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face. She wasn’t usually this inept when it came to speaking to men.
    Or maybe it was just this man in particular who threw her off her game.
    Fortunately, Niall was smiling at her. Warmly. Openly. Maybe she hadn’t just sounded like an idiot. She smiled back. And then she was nearly knocked over by someone violently jostling her shoulder.
    â€œNiall! Where have you been?”
    Celia turned to face the person at the same time Niall did, and she jumped a little. She really had to learn how to take running into celebrities—or celebrities running into her, in this case—as a matter of course. She did her best to close down her expression as Niall reached out and plucked a glass of champagne from the girl’s hand. Celia knew why. This girl really was a girl : seventeen-year-old Naomi Burdick, who’d played Niall’s little sister in a movie from a couple of years before, Wotta Nut.
    â€œHey!” she exclaimed, reaching for the glass.
    Niall held it high out of the petite girl’s reach. “Nuh-uh. Not on my watch.”
    â€œNiall! Come on! Nobody cares—”
    â€œ I care. You’re not drinking if I have anything to say about it, you hear me?”
    Suddenly the expression in the girl’s enormous blue eyes switched from fury to devotion, and her entire body softened. She stopped grabbing for the glass, and her shoulders slouched under her tiny gold halter top. “Aww,” she cooed. “You care about me.”
    â€œOf course I care about you, Neener. You’re like a real little sister to me, you know that.”
    The dark clouds reconverged on the girl’s pretty features. “That’s not what I meant.”
    â€œBut that’s what I meant. Now, can I get you some soda?”
    Naomi sighed. “Fine.”
    Niall nodded and said to Celia, “I’ll be right back.”
    He threaded his way through the crowd, and Celia watched him go with the terrifying realization that she’d just been left with Naomi. She turned back, and sure enough, Naomi was still there. Studying her. With a displeased duck face that would put McKayla Maroney’s original to shame.
    Celia hoped flattery might clear the girl’s expression. “I like your movies.”
    â€œHmph.”
    Maybe not.
    â€œWho are you, anyway?” Naomi demanded, the emphasis she put on the word “you” implying she was . . .
    â€œN-nobody,” Celia stammered. “I just—”
    Then the young girl cut to the chase. “Don’t think you’re going to get a piece of Niall, okay? Just forget it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPeople like you don’t get a shot at somebody like Niall . You got that?”
    â€œYou’re making a mistake,” Celia insisted. “Besides . . . you know . . . Tiffany, right?”
    â€œTiffany?” Naomi’s lip-twist got so severe the lower half of her face looked like it was being reflected in a fun-house mirror. She let out an indelicate snort. “Please.”
    â€œBut they’re—”
    â€œJust mind your own business.” With one last dismissive look up and down Celia—which effectively communicated her severe disapproval of everything from her scuffed shoes to her inexpensive jeans to her hairstyle—Naomi spun around, her long, honey-streaked hair lashing at everyone around her like a cat-o’-nine-tails as she pushed her way through the crowd, heading in the same direction Niall had gone.
    Celia let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Yikes. She’d just been shut down and reduced to the nothing she’d described herself as, by a girl less than half her age.
    Fun night.
    Celia waited a while longer in the same spot, but Niall didn’t return. She wondered if Naomi had intercepted him. Even though the young girl was making no secret of her interest in him, it was obvious he didn’t return the sentiment, which was a relief.