Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 123: Usernames

They don't immediately go back to work after their honeymoon – they return late on the Saturday night, 6 days after their wedding, but they aren't back at work until the next Wednesday. It gives them time to relax at home, too, and they heartily lean into that aesthetic, staying lying beside each other in bed until lunch time on the Sunday.

Courtney reluctantly switches on her laptop after they finally pull themselves out of bed and eat a late lunch-breakfast. She flicks to her personal email, just to make sure there's nothing important she's missed by being almost entirely offline for a week, although her begrudging scrolling quickly turns to excitement.

"Oooh, Shayne! Photos!" she exclaims, Shayne immediately rushing to pull out the chair beside her in their dining room and settle in to flick through them.

"God you look like an absolute angel in these as much as you did on the day," Shayne murmurs as they flick through the first few photos, of Courtney and the bridesmaids around the bridal suite. Courtney smiles gently at him to the angel reference, before moving on. There's a handful of Shayne and his groomsmen in their suite downstairs, too, including one of Shayne smiling softly as the florist pins flowers onto the lapel of his suit.

"You're gorgeous too – but wait, were you wearing those flowers at the first look? That moment is burned into my memory forever and I don't think you were," she queries, confused, but Shayne quickly shakes his head.

"I asked them to take them off again for the first look so I could hug you as tightly as I wanted to," he tells her, the corners of his mouth turning up into a small smile when she glances across and meets his eyes in response with a twinkling gaze.

They continue flicking through the photos – there are literally well over a hundred – and letting their minds drift back to the day. The photos from before the ceremony are the most polished and staged, everyone standing in carefully organised orders and poses amongst all the different groups they'd been photographed in. They're still beautiful photos, and they are totally impressed with the photographer's work, but they continue flicking through.

The photos of the ceremony make both of them feel like crying, and when they reach the photo of their kiss at the altar, the exact moment they became married (in a ceremonial sense, anyway), Courtney feels a tear run down her face, turning to Shayne to see him tearing up just the same. It makes her feel like her heart might melt all over again.

"That's- just-" Shayne tries to say something, but he shakes his head, not sure where to find the words. Courtney simply nods in understanding, continuing to stare at the photo with him for a moment before reluctantly pressing the key to move on to the next.

The photos with their family after the ceremony are a little messier than the ones beforehand, but they're still perfect, and Courtney laughs as she finds one where Rosie is holding out the skirt of her dress slightly to stare at the fabric in wonder, her other niece standing beside her doing the same. The photos of the two of them together after the wedding are as cheesy and affectionate as they expect, both gazing at each other with love that oozes off the screen in waves.

"I think I've been looking at you like that for years because that's how I feel when I look at you and maybe that's why people shipped us," Courtney muses, Shayne laughing in response.

"I hide it a bit on camera, usually, but part of me doesn't want to anymore. I mean, you're my wife, of course I am completely and utterly in love with everything you are," he replies, and she squeezes his thigh beside her in response.

Their Smosh squad photo – or at least, the traditional core squad of each of them, Damien, Olivia and Ian – is one of the last from in the courtyard, and as soon as Courtney flicks to it, Shayne laughs.