Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 52: Distracted

Shayne, Courtney, Damien and Olivia head inside together, casually walking into the office and each moving to their own desks to set down their things. Courtney doesn't let go of Shayne's hand until they're actively sitting at their desks – not that it's abnormal for her to do that – and she doesn't make a point to hide her left hand, but she is aware of where it rests, and she doesn't flash it in front of everyone. They say generic greetings to everyone around them as they all settle into start-of-day work, Courtney and Shayne both scrolling through unread emails for the thirty minutes before they have to go into the large meeting room for a mid-month production meeting.

It's not the most interesting of their meetings, to say the least, but it's important. It's a little bit technical, it covers strategy and planning and managing scheduling and guest appearances over the next few weeks. Which all matters, of course, but it's less engaging than when they're actually talking about content, which is what their jobs are more focussed on.

Courtney is about thirty seconds short of zoning out completely, 30 minutes deep in the meeting – so sue her, they'd kind of had a late night the previous night and she was a little distracted – when she feels eyes burning into her from diagonally across the long table. She looks around as casually as she can to find Sarah looking rapidly between her and Shayne. Sarah glances down towards the table when she notices Courtney looking back at her, Courtney following her gaze down to see her tapping lightly against her own engagement ring on her left hand before her eyes flick back up with a silent question.

Courtney simply smiles, giving the tiniest nod she can manage as she knots her own hands together on the table in front of her, left in front.

Their next discovery comes a further ten minutes later, when she feels Shayne subtly pushing a folded piece of paper against her arm. She pulls it into her notebook in front of her and lets it fall open, revealing a rough sketch of a diamond ring – not hers, but clearly an engagement ring – with two question marks, 'Shayne + Courtney' and a hand-drawn surprised emoji beside it. 'Tim' is written below the image, in what she recognises as Shayne's handwriting. It makes sense, given Tim is sitting beside him. Courtney pulls out her own pen, glancing up towards Matt for a moment before she looks down again to start writing as if she's genuinely taking a work-related note.

"Sarah saw too, I'm just waiting for it to be someone who will see and SAY SOMETHING – not exactly hiding over here ;)," she scrawls out on an empty space in the top corner, before folding the note again and sliding it back under her own arm towards Shayne.

Monica is the next person Courtney catches staring, sitting beside Damien a few places from Sarah, more directly opposite them. She raises an eyebrow at Courtney, before leaning over to whisper to Damien. Damien doesn't say anything, merely smirking, but Courtney figures the bright, sparkling ring sitting prominently on her finger is probably enough of a tell.

It seems to grow exponentially from there. Kimmy looks to Damien for confirmation, on his other side, evidently getting it as she glances back over and grins widely at them. Tommy whispers something to Tim over to Shayne's side, one of their other writers directly across the table from them openly giggles when Garret says something under his breath, and Liv jabs Courtney in the arm before indicating up beside her to their other group of producers and editors sitting closer up towards Ian and Matt at the head of the table.

"Okay, seriously, do we need to give you all a break? What's all this whispering?" Ian steps in, in the middle of one of his own sentences. He looks like he's attempting to be annoyed, but mostly, it comes across as confused and left out of the joke. "Am I missing something funny?"

"Not funny, per se," Sarah speaks up, "go on, it's a Friday, we're all just a little restless. I'm sure everyone's listening."

"If you're sure," Ian sighs, before continuing on.