Shooting Stars (15 page)

It’s so odd. Yet, at the same time, it feels just right. Like it was meant to happen all along, ever since that fi rst evening we’d met. That if we hadn’t ended up doing this, one of us might have spontaneously combusted.

Finally, when I need to breathe, I pull back.

“What are you doing?” I start.

Ned laughs, then grins and fi nally shrugs.

I watch him and start shaking my head slightly. It’s his shrug, however, rippling across his muscles, making his torso move in front of me, that jogs something in my memory. I remember that other night again— the one outside his house 135

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when he was sick— and frown. I’d been thinking about it on the minibus back from the circus skills workshop. Ned had been in pain with appendicitis, and I’d taken those very lucrative shots of his bare top half outside his house.

The thing with Ned was that all the paparazzi knew where he lived but never bothered to go out there. It was like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory: no one ever went in and no one ever went out. Well, except for big black SUVs with tinted windows that you couldn’t get a shot through. For all we knew there could have been Oompa Loompas living there along with Ned and his father.

But that night, something completely unexpected happened, and I was the fi rst to get there and the only person who got any shots. It had been my dad who got the tip- off from a friendly EMT— there’d been an ambulance sent out to Ned’s place. For Ned himself. But Dad had been busy on the other side of town and I was less than a fi ve- minute cab ride away.

When I got there, the ambulance was just pulling up, so I found myself a good spot by a hedge and waited.

It didn’t take long— I think Matthew Hartnett must have already been walking Ned down to the gate. Ned had one arm around his dad’s neck, and Matthew was kind of supporting him as they made their way slowly down the drive toward the fl ashing lights.

That’s when I started fl ashing some lights of my own.

With no one

else around to steal the show, I got some 136

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fantastic shots of father and son, shots of the EMTs taking over from Matthew Hartnett, and then shots of Ned as the EMTs helped him into the ambulance.

My forehead wrinkles now as I remember those shots. I recall thinking at the time that Ned didn’t look right. There was something odd about his face. Like I’d said the other day, I chalked it up to the pain. I mean, the guy was almost doubled over. He’d looked at me as he walked past. Really looked into my camera. And even though those probably would have been the best shots of the night, for some reason, I stopped and dropped my camera, shocked at what I was taking photos of— someone in serious pain. Someone who needed surgery.

It wasn’t one of my fi nest moments.

Now, still frowning, I look down Ned’s body, taking in his chest properly. He’s defi nitely more muscular and heavier than that night I’d been outside his house, but that’s not surprising. Stars’ bodies are generally all over the place, depending on their work schedule. A star can be all rippling muscles for a fi lm one minute and then downing cheese-burgers the next, once their work in the role has ended. And while Ned had been mostly at home, for all I knew, he could have had a personal trainer coming in every day. His top half duly inspected, my eyes travel farther down his skin, to the very edge of his swimsuit that’s riding just above the water’s edge.

And that’s when I spot something, or don’t spot something 137

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as the case may be, and move into work mode. I forget about any kissing, Ned Hartnett or otherwise (not that there’s been a lot of otherwise, but still . . . ). My hand whips out and pulls his waistband down slightly.

Nothing.

“What are you doing?” He repeats my question, now looking as confused as I was seconds ago.

I let his waistband snap back and stand up tall.

“I don’t know,” I tell him, a surge of adrenaline making my heart beat a whole lot faster than kissing him had. “But I think you should consider answering my question fi rst, whoever you are, because I know one thing for sure— you are not Ned Hartnett.”

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12

Not- Ned laughs again, but this time it’s a ner vous laugh.

“What do you mean I’m not Ned Hartnett?” I take a step back from him. “I mean,” I repeat, “you’re not Ned Hartnett. That seems like a pretty clear statement to me.”

Not- Ned opens his mouth, shuts it again, and then I see his jaw harden. He looks away for a moment or two. When he turns back again, it’s with narrowed eyes. “You’re crazy.”

“Am I?” I don’t move my eyes from his. At least now I know I’m really not crazy. Those moments where I’d had this sense that something was up with Ned Hartnett— that something wasn’t quite right about him, that he looked different, 139

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or a bit off— well, this is why. There was no crazy amount of Photoshopping on his shots, there was no nose job, he didn’t look different that night at his house because he was sick.

He looked different because it wasn’t him.

There

were two Ned Hartnetts around the place—

the

real one that I’d seen entering the ambulance, doubled in pain, and this one. The one that had picked me up off those concrete steps and lectured me about lying low.

The one that was standing right in front of me. My guess?

That the guy I’ve just kissed is either some kind of amazingly good Ned Hartnett impersonator or Ned’s brother.

No, he’s too alike. It’s got to be his brother. Maybe even a twin. And a brother or a twin who’s been standing in for him for some time now. Maybe even for years.

There’s a long pause where I can almost hear the options clanging against each other in Not- Ned’s brain— to tell or not to tell? Run? Sprint? Freeze? Hide? Finally, I decide just to get it right out there in the open between us. “You’re his brother, right?” I fi gure I’d never heard anything about a twin, but I’d defi nitely heard he had that brother in NYC.

He unfreezes now and turns and lifts himself out of the pool. He starts toward his towel. I guess he decided on “run.”

“Hey!” I yell. “Don’t think you’re going anywhere.” I lift myself out of the pool and chase after him. “I want some answers!”

Not- Ned picks up his towel and starts drying himself off, ignoring me.

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I reach him and try to grab the towel that’s drying off his hair. “Stop! You heard me!”

He yanks his towel back. “Answers? About what? Like I told you, you’re crazy.”

“Don’t bet on it,” I tell him. “Where’s your scar then?

From the appendectomy you had last year?” He glances down his right- hand side uncertainly. “Plastic surgery. It’s amazing what they can do these days.” Now I laugh. “Wrong, bozo. It’s all keyhole surgery now. You should have three tiny scars, not one big one. So, are you going to tell me now I’m not so crazy? Who are you really? And what are you doing here? Where’s the real Ned Hartnett?” There’s another long pause, but in it I can see that I’ve really got him now. He knows I know that he’s defi nitely not Ned. “I . . . ,” Not- Ned starts, but then the door to the pool opens up, interrupting us.

It’s Brad.

“Sorry guys, time to close,” he says, looking from one of us to the other. “Everything okay?”

I nod. “Ned and I were just doing a few laps. Weren’t we, Ned?”

“Sure,” Not- Ned agrees a little too heartily.

“Great!” Brad nods. “Well, if you’ve got everything, I’ll turn the lights off.”

“Not a problem,” I grab my towel and wrap it around me, then grab the guy’s arm and pull him toward the door. “We were just going, anyway. See you in the morning, Brad!” 141

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“Yes, see you,” Brad says, and gives us an odd look as we pass by, and I can tell he’ll be asking around in the morning to see if there’s something going on between us.

Huh. Five minutes ago, maybe. Now? Not likely.

We head down the carpeted corridor and I keep dragging until we reach a doorway. Small as I am, I shove Not-Ned inside into the half dark. I’m about to start demanding answers when I realize I’d like to demand other things as well. I pull back from him a little then, scared that I actually might. “Well,” I say gruffl y, “are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

He wraps his towel around his waist tighter now and tucks it in before he acknowledges me. When he sees the expression on my face, he laughs slightly. “Or what? You’ll step on my foot? Kiss me to death?”

Mind on the job. Mind on the job. I ignore that last comment and try not to let my serious expression waiver. “Information,” I tell him coolly, “is power.”

He loses his slight smile with this and fi nally says to me,

“I’m not some kind of freak pretending to be Ned Hartnett.

It’s not just me who has something to lose here.” I watch him closely. Interesting. So, what ever this is about, I now have confi rmation that it does actually have something to do with the real Ned Hartnett and isn’t just a case of some

“weirdo brother’s cry for help.” Instantly, my mind whirs into overdrive. The strongest theory I have is “cover- up.”

“So where’s the real Ned?” I ask as noises start up 142

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down the corridor—

doors closing, lights being switched

off. Brad.

Not- Ned hears it, too. “We have really got to get back to our rooms. I need to stay at this retreat, and I’m guessing you’re not looking to be thrown out, either.” His eyes challenge mine.

“No. I’m not.”

Down the corridor, another door closes with a bang.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he says quickly. “It’s not what you’re thinking. No drugs, no alcohol, nothing like that.” Bang!

“Meet me tomorrow morning. Before breakfast. Down by the lake,” he continues. “And I’ll tell you what’s going on.

Now, go. Before Brad catches us and we get a repeat of the Spanish Inquisition.”

★ ★ ★

“Good swim?” Katrina lowers her magazine to look at me as I enter room 20.

“Oh yeah,” I nod. “Best swim I ever had.”

“Cleared your head?”

Cleared my head? Um, not exactly. Instead of being lovely and clear, my head is now buzzing. There’s no way I’ll be sleeping to night. “Mmmm,” I answer Katrina.

“Oh, I almost forgot. There was another note for you. Here you go.” She sits up and fi shes it off her bedside table.

This brings me down to earth. It’s probably from Melissa.

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Melissa of 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. I take the note from Katrina.

My eyes skim it quickly. And, phew, it’s not from Melissa at all.

“It’s from Wendy,” I say, looking up. “Just checking in again. She’s in London. She says, ‘Any problems, just call.’ ” I have the urge to run out to the phone, wrestle it from whoever is manning the desk, and get Wendy to fl y over and sort out this whole mess. She could do it, too, she’s that kind of person. No one messes with Wendy.

But no . . . I made this now-

even- more- complicated

mess and, somehow, I have to fi nd a way out of it. I crumple the note in one hand. “Um, I might just take a quick shower,” I say. And before Katrina can reply, I make my way into the bathroom and close the door behind me.

My mind jumps from one crazy theory to the next as I turn the shower on, strip down, and get in. As I rinse away the chlorine, the phrase “cover- up” repeats itself over and over. But Not- Ned had made it clear that what ever was being covered up, it wasn’t about drugs or alcohol. So what was it?

A girl? A bad album? A split from his recording company?

And why have Not-

Ned at a retreat? No one knows he’s

here, anyway . . . Well, except for Melissa. And me.

However hard I try, I can’t make the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fi t together. Though maybe that would be easier if I could divert all of my brain cells away from focusing on that kiss. If only it hadn’t been so annoyingly . . . perfect.

The more I think about the whole Ned/Not- Ned thing, the 144

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less it starts to make sense. As I let the water fl ow over me, the thought passes fl eetingly through my mind that maybe I should call my dad, but I dismiss it almost immediately. No way. Wouldn’t he just love that? Me, in a bind, asking him for papping advice. No, I couldn’t give him the satisfaction.

By the time I’ve dried off, put on pj’s, and brushed my teeth, I’ve managed to slow down my buzzing brain. It actually became a lot easier once I replaced Ned in a certain memory of mine with Seth (instant turnoff). I’ll have to remember that trick. It’s amazingly effective.

With a deep breath, I open up the bathroom door and Katrina places her magazine on her bedside table. “You’re pop u lar to night,” she says. “Another message came for you while you were in the shower.”

“Really? Where is it?”

Katrina shakes her head. “Sorry, I meant a verbal message. It was a bit cryptic, actually.”