Null reference exception, even though I want my method to return null

Hi there,

I'm relatively new to C# and Unity, so I suspect the issue I'm having is that my fundamental approach is wrong. But I can't work out exactly how.

I'm working on an interaction system that uses a Raycast to determine if an item in front of a player can be interacted with. The code looks like this:

 private void InteractAction()
     {
         GameObject hitInteractable = InteractionCheck();
         if (hitInteractable.GetComponent<IInteractable>() != null)
         {
             hitInteractable.GetComponent<IInteractable>().Interact();
         }
         else
         {
             Debug.Log("You can't interact with this");
         }
     }
 
     //Fires a ray forward to check if an item can be interacted with, returns hit game object
     private GameObject InteractionCheck()
     {
         RaycastHit2D hit = Physics2D.Raycast(faceDirection.transform.position, Vector2.up, interactionDistance);
         if (hit == true)
         {
             return hit.collider.gameObject;
         }
         else
         {
             return null;
         }
     }

Now, I only want to run InteractAction() if the Raycast hits something, so I've set the Raycast up so that it returns null if it hits nothing - this is what's giving me the Null Reference Exception (I think). So the obvious solution would be to return a GameObject and that'd be problem solved, but I don't want any GameObject passed into InteractAction() if it can't be interacted with. Can anyone shine some light on what I've missed? Could I just pass a dummy object that doesn't have so no code would ever run? Feels very hacky. I should say, I use the InteractionCheck() method in a few instances, hence why I've seperated them out as I have... but maybe that's the wrong approach.

Thanks in advance!