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forever. And, like I said, I can handle it.” He gave me a long look. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it.”
    I started to get a little peeved at this point. “Are you fi nished? Can I go now?” I couldn’t fi gure out why on earth he was even talking to me— I was a paparazzo, for crying out loud! The most attention we usually got was a rude gesture.
    And that was if we were lucky.
    Ned paused for a second. “No.”
    At fi rst, I thought I hadn’t heard him right, or that I’d asked 34
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    a different question than the one I’d meant to. “No?” I scowled.
    “You’re not fi nished? What’s that supposed to mean?” He kept right on staring at me. “It means you look smart.
    And what you’re doing is dumb.”
    That was the end of the line for me. “What I’m doing is dumb?”
    Quite calmly, he nodded. “Yes. It’s dumb.” I tried to control myself. Ned Hartnett might have been supercute, but what made him think he should be giving me career advice? I considered simply turning and running, but something held me to the spot.
    “You’re crazy. Look at you. You’ve got this distinct advantage over them and you’re not even using it.”
    “Advantage?” Now it was me who paused. My anger started to dissipate.
    Ned looked around and pulled me aside slightly, farther away from prying eyes. People were getting pretty interested in us by now and I didn’t blame them— a couple of the paparazzi had even taken some shots. I tried not to notice his hand on my arm again, which took a whole lot of effort.
    “I thought you were a kid, right? You could pass for one and get into places no one else could. Why you’re out here with them, I have no idea. You could be in there—” he jerked a thumb in the direction of the restaurant “—and no one would look twice at you.”
    I stared at him, frowning. My dad had fi lled me in on Ned Hartnett, how he was one of the top fi ve best- paid stars. But, 35
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    I mean, I’d already known he was huger than huge— I’d grown up with him. He was one of those child prodigy singers, the type who’d had a parent push them onto every TV show out there from the age of six. But the thing about Ned was that he could not only sing but also write, which meant his popularity kept growing. As he’d gotten older, he’d hidden away from the limelight more and more with each passing year, but his song writing hadn’t suffered for it. Not one bit. And he kept in touch with his fans through Facebook and Twitter and his blog. But because he hardly ever left his house, there were all kinds of rumors about him— that he had some kind of skin disease; that he weighed over fi ve hundred pounds; that he was chron-ically shy and could only speak to one person on the whole planet (his father); that he was addicted to this, that, and the other drug. But this guy standing in front of me was none of those things. . . .
    Well, except maybe plain old crazy, because he seemed to think I could walk into a restaurant and take shots of people and no one would notice because I was short.
    “Um, and what do you suggest I do with this?” I held up my rather large eight- thousand- dollar camera, my anger now completely gone, replaced with bewilderment. A star giving the paparazzi tips on getting the best shots? If only my dad were here. Thinking about my dad, I remembered the many shots we’d viewed online together of Ned. He looked different in real life. Though that was to be expected— anything put 36
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    out by his publicity machine would have been Photoshopped like crazy.
    In front of me, Ned shrugged. “The camera’s your problem. I’m just saying you’re different, but you’re not using that difference to your advantage. Not that