Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 43: Best Friends

A/N: Keeping up my slightly off posting schedule for the rest of this week so you'll end up with 4 chapters in a week instead of 3, but why not, this week is weird anyway!

Also, slightly playing up the fact that Sarah occasionally has kindergarten teacher vibes (in the best way possible) and pulling that into character-Sarah too.

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"Morning all," Ian starts their meeting the following day, slightly earlier than usual. They don't have a whole heap to cover, it's just a bit of a planning update on a few upcoming projects, and Garret carries most of it.

"Now – today's schedule?" Sarah jumps in, a few minutes later, a few of the writers taking the cue to leave and return to their desks. "We weren't entirely sure whether to take the Damien & Shayne show plus child pitch seriously but Shayne said it was, so – that's scheduled up first, yes?"

"Yeah, Chris is bringing Nathan in here at 10 as agreed," Shayne answers, "it should be a pretty chill shoot, I think Damien and I can just play off wherever Nathan goes – just need everyone to stay kid-friendly when he's even remotely in earshot, please?"

"We're used to doing it when Rhett and Link's kids are around, all good," Tim speaks up, the others nodding in agreement.

"I'll be in there to direct, but we'll keep it pretty minimal – and no issue if it doesn't turn out. Who actually came up with the idea, you Shayne?" Sarah asks, Shayne quickly shaking his head.

"No, I'd love to take credit for it, but- he actually did it all himself, he very vaguely knows what we do here and as you might have picked up the other day when they came in, he quite enjoys being the centre of attention, so he likes the being on video thing."

"Oh, does the attention thing run in the family?" Ian jokes, a few others laughing at his pointed roast.

"Nathan literally did a Shayne-style scream at Mickey Mouse yesterday, it might," Courtney speaks up, "now – we got Bryce and Brianna after that, yeah? Nathan is going to be looking for me while he's here, I really can't do wardrobe for that shoot until after he leaves. Don't want to scare him."

"That's cool, if it works for production we could probably push that to early afternoon, not really much else on today," Garret suggests, and it is agreed, their meeting coming to a close soon after.

Nathan is his usual chaotic ball of energy when he arrives with Chris just before 10am, bouncing into the office space and saying hello to everyone he remembers from being there two days earlier.

"Aunty Courtney, Rosie wanted me to give you this," he drags his Dad beside him over near Courtney's desk, holding out his hand holding a piece of paper, "I'm not sure what it is, she's not very good at drawing but I don't tell her that."

"Thank you, Nathan. Maybe Rosie is just learning?" Courtney suggests, taking the piece of paper – she figures, being a vaguely animalistic blue scribble, it's probably Bluey again – from him and setting it beside her computer. He gives a non-committal shrug in response, before joining Shayne, Damien and Chris – and some crew – in walking through to the Games studio.

"This what it's going to be like when you and Shayne have kids, Courtney?" Olivia teases, when they've left the room, Courtney laughing and shaking her head.

"That's an if, not a when."

"Oh-" Olivia raises an eyebrow, confused, "trouble in paradise?"

"God, no, everything's perfect," Courtney answers, quickly, "we just aren't convinced we're ever going to want kids of our own. It's cool getting to just do the fun parts with the nieces and nephews, though."