Never Tied Down (The Never Duet #2)(9)

In recent months, not googling him had been more for self-preservation purposes. I didn’t really want to see him, whether it be on a phone screen or a TV screen—I didn’t want to see him, period. I wasn’t sure my heart could take any more pain than it had already been through. So I just never did it. But sitting in Ella’s car as she drove down the freeway, with the seal already broken, thanks to the red carpet coverage, I decided there probably wasn’t anything worse on the Internet than what I’d seen on the television that morning.

I’d been wrong.

So.

Very.

Wrong.

I was flooded with images of him. All kinds of images. Pictures of him walking down the street in LA, of him on set laughing with his co-stars, stills from his show, him holding up a gun, looking like a real cop.

My breath caught for a moment and then I flipped my phone over and put the screen against my thigh. I must have moved too quickly because Ella’s head turned toward me.

“What is it?” she asked, concerned.

“I just googled Riot.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, trying—unsuccessfully—to wipe the images from my mind.

“Oh,” she replied, her voice worried. “That was brave.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is dumb. That was dumb.”

“Maybe a little. What’d you find?”

“Oh, not much, just a bunch of pictures of him looking incredible.”

“He’s not hard on the eyes.”

“No, he’s not,” I agreed as I picked up my phone and flipped it over, looking at the screen again. Like I said, I was into pain. “He makes a really hot cop,” I muttered absently, my finger swiping across my screen quickly. I wasn’t even really taking the pictures in, I was just gorging myself on him. Like a kid let into a candy store and told they could eat as much as they wanted. I just kept shoveling it down. “Oh, God,” I groaned, and instantly made my screen go black and shoved the phone between my thighs.

“What?”

“I saw a picture of him surfing. Shirtless. Wet. God.” I groaned again. “I didn’t even know he could surf.”

After a moment’s pause, Ella asked, “What do you think he was doing with Lexi?”

“You mean besides Lexi? I think they were on a date. Obviously.” I picked up my phone again, but tried to clear out of the images and look for just an article about them.

“Maybe they just went to the movie as friends.” Ella sounded hopeful. Even Mattie gave a wail from the backseat that sounded frustrated.

I turned to Ella and gave her my best “you’ve got to be kidding me” face. “Come on now, Ella. You saw that music video. She’s adorable. And sexy. And hot. And he’s… well… he’s Riot. They aren’t just friends. You can’t just be friends with either one of them. Especially considering they hadn’t ever met each other before that video.”

“But what about her director boyfriend?”

“I’m reading about it now.” I thumbed through the article until I found what I was looking for. “Lebowitz was contacted to comment on his relationship with Black and he declined to make a statement, which isn’t unusual for him. Both Black and Bentley’s camps are keeping quiet, not offering to confirm or deny a relationship between the two. We at E! News aren’t calling this one yet. Our guts are telling us this was a publicity stunt, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more sightings.” I scrunched up my face. “A publicity stunt? They were kissing.”

“Things aren’t always as they appear,” Ella said with her new motherly, all-knowing voice.

“It doesn’t even matter. He can date whoever he wants.”

“He’d probably like to date you,” Ella said carefully, giving me the side-eye from behind the steering wheel.

I decided not to respond. I could have agreed with her, or told her it couldn’t be true. Either reality was too harsh to think about. So I tried not to. Instead, we spent the next thirty minutes in silence as we made our way to Portland.



I took a few quick steps to get to the door of Poppy before Ella, holding it open so she could push her stroller through with ease. She gave me a thankful smile as she passed, and then I saw her eyes go into boss mode. She looked around the sales floor and I could only imagine what was running through her mind. She was probably examining inventory levels, employee productivity, all kinds of things she’d learned to manage as the owner of a small business and assess with just a sweep of her eyes.

“Hey, Fella,” Megan called before we were halfway through the store. “Kalli!” she nearly squealed when her eyes found me. “I’m so excited to see you.” She came toward us, giving us each a hug. Then she bent down in front of the stroller and used her baby voice on Mattie. “Hello, sweet girl. How’s my favorite niece?”

Mattie gurgled her response.

“Are you ready to go?” Ella asked, taking another sweep of her eyes through the store.

“Yeah, Brittany’s here, so I’m good.”

Almost as if she’d heard her name, Brittany came out of the back room and saw us.

“Hey guys. How’s it going?”

“Just headed out for a girls’ day,” Ella said, smiling warmly at Brittany.