Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 154: Exhausted

Shayne's worry they wouldn't get to see each other much for a while ends up being more true than either of them expected. It's okay the week after Rosie is with them: sure, they don't see each other much, but they're both at Smosh together on Thursday and Friday, and they can talk quietly in the few moments they get each night between falling into bed and falling asleep.

But then, they end up losing the next weekend, too. Shayne gets called in for Goldbergs on Saturday at the last minute, and when he thinks he'll at least have Sunday at home, his Dad calls and requests his help with something at their place and he doesn't feel like he can say no. They should at least get to eat a meal in the same place Sunday night, but then Kari calls Courtney midway through Sunday to drop that she's about to disappear across the country for two months and wants to get dinner with her that night, and she, too, feels like she really can't say no.

The next week is even worse. Shayne has Goldbergs, again – his character is in a handful of episodes in a row, and they're bunching all the shooting for those episodes together for god knows what reason – and where his call times have him leaving early in the morning, she has a handful of late shoots at Smosh. It means they don't even get the quiet in their bedroom together: he's asleep before she gets to bed, and he's gone before she wakes up. They don't even have the same call time on the Thursday, when they're actually both working in the same place: Courtney's is 9am, but his isn't until 10, and instead of going in the hour earlier, he sleeps in.

She knows it shouldn't piss her off. He needed sleep, and he didn't need to be at work an hour earlier, and they didn't need to always be in the same place all the time. It was fine.

Except it does kind of irritate her, and she feels her anxiety coursing stronger in her mind than it usually would on a shoot day as she tries to shake off her funk and banter through a What're Those shoot first up in the morning, with Ian and Olivia beside her on the contestant's side of the set. Damien's absurdity in the shoot does help, and it means she can play off her obvious annoyance as being to do with his character, so that's something.

They have an Eat It Or Yeet It shoot up next. It was never her show – it was Shayne's – but given she'd ended up in the hosting role, mostly so she didn't have to actually participate, she always jumped onto set and helped out a little with directing the pre-shoot shots of each dish Garret-and-others had prepared. It's a video game inspired theme, this time, and she feels her sour mood and anxiety settle a little as she presses repetitively on the Mario coin block buzzer they've managed to find for the shoot. It is a cool buzzer, it lights up when it's pressed, and they've all done a great job at the video game food recreation, too. It should be a fun shoot.

The rest of the cast wanders into the studio and moves to take their places after they finish the spinning food shots, Jackie, Ian, Damien, Noah and Shayne filtering in and onto the set. It doesn't escape Courtney that it's the first time she's seen her husband awake all day – in like four days, actually – but she pushes that thought aside, knowing they're meant to be filming.

"Shayne, could you get in position and put the damn bib on?" she snaps, after a few moments, his joking with Rachel behind the cameras grating at her nerves. They have plenty of time to joke when they aren't meant to be filming this damn video.

"Okay, okay, jesus," he replies, his own voice terse, as he moves – still slower than she'd like – over to his place at the side of the table, reaching for the yellow bib to place around his neck.

He doesn't place it right – it's lopsided and almost falling apart at the Velcro fastening behind his neck – and she huffs loudly as she moves around the table, roughly tugging it apart and doing it up again in the right place.