Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 55: Impulse Booking

They film another TNTL at the end of that same week of the incident, although Ian isn't part of it at his own request – but they do have Noah and Keith back, and they have a rule: at least one of everyone's bits has to rely on no props at all.

Keith, for his prop-less attempt, mimes leaning in for the kiss with Noah, and ends up with water spat back all over his face – "worth the success!" he calls, while wiping desperately with his shirt to get rid of it. Olivia pretends to be her new dog when Shayne is in the chair, successfully making him laugh in incredulity as she races around the room on all fours, injuring herself in the process. Damien cheats with an inside joke against Shayne, and Noah attempts to recreate his weather report from a year ago with less success.

"I couldn't spit this time without the raincoat – also, why is everyone picking me for the no props?" Shayne asks, after his turn, "it's only like, what – Court and I who haven't done the no-prop thing and we're only two people in?"

Keith takes the seat next, followed by Damien. Courtney, for her part, uses her no-props round on Damien with a handful of bad puns and he actually laughs, sighing in resignation after he does so.

"Those were bad, dammit, Courtney."

"You laughed!" she points out, grinning, before she steps back behind the divider to let someone else take their turn trying to make him laugh.

Her own turn in the hot seat is next, and she's doing remarkably well at holding her water in, despite all the props now being in use for most of the others. She isn't surprised, to say the least, when Shayne steps out for his turn, no props in hand, and takes a seat on the other stool that has been placed right beside her, turned to the side to face her.

"Unlike Damien I'm not cheating with an inside joke, but I guess I'm trying something different that we will cut if you're not cool with it, but..." he tells her, voice tending a little softer than usual, and she can already feel herself smiling a little too much as she glances over and meets his eyes, recognising the affection in them before he continues speaking. "I still kind of can't believe that we're engaged and I put that ring on your finger. It's kind of the best thing ever. And... we haven't actually kissed on camera as ourselves before, just as characters. I don't mind if we don't, that's up to you, just if there weren't cameras I'd probably kiss you right now."

She glances over at the cameras and pointedly rolls her eyes, although she's smiling enough that water is starting to leak out of the corners of her mouth. She makes a split-second decision when she realises his time is definitely up but they're not calling it anyway, leaning away from him to spit her water onto the floor before she turns and reaches over to cup his cheek and kiss him – briefly.

"Different worked," she grins after they pull back, and he laughs, hand reaching up to squeeze hers for a second before he wanders back behind their screen to let the rest of her turn continue.

"Great, I gotta follow that," Damien jokes from behind the divider before stepping out when she's got another mouthful of water.

"Not to overshadow all the shippers and all, but didn't you post a photo of you guys kissing on Instagram a few months back?" Noah points out, when they do the outro a little while later.

"Photo, yeah, no video though," Shayne clarifies, before launching into an outro asking the audience to suggest different challenges for future episodes.

"Hey, remember when we said nothing much would change between us in videos?" Courtney jokes, after they cut, and Shayne laughs.

"Yeah, that was wrong."

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They have a busy weekend, the following weekend. They each separately catch up with friends on the Saturday morning, both of them facing ample questioning about their recent engagement. The topic comes up again, although the questions are less persistent, when they finally catch up with Shayne's parents for dinner on the Saturday evening.