Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 149: New Years Eve

Courtney's family don't have any big Christmas gatherings planned this year, and it means after they fly back into LA a couple of days after Christmas, they get to spend the weird liminal space-time of the week between Christmas and New Year at home, quietly doing whatever they want to and a whole lot of nothing. Shayne offers to catch up with Damien, but Damien sends a cryptic answer that he's busy with someone else through to the end of the year (Courtney bets it's Saige, Shayne counter-bets that he's referring to a game as a person), so instead, they stay home and without plans for the last few days of 2021.

Going to a big New Years Eve party had never been their idea: Shayne had almost said they couldn't make it when the invitation to one particular house party had been extended to a group of them on set at Goldberg's a couple of months before the end of the year. Neither he nor Courtney actually know the host, for one, and massive house parties – up in the Hollywood Hills, even – really aren't their style. However, Sam and a couple of the others at Goldbergs had tried to convince him to go, and when Olivia had started trying to convince Courtney, too, they'd decided to just go and see what it's like.

They'd discovered just before Christmas that Olivia and Sam and a handful of Shayne's other Goldbergs coworkers weren't the only people they knew going. Shelby is going, with a crew of her own friends, and Kimmy would even be there with her recently-acquired pro-WWE boyfriend, Shane, and some of their friends.

"Does Dames know she's with someone?" Courtney had asked, quietly, the night after she'd mentioned it at work, during a shoot Damien was not on.

"I don't think so. She's certainly gone a... very non-Damien direction. But he has said he's moved past it all, so hopefully he's okay when he eventually does find out," Shayne had answered, shrugging lightly.

The knowledge that there would at least be three distinct groups of people they knew to some extent there did make them a little more comfortable about doing the big house party thing, anyway, despite the fact a wild New Year's Eve house party was only just in Courtney's comfort zone and well outside Shayne's. But hey, they're going, so why not embrace it?

"Holy shit," Shayne emphasises, eyes running shamelessly down Courtney's body as he steps out of the bathroom the evening of the 31st to find her stepping out of the closet in a jaw-droppingly stunning black dress. She laughs openly at his response, walking slowly and purposefully over to stop an arms length in front of him and rest her hand on his shoulder.

"You like the dress?" she asks, rhetorically.

"You look insanely good," he answers, honestly, stepping forward and letting his hand land at the small of her back, arm half-wrapped around her.

"Mm, I thought you'd like it. That's why I bought it," she tells him, almost teasingly, and he laughs softly – mostly at himself – in response, as she continues, "and I know you're going to be looking hot as hell tonight too, so thirst trap photos but both of us, yes?"

"It would be a crime for you to not get Instagram photos out of tonight, honestly, like, have I mentioned you look just- perfect? I'm not gonna say angelic, it's not angelic, too dark for that, but... you're stunning," he reinforces, almost reverently, biting his lip softly as he looks at her. She blushes slightly, in response, letting herself sway forward to press a light kiss against his lips before he replies.

"Thank you, Shania," she tells him, her tone softer than it had been earlier, "you're gorgeous, too. And as much as that's a little bit because the short sleeve is showing off those arms – mostly it's just that you're the most gorgeous boy ever and I love you a lot."

"Love you too, baby. You almost ready?" he asks, reluctantly letting go of and stepping away from her.

"Almost, can you help me put a necklace on?" she requests, Shayne nodding and following her silently into the walk-in-closet and carefully doing up the clasp behind her neck when she passes each end of the chain back to him.