The Switch / Shourtney

Chapter Seven: Study buddies

October 4th, 2017

So, that takes us back to now, it's been a couple weeks since that movie night and I still can't shake these feelings. No matter how many times I remind myself that Courtney has a boyfriend, that I don't want to ruin our friendship, or that I would make our jobs complicated, I can't seem to forget the way she looked in my shirt, (which she still hasn't given back by the way), or the way it felt to hold her on that couch.

But what I could do was squash those feelings down and try my best to ignore them, which was my exact game plan for today. We were filming EBE Haunted house and had decked out a studio space in cobwebs, hanging spiders, and other Halloween decorations. It was 10 am, and the crew was setting up. The entirety of the Smosh staff was still on a high from winning the Streamy for Smosh live last week. We said we would be fine if we lost, but the award definitely gave us a renewed energy and desire to produce the best content we could. The win confirmed to us that the hard work we did was a success, it was a surreal experience.

Amid the flurry of set prep, I was sitting outside going over my notes for the exam I had the next morning. I was anxiously speed reading through them to review. Although I studied pretty hard yesterday, I wouldn't have much time to go over the material tonight because we were going to be shooting late, and I also had to go over my scene for the Goldberg's that I was filming tomorrow afternoon. It was the point in the semester where all my work was piling up and of course it happened to coincide with a hectic shooting schedule.

"Look at this studying boi."

I jumped as Courtney suddenly walked up behind me. She had two coffees in her hands and offered me one.

"Woah, you scared me," I said, taking the drink from her with a nod of thanks.

"And we're not even in the haunted house yet." She joked, taking a seat next to me on the steps. "you almost done going through that?"

"Yeah," I said turning my attention back to my note book, "I just have to go through the list of Scientist's names to test myself on what theories they're known for." My behavioral psych class was defiantly a bitch in terms of memorization but I found the information incredibly interesting which was always a plus.

"Here, let me test you," She took a long slurp from her straw before putting it down and reaching out for my notes.

Grateful, I handed it to her. We got through eleven names and theories before Tanner called for us to come in and start getting ready to shoot. We told him we were coming and I held my back pack open for Courtney to drop my note book in but she was still staring at it.

"This stuff is actually really cool Shayne," Courtney said. I could see her eyes scanning the pages eagerly, as if she was trying to absorb all of the material herself.

"Maybe it's because it's been so long since I've had to do school work that I'm romanticizing it, but I sort of like studying this."

"Well, if you ever want to come over after work and study with me, you are definitely welcome" I joked taking the notes from her, stowing them, and zipping up my bag.

"I literally might take you up on that" she replied, getting to her feet and holding out a hand to pull me up. I took it and stood up too. Part of me hoped to god she was being serious, another part of me didn't trust myself alone with her at night in my apartment.

She was still holding my hand as we walked towards the set and I quickly let go once we got to the doorway. I tried not to think too hard about it. Olivia and Noah were already inside, decked out in their mother/daughter costume.

"Hey Guys!" Olivia beamed at us when we walked in.

"Shit Olivia, I'm not even going to have to act, this is literally the scariest thing I've ever seen." I said, taking in her pigtails and blue prairie dress.

"What, you don't like it?" She asked moving closer to me and Courtney.

"Oh god, stay away from me."

I quickly pulled Courtney in front of me, almost spilling my coffee but catching it at the last second.

"Yo, that was close" she commented, "You're dumb."

"The sacrifices we make for a joke." I grinned at her.

They were playing with the lighting and a red glow was hitting the side of her face, it somehow made her look even more beautiful and I looked away quickly, turning to make fun of the outfit that Noah was wearing.

We made a few jokes about the horny horror decorations for the BTS camera before Joe said that they were ready for us. Courtney and I moved into position between the cobwebs and floating props.

"Ready?" She asked, fixing her hair quickly.

"Uh, I'm like, always ready," I said in my douchebag voiceä.

Courtney rolled her eyes at me but grabbed onto my arm tightly as Joe yelled "Action!". It was hard not to think back to the night of the scary movie at my place where she had grabbed onto me exactly the same way. We made it through a few takes with minimal breaking, only laughing at how funny our screaming sounded when we ran into Olivia's character.

The rest of the day's filming went by as usual. Because a few of the scenes had to be filmed outside at night we were only finished filming the video at 9 pm. I scrubbed the fake blood off of my face with Ian in the washroom sink before grabbing my stuff and heading down to the parking lot.

As I got into my car my phone pinged and I pulled it out of my pocket to see that Courtney had sent me a message.

Hey! I meant to tell you before you left, good luck on your exam tomorrow! You've got this. Don't fuck it up! :p

- Courtney Freaking Miller

I smiled to myself before throwing my car into drive and pulling out of the lot.