Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 98: Teacher Energy

Courtney means to find another GP and request a referral to one of the neurologists as soon as possible, but instead, they get rapidly busy between work, planning for their move, and wedding planning, and she doesn't have another migraine for a while, so she kind of forgets. They stay in constant contact with the real estate agent about the house, and not long after Courtney's disastrous attempt to see a doctor, they get the information they've been waiting on.

"The sellers have confirmed that they will be able to do a handover any date between Friday, February 12th and Monday, February 22nd," the agent emails them, late on the Tuesday afternoon.

"Well, the lease on our place is up about the 20th anyway, so we wouldn't have to pay contract break fees or anything, I think, so I guess we push for earlier in that period and that gives us like a week to move?" Courtney suggests, Shayne nodding in agreement and typing out an email to that effect. The sellers get back to them, via the agent, the next day – they'll do handover formally on the 12th. Courtney, for her part, flicks an email to their landlord confirming that they will not be renewing the lease, this time.

"Holy shit, that's less than a month away," Courtney realises, in the midst of helping Shayne cook dinner that evening, although her tone is of excitement more than worry.

"We should probably start packing, given we gotta fit doing that amongst all our work shit," Shayne confirms, "at least I don't have Goldbergs- oh, wait, shit, that starts first week of February."

"We're going to be busy for the next few weeks, huh?" she comments, Shayne grimacing and nodding in response.

Their first two weeks back at work after the break are dedicated sketch-shoot weeks, full of early call times and line memorisation. The next week, however, is a little more relaxed, as they try out a few new ideas the writers and various cast members had come up with for the Pit and Games channels.

"So, this one was a bit of a random idea, but yeah, just doing a handful of the Presidential Fitness Test components – Courtney, you got the most teacher energy here, you want to take the clipboard and take all the explaining?" Sarah asks, holding out a clipboard with a handful of papers attached to the front of it.

"Teacher energy, huh?" Olivia jokes.

"I mean, I think it's just process of elimination, dude, it's definitely not the rest of us," Keith points out.

"Hey, I'm good with kids!" Shayne defends, mock-offended.

"Yeah, because you've taught Nathan so much, like..." Courtney trails off, pretending to think, "how to scream stupidly loudly all the time? Making stupid jokes in front of cameras?"

"Oh, shush," Shayne shakes his head, for a moment, before joining in everyone else's laughter as they move onto the set, Sarah giving them a rough briefing on what the three things they actually have to do are.

Shayne takes the initial introduction, very barely stringing a coherent sentence, but Courtney does a neater job of actually explaining what the video is before they move into the sit-and-reach, their first test.

"I wanna go," Olivia volunteers, first, the others slightly more hesitant. To no one's surprise, she reaches 45cm, while the other three manage somewhere around the 30cm mark. They move fairly quickly past the first challenge, though, instead moving on to push ups.

"I'm gonna go first!" Keith calls, on the pushups, Courtney raising an eyebrow as she goes to comment on his surprising enthusiasm, before he adds, "get it over with."

For his complaining, he does fairly well, managing a respectable 18 that the others hype him up over, Sarah informing him he is apparently equivalent to a 12-year-old. Courtney doesn't volunteer, but Sarah directs off camera for her to take her turn.