Starting Over / Shourtney

Chapter Five: The Shit Show

<Shayne's POV>

Monday was a long day. Correction: a VERY long day.

Understandably, my weekend hadn't been great. I was stressed out about what was happening with defy, my excessive amount of school work, scheduling for The Goldbergs, and of course Courtney. I thought about our kiss in the stairwell pretty much all weekend. Why had I let myself kiss her? Even though we had decided to put it aside until things calmed down, I still didn't know how I felt about it.

Stupid Shayne. Just plain stupid.

So, as a consequence, I showed up Monday morning to the Goldbergs set running on very little sleep, and hyped up on coffee. At least it was a good distraction. Although I wanted to be at Smosh with my friends after the news on Friday, I was sort of grateful to be able to go to my other job and focus on that. My Goldbergs costars were all very supportive when they heard the news and tried to keep my spirits up throughout the shoot. They all bashed Defy media, especially Sam who was upset on Olivia's behalf in addition to my own.

After the shoot, I drove back home to my apartment in the valley. I listened to the first 'A Song of Ice and Fire' audiobook for what must have been the 5th time on my drive, and tried to drown out all the very pressing thoughts from my mind. It was only when I had walked through my front door that I saw I had missed about 10 texts from several of my friends.

Check your email dude!

You should probably get to the office now.

It's all over.

I pulled up my messages and read the defy email quickly, and then once more before it actually set in. I felt sort of light headed as I texted both Damien and Sarah that I was heading over to the office right away.

Thankful that I had taken a shower and changed on set before coming home, I grabbed a six pack of beer from my fridge and headed straight back to my car. From there I called Damien, he picked up after one ring.

"Hey man," His voice sounded lower than usual and was chalk full of satire as he added, "welcome to the end of the world."

I smiled slightly at his attempt at a joke. Pulling out onto the street I replied. "Hey, I'm heading over to the office right now. How's everyone doing over there?"

"I'm not gonna lie to you. It's not great." He chuckled. "Honestly though, people are doing ok. We're sad but we're together."

"Well, I'll be there soon Ok? I'm bringing beer."

Damien laughed and said he'd see me when I got there, before hanging up. I pulled into the office lot around 45 minutes later. Surprisingly enough, by the time I made it there, the sadness Damien had mentioned had pretty much dissipated and the party had started.

I wasn't the only one who had brought the booze.

I realized immediately upon walking in, that the office was filled with an immense amount of delirium after the lay-off. No one knew what to do. I certainly didn't. I saw that there were a lot of people gathered in the squad room and I headed there first, 6-pack in hand. A bunch of my friends were sitting on the floor in a sort of circle with pizza, snacks, drinks and alcohol in the centre.

"And then Keith just dropped the whole thing!" Noah was saying to the great amusement of the group.

Courtney and Olivia were crying from laughter as Keith reenacted the scene.

"Agh, I can't stop!" Courtney cried, holding her stomach with one hand and Olivia's shoulder with the other for support.

"Uh, hey guys," I said in greeting, dropping down to sit in the circle between Damien and Courtney. Courtney was startled at my sudden appearance and I shot her a quick smile before looking back at the rest of the group. Trying my best not to be awkward, I pulled a beer out of the pack for myself and set the remainder of them down in the centre of the circle with the rest of the food.