Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 141: Goth

Courtney chooses not to ruminate any further on her mother's actions. She loses her Sunday to waves of uncertainty and anxiety, but she has Shayne and the cats beside her keeping her calm and, as much as her worries simmer below the surface, it's nice to sit out on their patio as she doodles in a sketchbook and watches Mocha and Nutmeg darting around their outdoor enclosure through the afternoon.

She throws herself into work on Monday morning, pushing the weekend out of her mind as Shayne quietly asks their coworkers to please not ask about their weekend. They have a fun shoot up first thing, anyway: they'd brought on a new writer recently who had been musing about how he randomly still owned Rock Band instrument controllers but had no idea to do with them, and Damien had very quickly pitched trying to use them to play an entirely different game.

It had been Courtney's own suggestion to go totally punk/goth vibes with the shoot, and she can't help but get into it as she trawls through their wardrobe for black fishnet fingerless gloves, a studded choker, and her usual Brianna Boho silver chains. She'd managed to pull together an appropriately dark outfit from her own clothes – dark shorts, a plain black sleeveless shirt, and her black converse.

"Can I borrow one of your shirts?" she'd asked Shayne, that morning, glancing through their wardrobe.

"Go for it. Which one?" he asks, intrigued, before nodding in understanding as she reaches for one of his old dark checked shirts and shrugs it on over her shoulders.

"I'll probably tie it around my waist for the shoot. Which is very high school goth couple vibes, but anyway," she muses, laughing lightly as he grins at her.

For his part, Shayne goes for a plain black tee and black ripped skinny jeans that he had forgotten he owns, with his own black converse. He adds a black bandana around his neck when he gets to work, and before Courtney starts doing her own makeup sitting up at her desk in the main office space, he nudges her shoulder and turns his eyes pleading.

"Can you goth me up?" he requests, his phrasing making her laugh, alongside Damien and Keith, who are requesting Saige's assistance for their own dark eyeliner across the other side of their bank of desks.

"Okay, okay. You want to tell me what you want or want me to just go for it?" she asks, unsurprised when Shayne tells her to just go for whatever she feels. She starts with his eyes, smudging a dark-grey shadow across his eyelids before she adds in a black upper and lower liner, dragging the liner out slightly where they join into a very mild cat eye.

"I think I'm gonna skip the lipstick, I remember this one is really low coverage and you are not used to lipstick, you'd find it super uncomfortable to have it layered on," she tells him, twisting her black lip colour in her hand, "but – Saige, could I borrow that matte black nail polish you have for him?"

"Oh for sure!" Saige confirms, quickly darting around their side of the desk to hand the bottle over.

"Wait, so it's matte? How?" Shayne asks, intrigued, resting his hands flat on the desk and letting Courtney carefully apply the polish to his nails.

"Just a different formula for a different finish, I guess," she answers him. He hums softly, settling into silence as he lets her concentrate on applying the colour.

"Guess I can't do anything for a bit until it dries?" he confirms, when she finishes, Courtney nodding in response.

"Mhm. Might dry quicker if you rest your hands in the sun in the breakroom?" she offers, as a suggestion, before moving off to their actual costume and makeup area so she has a mirror to do her own dark lips and eyes in.

She gets caught up talking to Monica after she does her makeup, not seeing Shayne again until they're all wandering to their games set to film the video. She falls into step beside him instinctively as they do wander down the hallway to the set, glancing to her side at the same time he looks to her and his eyes widen.