Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 29: All Of Us

A/N: Heading into a few chapters of fun family times, so just a quick reminder disclaimer: some of the family characters in here borrow names/relationships from real-life Shayne and Courtney's real families, others do not. None of the characters in this fic are reflective or representative of any real life people or relationships whether they share names or not. This is fiction.

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"Hey, Shayne, your Mum's calling," Courtney tells him, glancing over to see his phone ringing against the bed beside her as he fiddles with his laptop over at the small desk in their hotel room in New York a few days later, approaching the end of their tour. The internet had gone into a whirlwind over their relationship for a couple of days after their post and the conspiracy-theory drama, but it hadn't seemed to flow over into any of their experiences on the tour, thankfully. At least, no one had mentioned it at their first show since it happened the previous night.

"Can you grab it and tell her I'll be there in a sec? Mid-sentence," he answers, distractedly, tapping away at his keyboard.

"Hey, Shayne's in the middle of writing something he'll just be a second, how are you?" Courtney answers the phone, warmly.

"Oh, Courtney, so lovely to hear from you! I'm great, Robert and I are getting ready to head up to Seattle tomorrow, where are you at the moment?" Dianne responds, enthusiastically, and it makes her smile. Shayne's parents have been so relaxed and casual about her presence in his life, and she's loved it.

"We're in New York, we've got another show here tonight before we also head back across to the north-east," she answers.

"How are all the shows going? I know you had a bit of a silly question about you guys the other day, has it all settled down after that?" she queries, and Courtney sighs.

"Yeah, there hasn't been anything else since then, um, we shut it down pretty quickly with our own little response online. The shows are going well, though, everyone seems to be enjoying it," she replies, glancing over as Shayne shifts away from the desk and sits on the bed beside her.

"We did see your post, actually, Chris sent it to us on our request – we just wanted to make sure everything was going okay. We know there's a lot of potential pressure on you both from a publicity point of view, and we make a point of never adding to that – but you look very happy together, and it's lovely to see," Dianne says, softly, and it makes Courtney blush and smile.

"Thank you. We are happy. Shayne's here, now, I can hand over to him," she answers.

"Put it on speaker instead, I just wanted a chat, may as well speak to both of you," she suggests, Courtney agreeing as she pulls the phone away from her ear, throwing it on speakerphone and setting it down on the bed between them, gesturing to Shayne to speak.

"Hi, Mum, how's it going?" he starts.

"Hi, darling, I was telling Courtney we're just getting ready to head up to Seattle soon. Really looking forward to all of us being together! Courtney said all your shows are going well?" she asks, and Shayne launches into a reply. They talk for a good fifteen minutes before Courtney glances at the time on her own phone, silently indicating to Shayne that they need to go and get ready to meet up with the others before their show soon.

"It's great to talk to you, Mum, we actually have to go get ready for the show tonight soon," Shayne tells her, carefully, at the next pause in their conversation.

"Oh, of course, I hope you have a great show! It was nice to talk to both of you, looking forward to seeing you in person later in the week!" she replies, enthusiastically.