Probably Gary
They’re in bed when Penelope decides to do it, which feels fairer than doing it in daylight but still not fully legal.
Jack is half-sitting against the headboard with a book open on his stomach in the posture of a man who has, quite reasonably, assumed the evening has entered its low-stakes phase. Penelope is on her side beside him, staring at the ceiling with the expression of someone about to file a complaint with reality.
He notices after maybe twelve seconds.
“What.”
She turns her head slowly.
“I need to lay down some ground rules.”
Jack closes the book on one finger and looks at her.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is a little ominous.”
“For me?”
“For the future,” she says. “Potentially for institutions.”
He puts the book on the nightstand.
That’s how she knows she has his attention now, which is annoying, because suddenly this feels more official than she wanted.
“Okay,” he says.
Penelope takes a breath.
Then another.
Then says, “Please never propose to me.”
Jack blinks once.
She keeps going before he can form a face.
“I mean it. I will die.”
He opens his mouth.
“Not in a good way,” she says. “Not in a romantic overwhelmed way. In a full-body shame event way. Like if you did a public display at a restaurant I would have to burst into flames and leave this country.”
Jack’s mouth has started doing that thing where he is trying not to laugh too early and understands that laughing too late would also be dangerous.
“Okay,” he says carefully.
“No, I’m serious.”
“I can tell.”
“I’m not being presumptuous,” she says, already spiraling a little now that she can hear herself. “I’m not saying you were imminently about to launch an operation. I’m just saying this is very important to me in a standing constitutional sense.”
“Standing constitutional sense,” he repeats.
“Yes.”
“That feels loaded.”
“It is loaded.” She pushes herself up onto one elbow. “I’m saying we can absolutely get married, if that is ever a thing we both want, but it has to be, like, courthouse.”
She pauses.
Then lifts a finger.
“Or Vegas.”
Jack looks at her.
She nods once, more certain now that she’s heard it out loud.
“Actually, yes. Very pro us casually going to Vegas, getting drunk, and seeing what happens.”
His mouth starts to go.
Penelope keeps going, because now she can see it.
“Preferably with a fat old Elvis. Like not a sexy Elvis. I want one who looks a little damp. That would be ideal, actually.”
Jack laughs, helplessly.
“Ideal.”
“Yes. No emotional gazebo. No vows that sound like a nonprofit gala. Just the two of us making a light administrative mistake under neon with a man named probably Gary doing ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ in a key that hurts.”
“That does sound more on-brand.”
“Thank you.”
He studies her for a second, still smiling.
“So your dream wedding is an Elvis officiant and possible dehydration.”
“My dream wedding is no one saying the phrase journey.”
“That’s fair.”
“And no one crying in a way that makes me responsible for them.”
“Also fair.”
“And if I have to wear white, I want it to be in a way that feels vaguely disrespectful.”
Jack’s shoulders shake once.
“I can work with Vegas.”
She narrows her eyes. “No secret plan to make it tasteful.”
“That seems unlikely at this point.”
“Good. I want deeply artisanal bad judgment. I want buffet shrimp. I want a limo that smells faintly like sunscreen and cigarettes.”
He’s fully laughing now.
Penelope presses on.
“Courthouse is also fine. I just cannot have a wedding. I can’t think of anything worse.”
Jack studies her face.
“You can’t think of anything worse.”
“I mean, obviously famine. War. Fascism. I’m talking socially.”
“That’s fair.”
She points at him.
“Thank you.”
He turns fully toward her, because apparently they live here.
Penelope keeps going.
“No wedding. No proposal. No ring reveal with hidden photographer. No speeches. No vows in front of seventy-three people crying into napkins while I try to survive being perceived.”
“Seventy-three is specific.”
“That’s because I’ve thought about this,” she says. “Against my will.”
Jack nods once, very solemn.
“Clearly.”
“And,” she says, which is where the real thing is, “you are never, under any circumstance, to do the standing bit at the altar.”
That lands.
Not badly.
Just with weight.
She sees it happen in his face and immediately winces.
“Please know I’m saying this with love.”
“Mm.”
“I’m not trying to be offensive. I’m trying to prevent a very specific form of psychic injury.”
Jack is still looking at her.
Penelope keeps digging, because stopping now would require dignity and that train has left the station.
“I just — I don’t want anyone doing the whole…” She makes a helpless, disgusted little motion with one hand. “You know. The inspirational voice. The miracle. The look-at-love-overcoming-adversity of it all. I will actually die. I will die looking directly at you, which will be awful for both of us.”
His eyes flick down for a second.
Then back up.
She softens immediately.
“Not because I don’t love you,” she says. “Obviously. The opposite, actually. I love you so much that if anyone turns our life into a TED Talk with flowers, I’ll start biting people.”
That gets the smallest crack in his mouth.
Good.
Encouraged, she keeps going.
“I don’t want to see you differently in some ceremonial setting than I see you every other day. I don’t want you turned into symbolism. I don’t want us turned into symbolism. I don’t want there to be a moment where people are like, wow, look at him standing for love, and I have to spend the rest of my own wedding trying not to commit a felony.”
Jack actually laughs then.
Quietly.
Penelope points at him. “This is not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“It is not.”
“It’s a little funny,” he says again, because he knows she can hear the smile in it now. “Mainly because you appear to think I was secretly workshopping an able-bodied jump scare for the altar.”
She stares at him.
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Okay, good.”
“That was never in the plan.”
“There was a plan?”
“There is not currently a plan,” he says. “I’m speaking hypothetically.”
“Good,” she says. “Excellent. Hypothetically, abolish it.”
He laughs again, fuller this time, and reaches over to drag her gently closer by the wrist until she has to lean into him whether she wants to or not.
Penelope lets herself be folded in, because she is agitated, not insane.
Jack tucks her against his side and says, “For the record, I’m not offended.”
She presses her face to his T-shirt. “Okay.”
“I also don’t want our life turned into a pageant.”
That makes her lift her head.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“No secret dramatic proposal.”
“No.”
“No aisle miracle.”
His mouth pulls once. “Absolutely not.”
“No standing bit.”
He gives her a dry look. “Penelope, I can barely imagine anything less appealing than converting my own wedding into an object lesson.”
Relief hits her so fast she nearly gets emotional about it, which is disgusting.
She covers by saying, “Great. Wonderful. Love alignment.”
Jack’s hand settles at the back of her neck.
“You done?”
She thinks about it.
“No.”
“That tracks.”
She shifts up onto one elbow again, because apparently there are indeed additional articles to this constitution.
“If there is ever paperwork, it should be efficient. Nice clothes, yes. Maybe dinner after. Maybe a hotel if we’re feeling festive. But no public declarations with amplification.”
“No amplification,” he repeats.
“None.”
“Can there be witnesses?”
“Minimal.”
“Define minimal.”
“Like two people who know how to behave in a government building. Or one damp Elvis and a woman named Cheryl from county records.”
“That does narrow the field.”
“It absolutely does.”
He smiles.
Then says, quieter now, “You know you can just say you don’t want a wedding.”
She looks at him.
“I know.”
He waits.
She sighs.
“I don’t want a wedding,” she says. “I want to be married, potentially. I do not want to be a bride. That feels like a costume designed by my natural enemies.”
That gets him properly.
His shoulders shake once under her hand.
“You’re insane.”
“Yeah, but I’m right.”
“You might be right.”
“I am right.”
He nods once, still smiling.
“Okay.”
That maddeningly simple okay.
Penelope narrows her eyes.
“That’s too easy.”
“What did you want, resistance?”
“No. I just expected at least one follow-up question.”
He thinks for a second.
Then: “Do I still get to marry you in this hypothetical anti-production.”
Her whole face goes hot so fast it feels unfair.
She squints at him on principle.
“That was manipulative.”
“It was a question.”
“It was phrased in a way designed to cause internal damage.”
“Did it work?”
She glares harder.
Jack’s hand moves once at the back of her neck, thumb warm against her skin.
And because apparently tonight is about saying humiliatingly real things in manageable doses, Penelope mutters, “Yes. Fine. Obviously.”
His expression changes.
“Okay,” he says again, softer this time. “Then courthouse is fine.”
A beat.
“Vegas is also fine.”
That gets her right in the chest.
She immediately ruins it.
“If you ever surprise me with a horse-drawn carriage, I’ll drown us both.”
“That seems fair.”
“And if anyone says the phrase love makes us rise, I’m keying their car.”
“I’ll note that.”
“And if you ever use the word bride in reference to me, I’m leaving through a window.”
He actually laughs into her hair at that.
Penelope settles back against him, relieved enough now to feel slightly stupid.
After a second she says, muffled against his shirt, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in any way.”
Jack looks down at the top of her head.
“You haven’t.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
She closes her eyes.
Then adds, because she is still herself and apparently unable to end a conversation on the most emotionally correct note available, “Again, very sorry.”
His arm tightens around her.
“I gathered.”
A beat.
Then, very dryly:
“For what it’s worth, I’m a little hurt you think I’d propose in a restaurant.”
Penelope gasps and sits up enough to look at him.
“I don’t know how low you’re willing to stoop for surprise.”
“That’s insulting.”
“It is.”
He catches her by the waist before she can retreat and pulls her back down against him.
And because he is still Jack, and because mercy is never quite his first instinct when she is pink and flustered and saying accidentally revealing things in bed, he adds near her ear:
“Courthouse is fine.”
A beat.
“Vegas is fine.”
Another beat.
“But I am dressing offensively well.”
That, unfortunately, sounds perfect.
—
Jack’s mom’s kitchen is doing three things at once: smelling like garlic, hosting a loud argument about whether Aiden has ruined the good skillet, and making Penelope feel, as it increasingly always does, like she has wandered into a house that is somehow both total disorder and a functioning system.
Jack is at the island with a beer and the expression of a man who has long since accepted that every room in his mom’s house belongs to whoever is currently speaking the loudest.
Which, at the moment, is Aiden.
“No, because you can’t just use soap on it,” Aiden says, offended on behalf of cookware. “It’s cast iron.”
“It had chicken on it.”
“It’s seasoned.”
Jack lifts his beer. “I’m on Team Pan.”
“Thank you,” Aiden says.
Penelope is carrying a bowl of cut lemons from the counter to the table when she passes behind Jack.
And because apparently her body is now operating on a private domestic language her brain is only occasionally consulted about, she reaches out and gives him a quick, light slap on the cheek.
Not hard.
Not dramatic.
Just: passing by, small affectionate whack, onward.
The bowl of lemons keeps moving. Penelope keeps walking. She doesn’t even fully register she’s done it until she’s halfway to the table and the room has gone a fraction quieter than it was.
Jack turns his head slightly in her direction, one hand still around the beer bottle.
Then he smiles.
Not performative. Just that private little mouth-twitch that means the contact landed exactly where it was meant to.
“Wow,” he says. “Okay. Rude.”
Penelope, still facing the table, says, “You know what you did.”
“I absolutely do not.”
Aiden is already laughing.
Cal points between them. “What was that?”
Maggie, at the stove, turns and clocks the whole exchange in one swift maternal sweep. Penelope with the lemons. Jack with the smile he is trying, badly, not to have too visibly. The lingering shape of something that was obviously affectionate and just as obviously not for public committee review.
“Aww,” Maggie says, delighted. “Look at you two.”
Penelope closes her eyes for one second.
Jack takes a sip of his beer with the calm of a man who knows exactly who has been hit harder by this development and is choosing, generously, not to exploit it yet.
“It was assault,” he says.
Maggie snorts. “You liked it.”
“Maybe.”
Penelope turns back toward them, scandalized. “Oh, now he’s giving testimony.”
Jack lifts one shoulder. “I believe in accuracy.”
“Traitor.”
“Violent traitor,” Aiden adds helpfully.
Penelope points at him. “I will hit you much harder.”
Maggie laughs outright and turns back to the stove.
“Dinner in ten,” she says. “Try not to commit any additional crimes in my kitchen.”
Cal looks at Jack. “Can I get one of those too, or is that just premium content?”
Jack glances sideways at him. “You could not survive that level of nuance.”
Penelope has to look down at the lemons very suddenly because she is, in fact, surrounded by enemies.
—
Later, the house has migrated into its usual post-dinner sprawl.
Maggie is somewhere down the hall “just grabbing one thing,” which everyone knows means she has found either a candle, an old photo, or a TikTok she intends to emotionally impose on the room.
Cal is in Jack’s chair, which he has acquired through a combination of shamelessness and timing. He is in the middle of trying to hold a wheelie in the living room while Aiden, from the sofa, contributes absolutely useless feedback.
“You’re too stiff.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means your vibe is wrong.”
“My vibe is athletic.”
“Your vibe is suburban.”
Jack is on the couch, one arm along the back cushion, coaching with the bored precision of a man who has explained this exact mechanic a thousand times to exactly these idiots.
“No, don’t yank it,” he says. “Small pull, then trust the balance point. You keep trying to overpower it.”
Cal gives him a look. “That felt personal.”
“It was technical.”
“It felt mean.”
“It can be both.”
Penelope is in the armchair across from them, laughing into her wine.
Cal tries again. Gets the chair up for half a second. Overcorrects. Comes back down with a loud clatter.
Aiden points at him. “There. That noise. That’s the sound of a man with no center.”
“Shut up.”
Maggie reappears in the doorway holding her phone out in front of her like a woman bringing in breaking news.
“Aww, look at this,” she says. “I found this on TikTok.”
Every person in the room has the exact same thought: this could go anywhere.
Maggie comes further in, already smiling at the phone.
“It’s a wedding,” she says.
“Oh good,” says Aiden. “My favorite genre.”
“No, be nice,” Maggie says. “It’s sweet.”
Penelope, still half watching Cal fail at wheelies, glances over at the screen at exactly the wrong moment.
A groom at the altar. Music. Guests crying. The slow, heavily telegraphed effort of him pushing up to stand while everybody around him collectively loses their minds.
Penelope’s whole face changes.
“Nope,” she says immediately. “Hate it. Take it away.”
Maggie looks up, startled. “Aw, really? Why? It’s sweet.”
Across the room, Jack turns his head.
There’s the look.
That slight sideways look, the one with the smirk just barely tucked into it. Not because he disagrees. Because he has recognized, with perfect accuracy, that Penelope is about to say something both probably correct and socially inconvenient in his mother’s living room.
Cal and Aiden both swivel toward her, delighted already by the tone.
“What?” Cal says. “Why?”
Penelope sets her wine down on the side table with the air of a woman preparing to defend a dissertation she did not ask to give.
“Because it’s inspiration porn,” she says.
Aiden barks a laugh. “Jesus Christ.”
“No, I mean—not them. If he wanted to stand for her, great. Sincerely.” Penelope points toward Maggie’s phone without looking at it again. “But if the emotional climax of a wedding video is ‘look, the disabled man can briefly approximate an able-bodied shape for the room,’ then I’m sorry, but that is not romance. That is pageantry for nondisabled people.”
Maggie lowers the phone a little, still frowning at it. “Aw, honey, I think he just wanted to stand for his bride.”
“Yeah, no—I’m sure it meant a lot to him. I hope it did,” Penelope says. “I just wonder if he wanted it because it actually mattered to him, or because the room trained him to think it would mean more if he did.”
Maggie’s face shifts a little.
Not defensive. Thinking.
“And either way,” Penelope says, looking at the phone now, “the video isn’t interested in the difference. The video is interested in the room waiting for its miracle snack.”
That gets Jack.
He laughs, looking down into his beer.
Cal is fully grinning now. “Miracle snack is insane.”
“Thank you,” Penelope says, warmed now by outrage and audience. “If the whole thing hinges on the disabled guy tanking his blood pressure so everybody can have thirty seconds of vertical romance, maybe the crowd is the problem.”
Aiden is laughing so hard he has gone partially horizontal.
Maggie gives Jack a look. “Is this what you deal with all the time?”
Jack takes another sip, still visibly amused.
“This is pretty representative, yeah.”
That only encourages her.
Cal rolls the chair backward a few inches with his heels, thoughtful now in spite of himself. “That’s actually…”
“Right?” Penelope says.
Jack drops his head back, openly laughing now.
Aiden points at him. “He loves when she does this.”
“Of course he does,” says Cal. “She’s taking out the entire institution.”
Maggie looks back at the phone, then locks it and lowers her arm.
“Huh,” she says.
Penelope instantly softens a degree. “I know you brought it in because it was sweet.”
“I did.”
“I know.”
Maggie comes over and sits on the sofa arm near Jack, studying Penelope with narrowed, interested eyes.
“I still think the bride looked happy.”
“I know,” Penelope says. “I’m not saying they weren’t. I’m saying the way people package that moment always feels…off. Like it’s less about them and more about everybody else getting to feel uplifted by disability in formalwear.”
Cal nearly loses whatever balance point he’d managed to find.
Aiden huffs a laugh. “Disability in formalwear.”
Jack just looks at Penelope with that maddening mix of fondness and recognition that means he knows exactly where this is coming from, only now she is doing it in his mom’s living room with a wineglass and an accidental audience.
Maggie sighs and pats his shoulder.
“Well,” she says. “You found a live one.”
Penelope covers her face. “That is not what happened here.”
“It’s a little what happened here,” Jack says.
She shoots him a look.
He is smiling fully now, not bothering to hide it.
“Don’t,” she says.
“What?”
“That face.”
He lifts his brows innocently. “What face?”
“The one where you’re delighted I just started a small cultural war between wheelie practice and dessert.”
“That seems unfair.”
Cal, still in Jack’s chair, points dramatically. “I would like it noted that I support Penelope’s anti-standing agenda.”
Aiden doesn’t look up from his drink. “That’s because it’s the first political movement that requires absolutely nothing new from you.”
Cal slaps the rims. “Finally. A cause.”
Maggie shakes her head, half laughing, half resigned.
“Okay,” she says. “No more wedding TikToks for this house. Message received.”
Penelope reaches for her wine, then looks at Maggie. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to turn that into a tribunal.”
Maggie waves her off. “You’re fine.”
Jack looks over at her.
Just that same quiet amused look from earlier in the kitchen after she slapped his face on her way past. The look that says: yes, I know exactly what that was.
Then, because he is incapable of leaving her fully alone with tenderness in a room full of witnesses, he says, “You know, Pen, if you wanted to ban standing bits from family programming, there were easier ways to do it.”
She narrows her eyes. “Name one.”
He thinks for half a second.
“Another assault in the kitchen.”
Cal tips his head back and laughs.
Maggie says, “Jack!”
Aiden huffs a laugh under his breath.
Penelope stares at Jack in pure betrayal.
He smiles into his beer.
She shakes her head. “I regret getting involved with any of you.”
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