Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 64: Four Players

Shayne is the first in the house to wake up the following morning, as is often the case. He grabs a shower almost as soon as he gets up, knowing there will be competition for the bathroom with all three of them getting ready. When he emerges, Courtney is still asleep, but he finds Nathan sitting up in his bed colouring in the second fort sketch from the previous night.

"Good morning Nath, did you sleep okay?" Shayne asks him, Nathan's eyes energetic and awake when he flicks them over to glance at Shayne.

"Good morning Uncle Shayne, yeah, I had a good sleep," he answers, "is Aunty Courtney sleeping in?"

"She's still asleep right now but she'll be awake soon. Do you want to get ready for the day first before she gets up?"

Nathan nods his agreement, requesting Shayne's help to put together his outfit for the day, since his Dad put multiple in his bag. Shayne explains that they'll take the others to work so he can change between videos, so it looks like they shot them on different days, Nathan nodding along at the explanation before he wanders into the bathroom and into the shower.

"Morning Chris, all going good over here, Nath getting ready for the day at the moment," Shayne texts through an update to his brother, before stepping back into their bedroom to gently wake Courtney as he rubs a soft pattern across her arm.

"Hmmm. Morning baby," she greets him after a moment, voice still half-asleep.

"Morning love. Nathan is in the shower, thought I'd get him ready so you can have space to do your things after," Shayne confirms, letting Courtney pull him down towards the bed so he is lying half on top of her.

She leans up to kiss him firmly, before they both sit up again, Shayne's phone chiming with a text to interrupt anything further.

"Morning guys, thanks for the update. We knew you'd be fine, now you got your first kid sleepover down you might be in demand babysitters!" Chris' reply is almost teasing.

"Good practice for your own kids down the track too?" His next message comes through after a moment, definitely teasing. They know he's joking, they've talked to Chris and Julie about their own lack of desire to have children, so Shayne simply sends an eye-rolling emoji at Courtney's suggestion and heads back into the kitchen to start getting their breakfasts ready.

Nathan's excitement grows steadily through the morning. He chats excitedly about nothing in particular over breakfast, and afterwards, he bounds over to Courtney's keyboard with a question in his eyes that they can't quite say no to. She pulls the volume way down for the sake of their neighbours, but she lets him tap away at the keyboard making discordant noise and she tries to teach him a few notes until it's time for them to all head to the studio.

The office is fairly quiet by its own standards when they arrive. Almost all of the Mythical team is off for their Summer break, and Smosh only has a handful of crew members and support staff around – plus, of course, Damien to join in the shoots with Noah. Nathan excitedly greets everyone he remembers from the previous time he'd been in the office to shoot their first video, before locking one hand in Damien's as his new best friend, by his own declaration, shows him around to meet everyone else while Shayne and Courtney take a moment to check emails and the like.

They had settled on four games they were going to try and play: Mario Kart, of course; Smash Bros; a Minecraft fighting map and a final return to Mario Party.

Courtney steps in as the fourth player for their Mario Kart game, and they select the Star Cup as their grand prix to compete in, assuming between the right amount of talking and cuts it will make for a decent 20-minute video. Much like the previous time, Sarah steps in to direct, although she tries to keep her language kid-friendly and less actor-technical so she doesn't confuse Nathan.