But the screen was already playing a random TikTok dance.

Aria scrolled up and down, pulling the feed to refresh, but whatever the teenager had been looking at regarding Bella and Leo was gone. The algorithm had refreshed, swallowing the post into the digital void.

"Holy shit," the cashier gasped, her pink bubblegum popping as she stared at the emerald eyes peering over the dark frames. "You’re Aria Sinclair!"

Aria flashed a flawless, perfectly practiced celebrity smile and shoved the phone back into the stunned girl’s hands.

"Thanks so much, sweetie!" Aria chirped.

She spun on her bare heel and strutted right out the door, leaving the cashier paralyzed in the fluorescent lighting of the pharmacy.

Aria marched back across the dirty sidewalk, yanked the driver’s side door of the Maserati open, and slipped back into the bucket seat.

The second she pulled the door shut, Damien held her iPhone out to her.

"Ms. Chen is on the line," he stated dryly. "She sounds... frantic."

Aria took the phone and pressed it to her ear.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" Zoe’s shriek was so loud it threatened to shatter the windshield. "You were supposed to pick me up fifteen minutes ago!"

Aria winced, pulling the speaker an inch away from her eardrum. She grabbed the blue gel ice pack she had just bought and tossed it over the center console to Damien.

Letting out a quiet, suffering sigh, Damien immediately pressed the freezing gel pack directly against his aching crotch.

"Sorry! Sorry, Zoe, this morning has been completely crazy," Aria apologized, putting the phone on speaker as she opened the Instagram app.

She bypassed her own notifications and headed straight for TMZ’s main grid. It was the very first thing on the page.

Her jaw unhinged.

Bella had posted a picture to her main feed. It was a close-up, intimate shot of Leo sleeping soundly in a messy hotel bed, his face buried halfway in a pillow, with Bella’s perfectly manicured hand affectionately tangled in his dark hair.

The caption burned into Aria’s retinas: He’s so cute when he’s sleeping.

The post already had four hundred thousand likes in under twenty minutes. The comment section was an unfiltered dumpster fire.

@LeoFanAccount99: EXCUSE ME?! IS THIS REAL?! TELL ME THIS IS FROM A MOVIE SET

@PopCultureTea: The way she just soft-launched him... the drama is feeding me.

@Hater33: Aria fakes a coma and Bella swoops in and steals the best guy in showbiz. The Vale sisters are messy AF.

@BellaStan: Omg they are so cute together! Finally she gets a win!

"Aria, we are going to miss the morning talk show!" Zoe panicked over the speaker, hyperventilating. "This is the biggest morning show in the country! I licked a lot of ball sacks to get you on this segment, Aria!"

Sitting in the passenger seat with a frozen gel pack pressed to his groin, Damien visibly grimaced. His golden eyes widened a fraction, darting toward the phone in slight horror. He wondered, if she meant that as a crude metaphor or she actually did...

Aria wasn’t listening at all. Her blood was boiling. Bella had dug her toxic claws into the sweetest, purest golden retriever of a guy on their movie set, and she was parading him around like a shiny new accessory to steal the spotlight.

"Aria Seraphina Vale-Sinclair!" Zoe barked.

Aria snapped back to reality, tearing her eyes away from the screen.

"I’m literally two minutes away from your apartment, Zoe," Aria fired back. "Get my outfit ready, and tell Coco to meet us at the talk show studio."

Aria didn’t wait for a response. She hit the red ’end call’ button, cutting her best friend off, and tossed her phone right into Damien’s lap.

Aria grabbed the gear shifter, threw the car into drive, and peeled aggressively away from the curb.

"Can you believe that?!" Aria ranted, her bare foot hitting the gas as she merged into the traffic. "Bella and Leo?! Possibly dating?! I literally can’t believe it! It makes me sick!"

Damien adjusted the ice pack slightly as the intense G-force pushed him hard into the leather bucket seat. "They must have hooked up last night," he hummed, applying cool, unbothered male logic to the situation.

"I had grand plans of setting Zoe up with Leo!" Aria complained, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the steering wheel. "Why is it always the best, green-flag guys who get with the most toxic and undeserving people?!"

She swerved into the left lane without using a blinker. A businessman in a sleek silver BMW slammed on his horn, trying to speed up to block her from cutting in front of him.

Aria didn’t yield. She laid her hand flat on the horn, letting out a long, deafening blare as she played a game of high-speed chicken. The businessman flinched first, slamming his brakes. He rolled down his window and flipped her the middle finger.

Aria instantly hit her own window switch. The glass glided down, letting the roar of city traffic flood the cabin.

"Stick it up your ass, asshole!" Aria shrieked at the top of her lungs, flipping him right back before rolling the window up and flooring it past him.

She whipped the steering wheel to the right to bypass a stalled garbage truck, squeezing the wide body of the Maserati between the truck and a city bus. There were literally two inches of clearance on either side of the vehicle.

The Maserati’s collision proximity sensors completely lost their minds.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! The dashboard lit up with flashing red warning lights as Aria threaded the needle at fifty miles an hour. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Damien’s hand flew up to grip the leather-wrapped ’oh shit’ handle above the passenger window so hard the stitching audibly groaned. His jaw was locked tight enough to shatter his teeth. Every time she violently slammed her bare foot against the brakes, the blue gel pack on his lap shifted, threatening to slide off.

She blew straight through a solid red light just as it changed, sending a flock of startled pigeons scattering wildly over the hood of the car.

"Aria, the light was red!" Damien gritted out, his eyes wide.

"I didn’t see it!" Aria yelled over the screaming proximity sensors, taking a corner so sharply the tires shrieked, pinning Damien’s shoulder hard against the door panel.

She slammed on the brakes one more time. The car screeched to a halt right in the middle of a busy intersection, caught behind a wall of cross-traffic.

The G-force threw them both forward against their locking seatbelts.

Taking a ragged breath, Aria turned her head and looked over at Damien.

He was sitting stiffly, staring straight ahead, looking like a man who had just made peace with his maker. The blue gel pack was resting politely and uselessly flat on top of his thighs.

Aria let out an exasperated sigh. "You’re doing it wrong," she deadpanned, looking at the ice pack.

Damien narrowed his eyes defensively, still gripping the overhead handle. "It is cold. It is applying relief."

"You have to put it under your testicles, Damien," Aria corrected matter-of-factly. "Take off your pants."

Before Damien could even respond, Aria leaned over the center console and started unbuckling his leather belt.