there was conference room and it smelled a bit like antiseptic and i wondered if it could get me high if i took a deep enough breath. not that i didn't have enough things to get me high already, not withstanding that i probably was already feeling the effects of the bump i took in the bathroom before it started, but still i wondered. meetings like those made my skin crawl which is why jamie was there talking concepts and numbers and i mostly was looking for an escape but staying out of loyalty to him and not listening to a thing being said.

there was talk of hiring a model or an actress, then your name gets batted around and jamie looks at me curiously when i agree. i know you, in the vague way i know the concept of you lounging in claude’s attic and smoking a cigarette and from the time i’ve heard you playing in jamie’s office when i dropped round. i didn’t know if you’d agree to it and i didn’t want to hear know if you were going to say it so i made him ask. i’m pretty certain the first words out of my mouth when we got on set were “have you ever seen true romance?”

it’s always been the perfect love story to me, you know? they found each other and that made nothing else impossible. love is the highest law and it conquers everything, it makes you fear nothing. he’s noble and her laugh is pure and they’re just so cool. i’m sure i rattled on about this at length and i’m sure at some point you tuned me out and lit another cigarette. tim called action and you took your top off and we fell into bed.

the shoot took two days? three? and half the time was just us fucking around, grilling food and playing with the dog, acting like a bunch of badass kids and i’m glad those parts made it to screen too. it felt like a bit of an escape, playing big and bad, and even when we weren’t filming i’d lay my head in your lap whilst talking to george and you let me. it’s a bit strange to say that us pretending to fuck and gunshots felt almost innocent but it did. a few months later an interviewer asked about the video and i said i fell a bit in love with you then.

maybe i did. not in anyway that carried any real depth but i'm a shit actor and not all of it was acting. i created this narrative in my head that romanticised the abstract of you. so when you ask why i was so protective of you, why i pushed you away it took me a while to realise the answer. in just one weekend i had already had a taste of how potent loving you could be.

you're so cool. you're so cool. you're so cool.