Page 51 of 7 Dirty Lies

Chapter15

We gotoff to a crazy start.A desperate start, if I’m being honest.We were so hungry that once, twice, half a dozen times barely felt like enough to get me through the next day.Our nights were intense.Instinctual.Free.However our days remained strained.Colt was clearly still confused by his feelings and I couldn’t ignore the hurt I saw in his eyes no matter how hard I tried, but I was slowly coming to realize that the hurt I saw was less about me and more about whoever had betrayed his trustbefore.

So I let him have his days to work through his feelings, while the nights belongedtome.

But nothing that intense can be sustained, and as we entered week two Colt went out of town for business while I went into shooting at night.It was grueling, long hours of work.Colt would send me an email when he got into his hotel for the night, but I wouldn’t see it until I was collapsing into bed at dawn.Because our schedules were so off our messages were reserved to one or two a dayatmost.

But they got longer, moreintrospective.

And really, I quitelikedit.

Annie,

At dinner tonight I was stuck talking to a fan of yours.She’d heard you were shooting a movie at my ranch and wanted to know everything.Then she droned on and on for the rest of dinner about every one of your moviesshe’dseen.

Babe.I don’t know how youdoit.

And it got me thinking.I want to know more about your life.Are your days always like the ones I see from my office window at home?Or is this different?Do you have fans constantly trying to get something out of you?Do you like it?I don’t know anyofthis.

Then I realized I’m probably just as much of a mystery to you.My days are long.They usually start before dawn because it’s the only time I can have to myself.I walk the grounds with my coffee.I watch the sun rise over the fields.I don’t take my phonewithme.

Because when I get back it doesn’t stop.Not from the minute the suit goes on until I collapse at the end of the day.I feel like I’ve spent my entire adulthood at this pace and I can’t remember what it’s like tohavefun.

At least I didn’tbeforeyou.

I know you’re shooting the river sequence tonight and you’ll be too tired when you read this for it to make much sense.Go to sleep.Get some rest.And think of this poem as you fallasleep.

The golden light bathestheland

And for the first timeIsee

I see that in the darkness the flowerssurvived

I see that the grass stillgrows

And I see the path that leads me backtoyou.

Now I canfinallymove.

x

Colt

He sent me more poems over that weekapart.

A light flashes harshest fromthedark.

but beauty hides in the shroud ofshadows

Step into the light,beauty

for the light means younoharm

He never included the author so I didn’t know who he was quoting from, but I started to collect them.I loved fiddling with graphic design on the side so I started making each poem into a tiny work of art.What I was going to do with them, I wasn’t entirely sure.I just knew each one made a picture in my mind that I wantedtosave.

We grew so much closer during those nightly exchanges I started to believe we might turn acorner.

I was wrong.When Colt returned I stupidly rushed out of my O’Hara bedroom in hopes of saying hello, but instead I got the side-eye as he spoke with Grayson in hushed and angrytones.

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