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The episode ends in a tangle of blankets and feelings.
Onscreen, they’d just kissed in the rain again—Perth’s on-screen self cupping Santa’s jaw like he was something fragile, precious. Santa looking up at him like he’d never seen anything more beautiful.
It fades to black.
And the room explodes.
“Oh my God,” JJ wheezes, clapping wildly. “How were you guys not, like, already married after that scene?”
“Don’t lie,” Book says, flicking popcorn at them. “You kissed for real like three times after the director called cut.”
Perth flushes, but Santa’s already giggling in his lap, that brilliant, bright laugh bursting out like he can’t help it.
“We were practicing,” Santa says with a proud little smirk.
“Practicing for what?” Poon deadpans. “Season two: Perfect 10 Liners: Honeymoon Edition?”
“Oh my god, please,” Mark says, eyes wide. “Can we make it gay and domestic and set in a beach house? With like, those matching pajamas?”
“Already pitched it,” Force chimes in from the floor. “They said ‘too much gay, not enough plot.’”
“Rude,” Book mutters, arms crossed. “We were the plot.”
Santa’s laughing so hard now he has to clutch Perth’s knee for balance. Perth stares down at him, heart full in a way he can’t describe—because Santa’s eyes are shining, cheeks pink, hair a mess, and God, this boy is everything.
“Okay okay,” Junior says, waving his arms. “But can we tell the story about that day? You know the one—rain machine, twenty takes, Perth tripping over Santa’s feet every single time.”
“Lies,” Perth mutters, even as his ears go red.
“No, no, no, I remember this,” Force says, sitting up. “The second the water started, Perth turned into Bambi on ice. Like, dramatic flailing.”
Santa grins up at him. “He was trying so hard to be romantic and intense, and he kept stepping on my shoe—”
“I had to step on something!” Perth defends. “You were standing too close!”
Santa snorts. “You literally fell into my arms.”
“Which the director loved,” Book adds. “Said it felt raw. Natural.”
“Because it was,” Santa says, with a shrug and a wicked glint in his eye. “You can’t fake that kind of gay panic.”
The whole room loses it.
Perth covers his face with both hands, but he’s smiling under it. Can’t help it.
The teasing goes on for a while—Force reminding them about the time Santa ad-libbed a line that made Perth break character and scream into a pillow, JJ doing a dramatic reenactment of Perth waiting outside Santa’s trailer with iced coffee and denial, Book miming Perth blushing so hard during the confession scene they had to retouch it in post.
Through it all, Santa laughs.
He glows.
Not just from the attention—but from him. From being beside him.
And Perth… Perth sits there in the middle of it all, quiet and full.
He’s never been the loudest. Never been the one to command a room. But tonight, people are talking about him like he matters. Like he’s part of something real. Like they saw him.
And every time Santa beams when someone brings up a scene or a moment or a joke they shared, every time he says, “Perth killed it in that shot,” or “I just followed his lead,” Perth feels it again—
That slow, certain thing inside him. That deep, growing knowledge that this wasn’t just a role. This wasn’t just chemistry.
This is something bigger.
When the room calms down—blankets piled up, half the cast dozing, JJ finally stopping his Instagram story marathon—Perth presses a soft kiss to Santa’s temple.
“You’re happy,” he murmurs.
Santa turns in his arms, eyes half-lidded, lips parted in a sleepy smile.
“I’m with you,” he says simply. “Of course I am.”
Perth closes his eyes, the weight of that sinking deep into his chest.
And in that moment, with fairy lights twinkling overhead, the glow of the credits still faint on the screen, and the gentle hush of friends who feel like family—
Perth realizes:
This was the ending.
But it’s also the beginning.