lover of mine ( prologue )
series masterlist
pairings: drew starkey x fem!oc
content: fake dating, pr relationship, fluff + angst, yearning, unrequited feelings, miscommunication, hurt feelings, danielle overthinking, drew being standoffish, emotional distance, subtle tension, interview antics
word count: 4.5k
a/n: i was gonna post this tmr but i cldnt help myself
Danielle had been talking for six minutes before she realized Drew wasn’t listening.
Maybe longer.
She’d started somewhere around the coffee she’d spilled down the front of herself that morning and somehow ended up telling him about the costume department, which had turned into a story about one of the assistants accidentally walking off with her jacket, which reminded her of—
“And then she looks at me and goes—”
Danielle glanced toward him.
Drew was looking at his phone.
His thumb moved across the screen once.
Twice.
Danielle stopped.
He didn’t notice.
For a second, she just watched him through the mirror.
He was leaning against the counter behind her, already dressed for the interview, one shoulder against the wall and his head slightly lowered. Someone had done something to his hair that made it look like nobody had touched it at all, which Danielle found deeply annoying considering she’d been sitting in this chair for almost forty minutes.
The woman behind her was concentrating on one stubborn piece near her temple.
Danielle looked back at herself.
“Anyway.”
Nothing.
She picked at the edge of her thumbnail.
“Drew?”
“Hm?”
He looked up.
Danielle turned slightly in the chair.
“What?”
His brows drew together.
“You didn’t hear anything I just said.”
Drew glanced down at his phone like it might provide an answer.
“I was listening.”
Danielle laughed.
“You absolutely were not.”
“I was.”
“What was I talking about?”
He paused.
She smiled.
“Exactly.”
Drew slipped his phone into his pocket.
“Sorry.”
“I caught you.”
“No, I was just—”
“It’s fine ahaha.”
She looked back toward the mirror.
The makeup artist caught her eye in the reflection before quickly looking down at the compact in her hand. That somehow made it worse.
Danielle laughed again, quieter this time. “Sorry. I’m talking your ear off.”
Drew shrugged. “You do that.”
The words were casual. So casual that, for a second, Danielle wasn’t sure she’d heard them correctly. She looked at him. Drew had already looked away.
“You’re funny.”
Something in his expression shifted when he heard her.
Small.
Almost imperceptible.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I mean.” Danielle smiled. “You’re right.”
“That’s not—”
“I do.”
She turned back toward the mirror.
Too fast.
The smile disappeared almost immediately.
She knew she talked a lot. Everyone knew she talked a lot. Her mother had called her a chatterbox when she was little. Teachers had moved her seat in elementary school. Friends joked that Danielle could turn a five-minute story into twenty if nobody stopped her.
She’d never thought it was something she needed to be embarrassed about before. Not really.
“Danielle?” Someone appeared in the doorway. “We’re almost ready for you guys.”
Danielle looked over.
And just like that, the smile came back. Bright. Easy. “Perfect.”
She stood before the woman behind her could tell her she wasn’t finished, smoothing both hands down the front of her dress. “Thank you,” she told her quickly. “It looks so good.”
“You’re welcome.”
Danielle grabbed her phone from the counter. Drew was still watching her. She could feel it. She didn’t look at him.
“Ready?” she asked instead.
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
She walked out first.
— ᨳଓ .
By the time they were seated for the interview, Danielle had stopped trying to talk to him.
That was new.
Usually she could fill twenty minutes without noticing. She’d ask him what he thought of the questions they might get, complain about something that had happened on set, point out somebody’s shoes across the room, or tell him a story that had very little to do with whatever had started it.
Now, she sat with one leg crossed over the other and scrolled through her phone.
Quietly.
Drew sat beside her, low against the couch, one ankle resting over his opposite knee.
He’d looked at her a few times.
Danielle had noticed every single one.
She pretended not to.
There were enough things in the room to occupy her attention anyway—the cameras positioned beyond the lights, a producer speaking quietly into a headset near the wall, the interviewer flipping through a stack of cards while someone made a final adjustment to the microphone clipped to Danielle’s dress.
She should’ve been over it by now. It had been one stupid comment.
You do that.
He hadn’t even sounded annoyed. That was somehow the worst part.
Danielle glanced down at her phone again. Nothing had changed on the screen.
Beside her, Drew shifted.
She wondered if he noticed how quiet she was.
Then immediately hated herself for wondering. Of course he did. Apparently Drew noticed everything. He just rarely seemed interested enough to do anything with the information.
Someone walked past carrying two waters.
Drew thanked them when one was handed over.
A camera operator stopped nearby, and Drew asked him something about the faded Panthers hat he was wearing. They talked for a minute or two before the guy moved on.
Danielle listened without looking up.
That was another thing she’d noticed about Drew.
He wasn’t unfriendly. He wasn’t even particularly quiet once he was comfortable. He could talk to practically anyone. Crew. Cast. Random people working whatever room they happened to be in. With Danielle, everything always felt slightly more difficult. Like she was constantly reaching across a space he had no interest in closing. She told herself she didn’t care.
Then Drew reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of gum.
Danielle looked at it. She almost asked. Almost. Instead, she looked back at her phone.
A few seconds passed. Something landed lightly against her thigh.
Danielle frowned. A mint.
She looked over. Drew was already putting the pack back into his pocket.
Her expression softened before she could stop it. He glanced at her.
“You always ask.”
There was nothing particularly affectionate about the answer. Still, Danielle picked up the tablet.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
She chewed it quietly.
And, because apparently her brain had decided to make everything difficult today, she thought about the fact that he’d noticed she wanted it without her saying anything. Then she thought about what he’d said in the dressing room. And suddenly she wasn’t sure which version of Drew she was supposed to believe.
“Alright, guys.” Danielle looked up. The interviewer settled into the chair across from them. “We good?” Someone behind the camera gave a thumbs-up. Drew put his water down. Then, almost imperceptibly, he changed.
Danielle watched it happen.
His phone disappeared into his pocket. He sat forward, his body angling toward hers as one arm stretched comfortably along the back of the couch behind her.
The distance between them disappeared. Just like that. Danielle looked at him. He looked back. Warm. Attentive. Like twenty minutes earlier she hadn’t spent several minutes talking to someone who wasn’t listening. Like he hadn’t made her suddenly conscious of every word that came out of her mouth. Like he hadn’t spent the time since giving her just enough space to wonder whether she’d annoyed him again.
Her boyfriend.
Danielle felt something sour settle beneath her ribs.
Then the red light on the camera came on. She smiled.
“Ready?” the interviewer asked.
Danielle crossed one leg over the other and leaned just slightly into Drew’s side.
“Ready.”
They started with Lucky. Filming. The cast. What it had been like working with Annette. The schedule. The physical demands of the show. Whether either of them had been prepared for how exhausting the shoot would become.
“So obviously,” the interviewer said eventually, “people are very excited to see the two of you together onscreen.”
Danielle felt Drew’s fingers graze the back of her shoulder where his arm rested behind her.
“Hopefully not too excited.”
The interviewer laughed. “Too late for that.” Drew smiled beside her.
“You two have already created a problem.”
“We have?”
“Oh, absolutely. People are very invested in you two.”
Danielle laughed, lowering her head for a second. She knew exactly what people were invested in. Photographs of them leaving restaurants. Drew’s hand at the small of her back outside a hotel in New York. A video someone had taken of Danielle fixing the collar of his jacket before an event. One blurry photograph of them kissing that had circulated for three straight days. People had built an entire relationship out of moments Danielle could remember being instructed to create. And somehow, despite knowing that, she still noticed whenever Drew touched her. That was probably pathetic.
“And I know you’ve probably been asked some version of this a million times,” the interviewer continued, “but I want to go back to the beginning. What did you actually think of each other when you first met?”
Danielle looked at Drew. He was already looking at her. That was another thing he had gotten good at. She smiled.
“You go.”
“Why me?”
“Tell them.”
Drew shook his head slightly, smiling before turning toward the interviewer.
“I was a little intimidated by her.”
Danielle laughed.
“You were not.”
“I was.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I was shy.”
His voice was quieter that time.
Convincing.
Very convincing.
The interviewer looked delighted. “Why?”
Drew took a second before answering. “She has this energy.” Danielle kept her eyes on him. “You notice her when she walks into a room.” Something in her chest gave a small, embarrassing pull. Stupid. She knew what this was. Still, there was something particularly unfair about hearing a man who barely looked at her when they were alone describe her like that. “She knew everybody’s name by, like, day two,” Drew continued. “Crew, hair and makeup, everybody. She’d walk onto set and suddenly there were ten conversations happening.” Danielle’s smile tightened. Ten conversations.
Her mind immediately supplied another sentence.
You do that.
She glanced toward the interviewer.
“So intimidating in a good way?”
“Yeah.”
Drew looked at Danielle. “In a good way.”
She smiled back. It came naturally. That was the dangerous part.
“And what did you think of him?”
Danielle exhaled.
“Oh, I thought he was an asshole.”
Drew laughed.
A real one.
His head dropped for a second, and Danielle smiled immediately because there it was. She loved getting that out of him.
The interviewer laughed too.
“Seriously?”
“No.” Danielle looked at Drew. “Not really.”
“Wow.”
“He was really Introverted.”
“What did you think it meant?”
Danielle considered the question and didn't know how to answer without being honest.
“That he didn’t like me.”
Drew’s expression shifted. Only slightly. “And now?” The question came from him.
Danielle blinked. Then smiled. “Now I know you’re just weird.”
Drew laughed again. His hand dropped from the back of the couch to her shoulder, squeezing lightly.
The interviewer was practically glowing.
“So how did we get from Danielle thinking Drew hated her to…” She gestured between them. “This?”
Danielle felt herself smile before she could stop it. Beside her, Drew shifted a little closer.
“She wore me down.”
Danielle turned toward him. “I wore you down?”
“Pretty much.”
“That is not how I remember it.”
“No?”
“Absolutely not.”
Drew’s brows lifted. “Okay. What happened?”
Danielle looked toward the interviewer.
“He was obsessed with me.”
Drew made a quiet sound beside her. “She likes telling people that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Yea, it is.”
Danielle nudged his knee with hers. He didn’t move away. Not here.
“Who made the first move?” the interviewer asked.
Danielle and Drew looked at each other.
That answer had been decided weeks ago.
Drew. Of course Drew.
It played better that way.
Danielle’s smile softened.
“He did.”
The interviewer immediately turned toward him. “Really?”
Drew nodded once. “Yeah.”
“What happened?”
His hand slid from Danielle’s shoulder, fingers trailing down her arm until they found her hand between them. He laced their fingers together. Danielle looked down. She hated how natural he made it look.
“We’d been hanging out a lot after filming,” Drew said. “Just trying to get to know each other more.” Danielle nodded. “We were friends.” “And then one night we all went out after filming,” she said. “Everybody left pretty early, and we ended up staying. We like got into an argument and he kissed me to shut me up.”
The story wasn’t entirely fabricated. There had been a night out. They had stayed later than everyone else. Mostly because Danielle had lost her phone and Drew had helped her look for it for forty minutes. They had absolutely not kissed afterward. That part had been added later.
“So romantic,” the interviewer teased.
“It was very romantic,” Danielle said. “I spent half the night convinced I’d lost my phone.”
“You did lose your phone.”
“I found it.”
“I found it.”
Danielle looked at him. “Because I told you where to look.”
“That’s not what happened.” “That’s exactly what happened.”
He shook his head. Danielle smiled. This part was easy. Because this part was almost real. Their arguments had always come easier than everything else.
The interviewer looked at Drew.
“And when did you know you wanted to kiss her?”
Danielle felt his thumb move slowly over the side of her hand. Once. She looked at him. Drew’s eyes were already on her. And suddenly there was no amusement there. Just that soft, steady expression he had somehow perfected over the past few weeks.
“The whole night, probably.”
Danielle forgot to breathe for half a second. She recovered before anyone could notice.
“You hid it well.”
Drew’s mouth curved. “I thought I was being obvious.”
“You barely spoke to me.”
“I was nervous.”
Danielle laughed. “Now you’re rewriting history.”
“Maybe.”
His thumb moved against her hand again. The cameras caught all of it. Of course they did. The interviewer glanced down at her cards.
“I have to ask one more relationship question, and then I promise we’ll go back to the show.”
“Go for it,” Danielle said.
“What surprised you most about each other once you started dating?”
That one wasn’t on the list.
Danielle felt Drew’s thumb still. She looked at him. He looked back. For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Drew did.
“She takes care of everybody.”
Danielle’s smile changed. Only slightly.
The interviewer tilted her head. “Everybody?”
“Everybody.” Drew gave a quiet laugh. “Crew. Cast. People she barely knows. If somebody looks tired, she’s asking if they’ve eaten. If somebody’s having a bad day, she knows before they tell anyone.”
Danielle watched him. The interviewer smiled. “That’s very sweet.”
“Yeah she is.” Drew shrugged, like he hadn’t said anything particularly important. “She puts everybody before herself.”
There was nothing negative in his voice. Danielle knew that. She did. Still, something tightened in her chest. She could hear him from earlier.
You do that.
Too much. Always talking. Always checking. Always trying.
Drew looked at her. “Sometimes I think she forgets she doesn’t have to.”
Danielle’s smile stayed exactly where it was.
The interviewer’s expression softened. “That’s a very boyfriend answer.”
Drew smiled. Danielle laughed because everyone else did. She wasn’t entirely sure what he’d meant. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he really did think she tried too hard. That she needed everyone in the room to like her. That all the things she’d spent years telling herself made her kind had somehow become evidence that she was exhausting. Her hand suddenly felt too noticeable inside his.
The interviewer turned toward her. “And Drew?”
Danielle could’ve given one of the safe answers.
That he was funny. That he was sweeter than people expected. That he was more romantic than he seemed. All perfectly acceptable. All completely useless.
Instead, she looked at him. “He likes to watch.”
Drew’s brows pulled together.
Danielle smiled. “That sounded creepy.” The interviewer laughed.
“No, not like that,” Danielle said.
She looked back at Drew.
“He just notices things when you don’t expect him to.”
His expression changed. Barely. Danielle continued.
“He’ll act like he’s not paying attention, and then two days later he’ll bring up something you said once. Or he’ll remember something nobody else did.”
Drew didn’t say anything. For once, she’d caught him without an answer. Danielle’s smile softened. “And I like that about him.”
There was a beat. Just one. But she felt it. Something in Drew’s face shifted. Not dramatically. If she hadn’t been looking directly at him, she probably would’ve missed it. Then his mouth curved into a small smile.
The interviewer laughed, but Drew’s eyes stayed on Danielle for another second.
Long enough that this time, she was the one who looked away.
— ᨳଓ .
The car was quiet.
Danielle sat against the window, watching the city slide past in pieces of light and glass.
Their publicist sat in the front seat answering emails.
Drew sat beside her. Not beside her in the way he had been an hour ago. There was a full seat between them now. Danielle kept her eyes on the window.
Normally, silence made her itch. She filled it without even thinking. Music. Questions. Stories that went nowhere. Observations nobody had asked for. She currently had nothing to say. Or maybe she did. She just didn’t feel like giving it away.
Her phone buzzed in her lap. A message from her assistant.
That was great. You guys looked amazing.
The hand holding was perfect.
Danielle locked the screen.
Her reflection stared back at her in the dark glass. She looked tired.
Drew shifted beside her. Danielle felt his eyes move toward her.
She didn’t turn. A few seconds passed. Then he looked away. That was it.
No You okay?
No What’s wrong?
Not that she wanted him to ask.
At least, that was what she told herself. She rested her forehead lightly against the window. The interviewer’s question kept replaying in her head anyway. What surprised you most about each other? She wondered if Drew had meant his answer as kindly as it had sounded. Probably. She wondered why she’d managed to make it feel like an insult anyway. Mostly, she wondered why any of it mattered once the cameras were gone.
At a red light, their publicist turned around.
“You guys killed that.” Danielle lifted her head. “Yeah?”
“Oh, absolutely. That was exactly what we needed.”
Danielle smiled. “Good.”
“We’ll probably get some clips by tomorrow morning.”
“Can’t wait.”
The light changed. Their publicist turned back around. Danielle’s smile disappeared. She looked out the window again. Drew noticed. She knew he did. He always noticed.
He still didn’t ask.
— ᨳଓ .
By dinner, Danielle still hadn’t found much to say.
The restaurant was loud in the way cast dinners usually were—too many conversations happening at once, half the table still talking about work despite everyone insisting they wouldn’t.
Someone farther down was complaining about the next morning’s call time. Timothy had Annette laughing over something Danielle hadn’t caught. Clifton and one of the producers were arguing about whether a take from earlier in the week had been better before or after they’d changed the blocking. Usually, Danielle would’ve been somewhere in the middle of all of it.
Tonight, she arrived a few minutes late and quietly took the only seat left. Beside Drew. He looked up when she approached. His eyes went briefly to the chair, then back to her. Danielle pulled it out.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
That was all. She sat. Their knees bumped beneath the table. Drew moved his leg. Danielle looked down. Then at him. He was already listening to something Clifton was saying. She reached for her water.
Earlier, Drew had held her hand like he’d been doing it for years. Now their knees touching apparently required immediate correction. Fine.
Danielle unfolded her napkin across her lap. Someone passed her bread. She took it with a quiet thank you and tore a piece off without eating much of it. Conversation moved around her. She listened. Smiled when she was supposed to. Answered when somebody asked her something. But she didn’t reach across the table to join conversations that had nothing to do with her. She didn’t interrupt Timothy when he got one of the details of a story wrong. She didn’t lean around Drew to ask Clifton what he’d ordered because his looked better than hers.
Every time something came to mind, Danielle thought about it for half a second longer than usual.
And then, more often than not, kept it to herself.
You do that.
Stupid. It was stupid. Drew probably hadn’t even meant anything by it. That somehow didn’t stop her from hearing it.
“Danielle?” She looked up. Annette was watching her from across the table. “You alright, sweetheart?” Danielle blinked. The question caught her off guard. “Yeah.” She smiled. Small. “Just tired.” Annette studied her for a second, then nodded. “Long day.” “Yeah.” Danielle lowered her eyes.
Beside her, Drew went still for half a second. She noticed. Of course she did. She hated that she noticed everything he did.
A few minutes later, Timothy said something that made the entire end of the table laugh. Drew laughed too. Danielle looked over before she could stop herself.
He looked different when he laughed. Younger, somehow. Less guarded. His shoulders loosened and his head tipped slightly toward Clifton as he added something Danielle couldn’t hear. There was nothing unusual about it.
Except Danielle didn’t think she’d ever seen him that relaxed with her.
She looked back at her plate. That was fine. She didn’t need him to like her. The thought came so quickly that she nearly laughed.
Because obviously she did. That was the embarrassing part.
Danielle had spent most of her life learning how to make herself easy to like. She remembered names. Asked questions. Filled uncomfortable silences before they had a chance to settle.
She knew when someone standing alone wanted company and when somebody telling a story needed another person to laugh. Most of the time, people liked her. Drew didn’t. Or maybe he did. A little. Sometimes. She couldn’t tell. And apparently that was enough to make her insane.
Someone was talking about a scene Danielle had to film later that week
She inserted herself into the conversation without realizing it. “We were blocking it yesterday, and there’s this part where—”
She stopped. Three people were listening. Drew was one of them. Danielle suddenly became acutely aware of herself. Her voice. Her hands. How long the story would take.
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “It’s not interesting.”
The producer, Laurel, across from her frowned. “No, finish.”
“It’s fine.” Danielle smiled. “I was just rambling.”
Drew looked at her.She didn’t look back. The conversation moved on.
For several minutes, Drew said nothing.
Then, quietly enough that nobody else heard:
“You haven’t eaten much.”
Danielle looked up. He wasn’t looking at her. His attention was somewhere across the table, one hand curled loosely around his glass.
She glanced at her plate. “I’m not hungry.”
“Okay.”
That was it. He didn’t ask why. Danielle wasn’t sure why she’d expected him to.
She looked down again.
A moment later, someone asked Drew something and he turned away from her completely.
— ᨳଓ .
Dinner ended sometime after eleven.
People lingered outside the restaurant in small groups while cars were pulled around, conversations continuing beneath the awning.
Danielle stood slightly apart from everyone else, arms folded against the cold.
She’d said goodnight to half the crew already. Annette had hugged her. Timothy had reminded her not to be late tomorrow. Someone from hair had promised to bring her matcha. Danielle smiled through all of it.
Then, the second each person walked away, the smile disappeared.
Her car wasn’t there yet. Of course it wasn’t.
She pulled out her phone. Nothing interesting.
She opened Instagram. Closed it.
Opened her messages. Closed those too.
“Cold?”
Danielle looked up.
Drew stood a few feet away. Hands in his pockets.
“I’m fine.” He nodded.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Danielle looked back at her phone. She could feel him standing there. That was the annoying thing about Drew. Even when he wasn’t talking to her, she was aware of him. Eventually, he said, “You’re quiet.”
Her thumb stopped against the screen.
Danielle looked up.
There was no accusation in his voice. No teasing. Just an observation. She gave him a small smile. “Just not really feeling it.”
Drew looked at her. For a second, something unreadable passed over his face. Danielle wondered if he’d remembered the interview. Probably. He remembered everything.
“Guess even you have an off switch,” he said.
“Yeah.”
The words came out softer than she intended. Drew’s brow furrowed slightly. Danielle looked away before he could study her too closely.
Someone laughed near the restaurant entrance. A car door slammed.
Drew stayed beside her. Danielle hated that some stupid part of her was waiting.
For what, she didn’t know. Maybe for him to ask. Maybe for him to say something about earlier. Maybe for him to tell her she wasn’t annoying. Which was ridiculous.
A black SUV pulled toward the curb.
Her publicist lifted a hand.
“Dani!” Saved.
Danielle slipped her phone into her purse. “That’s me.” She started toward the curb.
“Have a good night Drew” she said it so quietly he barely heard it
“Night Danielle,” Drew said.
She made it a few steps. “Dani.”
Danielle stopped. For a second, she didn’t turn around. Nobody called her that unless they knew her. Not really. Friends. Family. People who had earned the right somewhere along the way. Drew had never called her that.
She turned. He was still standing beneath the awning.
“What?”
Drew seemed to hesitate. Just enough for Danielle to notice.
“You good?”
There it was.
The question she’d spent half the night wanting him to ask. And somehow, now that he had, she didn’t know what to do with it.
Danielle looked at him. Actually looked at him. At the slight crease between his brows. At the way his hands were still buried in his pockets. At the fact that he had waited until she was halfway to the car to ask. Maybe that should’ve been enough. It wasn’t.
She smiled. “I’m fine.”
Drew didn’t look convinced. But he nodded anyway.
“Okay.”
Danielle turned toward the car. Her hand reached for the door. Then she stopped.
She almost looked back.
Almost asked whether he really thought she talked too much. Almost asked whether he actually meant all those things he’d said about her in the interview. Almost asked why he could make her feel like the most interesting person in the room while cameras were rolling and like someone he merely tolerated the second they weren’t.
Instead, she climbed inside. The door shut behind her.
Through the tinted glass, she watched Drew disappear as the car pulled away from the curb. Danielle had always believed wanting someone was supposed to begin with liking them. That there was supposed to be some obvious moment.
A spark. A look.
Something that made sense afterward. She was starting to realize that wasn’t always how it happened.
Sometimes it began much smaller.
With noticing when someone looked at you. With noticing when they didn’t. With wondering why everybody else seemed so easy for them to like.
And, eventually, with wanting to be the exception badly enough that you forgot why you cared in the first place.
a/n: Its finally here !!! omg im so excited u have no idea this has been in my drafts for a while now but iv been terrified to post it 🐰 hope u all enjoyyyyy
