Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 92: Christmas Stockings

"Merry Christmas Aunty Courtney and Uncle Shayne!" Nathan calls, loudly, opening the door when they ring the doorbell on their parents place just on 10:30am. They hear Rosie's excited call from just behind Nathan, and they quickly step inside, Shayne quickly handing off the bag of gifts he is holding to Courtney so he can lean down and lift Nathan up into the air.

"Merry Christmas Nathan! You flying, huh?" Courtney enthuses back at him, as Shayne carries Nathan in some sort of superman pose through to the living area to see all the other adults.

"Courtney! Courtney!" Rosie calls, rushing up to grip her leg, "Mum told me that today we're meeting Uncle Brian's partner, but because he's another Uncle that means you're my favourite aunty forever."

"Oh, really, Rosie? Well, you gotta keep it a secret, but you're my favourite niece too," Courtney laughs lightly, leaning down to give Rosie the hug she so clearly is searching for.

Nathan lets Shayne put him down, then, and Rosie lets go of Courtney, both kids quickly reaching for hugs from the other of the newly arrived couple before they step back and give them space to say hello to the other four adults in the room, laughing along at the kids antics.

"Hey Courtney, Shayne, so good to see you again!" Julie greets them, wandering over to hug them in turn, with Chris, Rob and Dianne quickly following. Rob quickly focuses in on Shayne's new watch, when he notices it, Shayne glancing over at and tilting his head in Courtney's direction when he's asked where he got it.

"You two are bright today," Dianne comments, once they have all got through greetings and catching up small talk, and both children have temporarily returned their attention to the new toys they'd been given for Christmas.

"Well... there is a small chance, and by that I mean we did, kind of buy a house at like 3pm yesterday?" Shayne tells them, not able to stop his own grin as he glances over to see Courtney already looking at him with a wide smile.

"Oh, really? That's fantastic, guys! You finally found something that works?" Dianne exclaims, clearly overjoyed for them, the couple quickly pulled into a series of questions they are happy to answer about where it is, what it looks like, and how it fits in with what they were looking for.

"Court basically fell in love with the place because there's a full like, separate dressing room in the main bedroom for her to set up a whole makeup thing in..." Shayne tells them, glancing over.

"I mean, the whole Instagram live stuff is part of my job, in a weird roundabout way," she defends herself, the others quickly agreeing.

"And you said it's got three bedrooms?" Julie prompts.

"Yeah," Courtney confirms, "really big ones, too, and we'll have the one downstairs as a permanent guest room, and upstairs will be a bit of an office."

"But we'll have a sofa bed in there too, so like, we could have family stay over and stuff if that was something you guys ever want to do," Shayne adds, a tinge of hesitance slipping into his tone.

"Hey, you hear that Nath?" Chris turns to his son, as he walks up to join where the adults have settled around the big dining table, "Shayne and Courtney are going to be moving into a new house and there's gonna be extra bedrooms and things so we could stay with them sometime when we're in California!"

"Yesssss!" Nathan cheers.

"Hey, I wanna stay with Aunty Courtney and Uncle Shayne too," Rosie jumps in, shifting herself up onto a spare seat at the head of the table.

"Oh, of course, Rosie," Courtney confirms, the adults letting the kids redirect their conversation as they start chattering enthusiastically about what they'd been doing with the gifts they'd already got earlier in the morning.