Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 82: Thanksgiving

Their first day apart is bearable, largely because they're both so busy. Shayne's character has an active arc-of-sorts in a few episodes of Goldbergs, and he's in almost every damn scene they're shooting, so he has an early call time the day before Thanksgiving, filming running through until the late evening. They're shooting on location away from the usual studio, too, and it means he has a longer drive home, not stepping into their apartment until past 9pm. He grabs a protein bar from the kitchen for his half-assed attempt at an evening meal before quite quickly falling back into their bed, pulling Courtney's pillow into his harms to press his face against as he tries to force himself into sleep.

Courtney's first night in Utah had been quiet enough, mostly involving letting Django demand her constant attention. Family start arriving on the Wednesday, though, and she's quickly drawn into compulsory socialising and catch-ups, toning down some of her discussions of her own life to be a little more Mormon-friendly for the more actively religious portions of her extended family. She's drawn into helping with food preparation, too, and she gives a long sigh.

"I'm still kinda hopeless at cooking anything remotely complex. I can do good fancy ramen, but..." she trails off, her Mum shrugging and handing over a bag of vegetables to chop anyway.

"Ooh, but you're engaged honey, you gotta get good at cooking for him, right?" one of her aunts comments in response, and Courtney can tell that it's a joke but it still makes her skin crawl just a little.

"Shayne's a better cook than I am, actually," she rebuts, shrugging it off.

"Your mother said he had something else and couldn't make it over here to meet everyone?" her aunt follows up, Courtney nodding.

"Yeah. He was over here at Christmas and met a lot of people but – he's literally still got work all day today until like 8 tonight, we couldn't find a flight late enough that he could actually come. He's very sorry and annoyed he couldn't make it," she reinforces, before one of her nephews races into the kitchen crying about an injury sustained from falling over in roller blades in the backyard. She's quietly happy for the distraction from quizzing her.

The emptiness hits Shayne with full force at approximately 11am on Thursday, when his Dad sends him a picture of most of his family all crowded into Chris' kitchen in Seattle 'helping' lunch prep at almost the same time Courtney sends him a video of Django and all the kids in her family running around her mother's backyard. He hadn't grown up with a big family – there were a couple of aunts and uncles and a few cousins they saw when they were much younger, but it was often just his immediate family – but as he grew up, he had settled firmly into valuing the family he did have.

And yeah, Thanksgiving was a stupid holiday, but he valued the holiday atmosphere with his family, at least, and it was especially sucky to know things were happening but he just wasn't there.

He tries to make something of it for himself. He had got in a good workout in the early morning, using the relatively empty gym to his advantage, before dropping past one of the grocery stores actually open on Thanksgiving morning to grab himself a few ingredients. Mythical Chef Josh had put out a video a couple weeks before Thanksgiving about how to prepare a kind of Thanksgiving-ish meal for one, and Shayne had watched it with intrigue, going to ask Josh a couple extra things afterwards.

He throws on one of Courtney's Spotify playlists that is a little more his music taste than hers – they overlap a lot, but they're not the same, and he goes a little heavier on some of the punk rock – and tells Alexa to put the volume up loud, although not loud enough to piss off their neighbours on the off chance they're around. He lets himself settle into the vibe, singing absentmindedly along and moving rhythmically around the kitchen as he prepares turkey, gravy, and a couple of his favourite Thanksgiving sides in small enough portions to give him lunch and some leftovers the next day.