire, and simply kissed more than they expected. By the time they went upstairs, Haley felt their first night in Switzerland was perfect.

...

The next morning, Jack woke up and saw it was almost eleven-thirty. Haley was sleeping next to him, tucked under the covers with her hand on his chest. He quietly reached for his phone. It was eleven twenty-seven. They had missed their planned morning walk. Jack thought about waking Haley, but she looked so peaceful that he decided not to.

About twenty minutes later, Haley woke up.

She saw the time on the wall clock and sat up. "Oh my gosh. We missed breakfast!"

Jack put his phone down. "We can order room service."

“Ugh, no, I wanted to go to that cute café in the village!”

“And it’ll still be there tomorrow. Look outside, you don't even want to put boots on right now.”

Haley thought about disagreeing but then leaned back against the pillows. “...Okay, fair. Wait, can we get pancakes?”

"Definitely," Jack said.

“And scrambled eggs?”

"You got it."

“Ooh, and a basket of those little flaky chocolate croissants?”

Jack reached for the leather-bound room-service menu on the bedside table. "You're ordering for three again, aren't you?"

Haley rested a protective hand over her stomach, giving him a pointed look. “Excuse you, two of us are working very hard to grow right now, babe. It takes carbs.”

Breakfast arrived forty minutes later on a rolling white-tablecloth cart laden with enough food to feed a small family. They ate right in bed while watching the snow drift past the windows, and Haley happily stole half of Jack's pancakes despite having a full stack of her own.

By early afternoon, they finally managed to get dressed. They wandered slowly through the hotel, admired the cavernous indoor pool, explored the quiet timber-lined lounges, and stopped for rich hot chocolate beside a panoramic window overlooking the mountains. Haley chatted with the concierge about which spa treatments were pregnancy-safe and made a mental note to book a massage later in the week.

Then they headed back up to their suite. What had initially been a quick stop to change into warmer clothes before going shopping quickly turned into an afternoon spent right back in bed.

Haley's sex drive had kicked into overdrive since becoming pregnant, a side effect she'd been discovering with a mix of shock and amusement. Jack certainly wasn't complaining. They'd been married less than a week, they had a luxury suite completely to themselves, and neither of them had anywhere they needed to be.

Needless to say, they didn't make it to the shops.

By the following morning, Jack was starting to suspect that their meticulously planned honeymoon had become purely decorative.

...

On December 12, they finally managed to leave the suite long enough for a leisurely lunch and a stroll through the hotel'sarcade. Haley found a little boutique selling hand-painted Christmas decorations and spent nearly half an hour carefully comparing ornaments.

She eventually walked out with four.

"So, one for you, one for me, and two small ones for the twins," she told Jack, showing him the box. "For our first Christmas tree as a family."

He took the shopping bag from her hand and pressed a warm kiss to her forehead. “Yeah... I really love that.”

That night, they arranged for a private dinner upstairs in their suite. A beautifully set table stood beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, glowing with taper candles, fresh winter florals, and a sweeping view of Gstaad's illuminated rooftops below.

After dinner, Jack put on some music and asked Haley to dance.

“Come here. Dance with me, Mrs. Preston.”

Haley glanced down at her feet and laughed. “Babe, I’m literally wearing fuzzy socks and a giant sweater.”

“Good thing the dress code in our living room is pretty relaxed.”

Smiling, she took his hand, letting him pull her close as they swayed slowly across the rug with the fireplace crackling nearby. Haley tucked her head underneath his chin, resting her cheek against his chest.

“Okay... this is actually really nice.”

Jack kissed the top of her head, his voice warm with a teasing smile. “Admit it, this is way better than marching through the snow for six hours, right?”

“Whoa, don't get cocky. Your credit card and I are still hitting those boutiques tomorrow.”

He chuckled against her hair. “Hey, I know better than to stand between my wife and Swiss retail.”

...

December 13 passed much the same way.

They slept late, ordered a massive breakfast to the room, made out beside the crackling fireplace, and spent another delightfully lazy afternoon wrapped up in each other. They had more sex, took another slow, aimless stroll through the quiet halls of the hotel, and enjoyed a romantic candlelit dinner without once checking the time.

That night, Haley lay curled up against Jack on the living room couch, watching the orange flames flicker behind the fireplace glass.

“You do realize we’ve basically trashed my entire color-coded plans, right?”

Jack glanced down at her, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out somewhere around our third room-service waffle.”

“We’ve literally been in Switzerland for four days and we haven't seen anything!”

“Hey, we’ve seen plenty of the lobby.”

“And the ceiling above our bed,” Haley added, hiding a grin against his shoulder. “Like, a lot of the ceiling.”

Jack laughed warmly as Haley tucked herself closer beneath their cashmere throw blanket. After a quiet moment watching the fire, she tilted her head up to look at him.

“Okay, not gonna lie though... best honeymoon ever.”

Jack smiled and leaned down to kiss her softly. “Yeah, it really is.”

With a sudden burst of determination, Haley reached over toward the coffee table and grabbed her phone.

“Okay, I’m serious this time... tomorrow we are actually leaving the building. Village, Christmas shopping, cute lunch, cute photos for the family group chat, the whole thing.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

She tapped in a morning alarm with a decisive nod, set the phone back down beside them, and immediately melted right back against his chest.

Jack watched her eyelashes flutter shut, his fingers absently tracing her arm.

“Hey, Haley?”

“Mmm?”

“What are the actual odds we wake up when that thing goes off tomorrow?”

She thought about it for a beat, a sleepy smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Ask me again in the morning," She said. "It really depends on how cozy the pillows are and how horny I am.”

Jack chuckled softly and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Outside the towering glass windows, fresh snow continued falling silently over Gstaad, while their carefully planned honeymoon waited patiently for them to remember it existed.

--

Next: Shopping spree