Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 13: Parents

A/N: This chapter is very short. When I went back to work out titles and posting for this section I almost included it with the last chapter and I cannot for the life of me remember why I have such a short chapter... But, I have now written literally 75 chapters and I did not want to have to renumber everything else after this one, so I guess it just stays short?

(I promise the next chapter is much longer and also has much more in it)

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She meets his parents for the first time a few weeks later, and she's terrified, because she's met his brothers before but never his parents. She can tell they like her immediately, though, and she settles into easy conversation with his Mum about their recent move to Thousand Oaks, not far from where she had grown up. His Dad is a little more reserved, but Shayne had pre-warned her that he's just like that in general.

"How many siblings do you have?" His Dad pipes up, a rare direct question, when she mentions something about exploring one of the trails near their place with her brothers when she was younger.

"Six," she answers, nodding, not sure what to add.

"Big family! Are they all still around LA?" His mother adds, and she shakes her head.

"No, there's a few step-siblings in there too, only a couple of direct siblings – my Mom is in Utah, my closest sister Kari and my Dad both live around here so I see them pretty often, couple others are in the greater Southern California area but generally we're all over the place. Do you see Chris and Brian much, with them being interstate and all?" Courtney turns the conversation back on them, carefully, and it seems to bring Shayne's Dad in more.

"Not as often as we'd like to, actually. Brian is busy, he isn't around much – we considered moving up to Washington to be closer to Chris and Julie and his kids, but all our life is here," he answers her, and she nods.

"I'll have to meet Julie and these boys someday, I've spent a bit of time with Chris over the years when he's around, he's popped in to work a few times when he's been visiting Shayne and all – but haven't met these kids yet and they sound lovely," she muses, and his mother nods.

"The kids absolutely hate flying, it's why they're never down here," Shayne explains, and she nods.

"Yeah, I don't see a lot of my nieces and nephews much for similar reasons, other than when I head over to Utah, but that's only once a year or so."

They have a quite nice dinner amongst their casual conversation, and as much as Shayne and Courtney both protest, his Dad pays the cheque and refuses to let them throw anything in. They're all parked in the same direction away from the restaurant so they walk out together, and Shayne's Dad pulls him back to walk with him, so Courtney falls into step beside his mother.

"I'm glad to finally meet you, I've heard a lot about you for quite a while. I'm glad I've met you as his girlfriend, not just his friend, too," she says, warmly, and Courtney smiles, nodding.

"I'm not entirely sure why we haven't met before, he's met most of my family ages ago and I met Chris way back, but yeah. It's good to finally meet you both. I think I got the parental approval, yeah?" She throws in a joke, and his mother laughs.

"Of course, I've been waiting for you two to get together for a while. I trust his judgment, anyway – Shayne's a smart boy. As much as Brian is the one who went off the standard college and corporate path and Shayne ran away from school to pursue comedy acting..." she trails off, and Courtney grins.

"Hey, it took him a while, but he ended up with a degree somehow too."

"That he did, somehow. I almost expected him to drop out at some point and it wouldn't have been irresponsible at all, especially when he got the regular thing with Goldbergs and Smosh at the same time, but I guess it makes sense he stuck with it. He commits," she muses, "and I don't mean that to be a subtle relationship comment, actually."

"All good," Courtney laughs, "I know you guys know we aren't exactly just casually dating. And I mean, my sister quizzed him pretty hard just after we got together."

"Kari, yeah?" she confirms, Courtney nodding in affirmation. "He mentioned that. He also gave us both a stern warning not to bug you, but wasn't planning on it, anyway. That's your business, not ours."

"Thanks," Courtney answers, not sure what else to say. They reach Shayne's parents car, then, and they pause, looking back to see the two men slowly catching up to them.

"Well, thank you for inviting us, it was great to meet you Courtney – I'm sure we'll see each other again sometime in the not too distant future?" His Dad tells her, when they reach them, and she nods.

"Yeah, it was nice to finally meet you both."

Shayne says his goodbyes to both his parents, and part of her expects it, but Courtney is still a little taken aback and takes a second to react when his mother pulls her in for a brief hug.

"Well, I don't think my mother has ever hugged someone she's just met before," Shayne comments as they walk the slightly further distance to his car, arm wrapped around her waist.

"You all good with your extended talk with your Dad back there?" she asks, and he nods.

"Yeah. He likes you, you're officially welcome at any Topp family thing ever. He was mostly talking to me about something else though, when Brian graduated college they gave him a stack of money, and he needed it at the time to move over to New York but- he brought it up because they don't want me to think they see me graduating as any lesser, but I'm resisting it because I don't exactly need it," he admits, and she nods.

"Your mother and I actually talked about your graduation too, although mostly that you're a smart boy and we're both impressed you went through with everything," she explains.

"She doesn't watch much of our Smosh content because she isn't exactly the intended audience so she doesn't get a lot of it, but I sent her the graduation video when it came out the other day and told her you were a much bigger part of it than was evident because we're still hiding things, she was pretty impressed with your ability to make me cry like that."

"I'll chalk it up as one of my many talents," she teases, stepping away from him to slide into the car.

"I know this is weird since I'm driving, but can we just go back to your place?" Shayne asks, as he turns the key in the ignition.

"Yeah, course," Courtney answers, twisting in her seat so she can watch him drive.