Are we sure we want to indulge in the rumours about Riley Keough and Aaron Taylor-Johnson?

Riley Keough is currently working on two projects in New York – Megan Park’s film Die Alive with Zoë Kravitz and Enigma Variations, an upcoming series for Netflix based on André Aciman’s book by the same name, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the lead role. André Aciman also wrote Call Me By Your Name, to give you a sense of what the vibe of Enigma Variations might be: sexy, and sexually curious.

With that in mind…

Riley and Aaron were papped out in NYC this week. TMZ reports that they had dinner together after a day of filming and in the photos, which you can see at DeuxMoi, they look like they’re having a great time. There is nothing physical to suggest that this is anything more than two colleagues walking around the city, but the internet is seeing a vibe. Much of that vibe has to do with how attractive these two are individually and then even more attractive together and the Photo Assumption POV (our favourite game of baseless conclusions), is that the way she’s looking and smiling at him, it’s like how a girl in high school might laugh too hard and gaze too longingly at the boy she has a crush on.

This is the story that a lot of people are writing in their heads because of course Aaron’s wife is Sam Taylor-Johnson and theirs might be the internet’s most despised marriage, so despised that Aaron’s had to address it in interviews. And the one thing people hate more than cheating is an age gap relationship that started uncomfortably early. So, if there is any possibility in this fiction becoming factual, if Riley and Aaron somehow become the next onscreen to offscreen celebrity romance, there probably wouldn’t be many pitchforks coming at them from social media; instead, it might go in the opposite direction, a surge in popularity and another sticky parasocial reaction that crosses all kinds of complicated boundaries.

Speaking of complicated, Riley is also married – to Ben Smith-Petersen, an actor and stunt performer, with whom she shares two young children. Riley and Ben have been together for a long time, they were young when they started dating in 2012 and married in 2015, when she was around 25/26 and he was 23/24. Ben has seen Riley through the roughest moments of her life.

Ben was photographed this week, too, the paps say he was with stunt coordinator Ingrid Kleinig though it’s hard to see her face. If it is Ingrid, they’ve known each other for years and years, have been working together for years and years so it’s not exactly conspiratorial for the two of them to be together. And for what it’s worth, both Ben and Riley are still on each other’s IGs, doesn’t look like anything has been scrubbed.