James had never been a fan of the phrase “walking on air” or any other romantic cliché, but now he had to admit that he understood where such clichés came from. It felt like his body was lighter, like he wasn’t truly touching the ground, and he kept catching himself humming something under his breath, usually a ridiculously cheerful and sappy love song.

He’d gotten permission from Jack to let his mom visit the set so that she could see for herself what it was like. James had warned Ned beforehand and told him that he really didn’t have to meet her if he wasn’t ready, but Ned had been the first person to greet them when they’d arrived.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Novak. I have a chair and stuff set up for you to the side, so you can watch,” he had told his Mom.

“Oh, please, call me Quinn. So you’re Ned. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Go on and get into wardrobe,” Ned had told James. He’d then proceeded to be Mom’s personal tour guide-slash-assistant for the day. Even Jack had made a joke about Ned leaving him for Mrs. Novak. Mom had loved him, telling James in the car later,

“He’s a real sweet boy, underneath all that anxiousness. I think you two work well together.”

“You didn’t even really see us interact, Mom.”

“No, but I know you and how you are, I saw how he is, and I think you’ll balance each other out. He was full of praise for you.”

“Yeah, well, he’s the one who’s keeping us all sane on set, him and Tanya.”

“I have no doubt of that.”

As if he hadn’t been head over heels for Ned enough already, the guy had to go and be sweet to his mom. James was pretty certain he’d win the lottery if he bought a ticket, that was how well his luck was going.

Sophie thought it was adorable. Brandon, less so.

“If you’re going to keep singing about sunshine and rainbows,” his roommate muttered, “at least tell me about the guy.”

James had, admittedly, not gotten around to telling Brandon everything. Brandon had been working a ton lately, so he hadn’t been at the house when James had been there, and vice versa, since James’ filming schedule kept him pretty busy as well, and so there hadn’t been time to talk. However, now it was Monday, James was back from shooting, and Brandon didn’t have to dance at the club because, in Brandon’s words, “Who the hell is sad enough that they’re going to go to a club on a Monday night?”

Sophie had smacked Brandon upside the head for being “insensitive.” It was still one of James’ fondest memories.

The shoot had gone well that day, if you discounted the fact that James couldn’t stop grinning at Ned like an idiot every spare moment he had. Ned tried to be professional and focused, but James could see him sneaking glances when he thought nobody was looking, and when he caught Ned’s eye, Ned would blush and duck his head. It was, again, adorable, and James had told him as much as he’d backed him up against the wall in the hallway of the dorm they were filming in, swallowing Ned’s retort by kissing him.

“You’re pretty damn adorable yourself,” Ned had replied, breathless, his eyes roaming over James’ face like he wanted to commit him to memory. “With that stupid smile and your stupid antics and stupid handsome face.”

James had kissed him again, just for that, and Ned had been happily sucking a determined hickey onto James’ neck when Tanya found them and told them to get back to work before she took blackmail photos.

Now James was home and already thinking about when he could next take Ned somewhere. He was thinking they could drive up to Malibu and hike up Point Dume, or walk up to the Hollywood sign, or something that got them outdoors and moving where they could just talk.

“You’ve got that sappy look on your face again,” Brandon noted. “All right, tell me, what’s he like?”

James plopped down on the couch next to Brandon, marveling at how different things were from just a few days ago when he’d flopped onto the couch next to Sophie and moaned about Ned dating Jack. “He’s awesome.”

He started telling Brandon all about Ned—the way he blushed, his appreciation for art and for James’ knowledge of art, the way he loved it when James held his hand or touched him in any way, the fact that he grew up without a lot of love from his parents and so really appreciated it from his friends, the courses he’d taken in college, and how he just couldn’t get into Quentin Tarantino films—until Brandon held up a hand.

“And this guy is the director’s assistant?” He asked.

“Yeah. Basically he makes sure that Jack stays sane. Sort of like a secretary except he also bosses us around when he feels like it.” Not that he would mind Ned bossing him around. What would it be like to get Ned to tell him what to do in the bedroom, James wondered. He could already imagine Ned’s commanding tone of voice, low and rich, ordering James to get on all fours…

“You’re being sappy again,” Brandon said. “It’s disgusting.”

“Sorry,” James replied, not feeling sorry at all.

“So how did you meet this guy?”

“Technically we first met at the audition,” James said, “but we weren’t formally introduced until the table read.”

“He was in the audition with you?” Brandon seemed oddly interested in that fact.

“Yeah. It was him, Jack, and Mary.”

“Mary Kowalski?” Brandon asked. “You’ve done auditions for her before, right?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s friends with Madelyn Thomas, one of my professors; she’s come in to teach us a master class on how to audition and what casting directors look for. She seemed excited to have me audition.”

“You think that she would have cast you as Tyler?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere. “I don’t know. You should see Dex, he’s brilliant as Tyler.”

“Better than you?”

“Not necessarily. I don’t know.” James frowned. “What does this have to do with Ned?”

“I was just curious,” Brandon said. “But by all means, keep waxing poetic about your new boyfriend.”

“Just because you’re jaded and bitter doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be,” James pointed out, perhaps with a bit more bite to it than he’d originally intended.

Brandon sighed, his face relaxing. He put a hand on James’s shoulder. “I just want you to be careful. I know that you’ve never been in a serious relationship before, unless you were lying to me about that.”

James shook his head. He’d had a few fumbling encounters in high school, ones that he and the other boy would never discuss afterward, filled with shame—and then in college his freshman year he’d partied hard and slept with a lot of guys, reveling in his ability to finally be himself and act on his desires without fear of getting beaten up—but when it came to his heart, it was a story of unrequited love, falling for straight guy after straight guy. Ned was the first person who’d reciprocated his feelings, hence why James felt the compulsion to touch him constantly and to spoil him a little with flowers and such. Luckily Ned had understood that once he’d told him about his past at the museum, as if Ned had just filled in the gaps of all the things that James hadn’t said. It felt amazing to finally be understood by someone in that way.

“All right,” Brandon said, his voice and face still softer than usual, all the biting wit gone out of them. “I just want you to be careful. It’s so easy to fall hard and fast, but then you find that the other person isn’t falling in the same way, and it hurts. I don’t want this to go too quickly and end up with you broken-hearted.”

“You should see him, Bran,” James replied. “He loves it when I touch him, and he just looks at me like—like he can’t believe that I’m actually dating him. Do you know what that’s like? To be looked at like you’re too good to be true?”

Brandon sighed. “I do, and I also know that it doesn’t always last. You’re my friend, okay? I want you to be careful, that’s all.”

James appreciated that Brandon wanted to look out for him, and he knew that Brandon tended to see the world in more of a cynical light, a world where things weren’t black and white but rather various shades of dark, dark gray.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, knowing in his heart that he was lying. Ned was just so…so…everything that James had ever wanted. He finally found someone who felt as crazy about him as he did about them, and he wasn’t going to let that go in the name of caution. Caution hadn’t gotten him any of his roles, or his entry into college—a college that his classmates and even some teachers had told him he couldn’t get into—and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere as a gay man, certainly.

No, he was going to fall as hard and fast as he wanted with Ned, because he knew that Ned was right beside him in the freefall.