Loving You ~ Drew Starkey / Austin Butler / Jacob Elordi

fifty-two

DREW

JULY 2021

Drew fell in love with Addie the first night they met.

He wasn't sure he'd ever see her again, so he thought of it as a one-time encounter since he had never really believed in the "love at first sight" bullshit.

But then when they started texting, his view started to shift. Not a lot, but a bit.

When they realized they were auditioning for the same show back in 2018, it almost seemed...too good to be true.

And when they got the part of playing each others love interest, well... he figured it would be the perfect time to test the waters between them.

But then there was Jacob.

Tall, handsome, Australian Jacob.

Drew liked him now, but at the time, he wished bad things upon him.

His mind wandered back to their New Year's Eve kiss.

Things went downhill from there.

Logan and Jade.

Him and Jade.

He had made a lot of mistakes. He had lost her multiple times. She had lost him.

He had gotten back together with his college girlfriend, and for what? To prove he didn't have feelings, deep and true feelings, for Addie? To prove that love at first sight was fake? A myth? But that fizzled out as quickly as it begun.

They had gotten close during filming of season 1, but he couldn't help but feel intense jealousy when it came to watching her and Jacob on the big screen every week.

Especially when it was constant scenes of them fucking, well, pretend fucking, but same thing.

Back to the Jade bullshit.

Actually - no, that was a terrible time in his life. Why the fuck did he do that? He thought about it a lot. He regretted it deeply. And he knew there was always going to be a small part of her that didn't fully trust him because of that event.

And that killed him.

Of course, by the time he had shed himself of Jade, she was with Austin.

Austin, who was also tall and handsome.

Austin, who also had ocean eyes, like himself.

He had missed his chance, yet again.

He saw how they interacted. Austin was clearly in love with her and she was either in denial or completely clueless about her feelings towards him.

And yet, he and Addie remained friends during this.

Madelyn, Jacob and Aurora really turned things around, trying to steer them together, in the right direction.

Drew thought back on New Year's, back to their kiss.

It wasn't like their kisses for the show, it was better. It was real.

However, a lot of the things Drew said as Rafe to Addie's character, were real to him.

But since New Year's, what had happened? Nothing.

He had her, but he was grasping at straws.

She never wanted to talk about it.

He didn't understand her anymore. He didn't understand what was going on inside her head.