Heroes of Olympus: The Rise of Chaos

Chapter 6 - Leo

Leo got up and paced again. Should he leave? She'd been in there a while, hours actually. Was this crossing the line from being nice to stalking? He had come to The Big House about 40 minutes after Chiron had taken her in there. At first, he was able to play ping pong with some Apollo and Hermes kids who were having a tournament, but then they all left and now he was sitting here awkwardly on his own.

He sighed and put his small screwdriver and little animatronic dragon fly he'd been making back into his toolbelt, deciding it was time to give up. What had he been thinking? It's just that when Nel had come out of the lake she'd looked really upset and, well, he kinda felt responsible for her. He'd set Calypso free, and Calypso had gone for her.

Then, just as he stood up, Nel came out Chiron's office and smiled at him. She looked happier than before and still just as incredibly beautiful.

"Hello," she came over to him. "Are you waiting to see Chiron?"

Leo felt his face turn hot and was tempted to say yes just to get out of this conversation, but then he would have nothing to say to Chiron and that would be just as awkward to walk in his office with no plan, if not more.

"Er, no. I, er, just finished a ping pong tournament," he looked around at the very quiet, very empty Big House and realised that wasn't the most effective lie. "Everyone else has already left and I was just er..."

She raised her eyebrow and smiled, he wondered if she knew he was there for her.

"How did you do?"

"Do what?"

"In the ping pong tournament?" Her smile got bigger. He swallowed; damn she was cute. No, he cautioned himself, you mustn't think like that.

"Oh, that, yeah, not great. It was against the Apollo and Hermes kids, who are better at that sort of thing,"

"So, you lost?"

"Hey! I did not lose; I came second to last. The guy who lost had a sprained wrist,"

Nel laughed and he hated the fact it made his chest tighten.

"Well, sorry I doubted your ping pong abilities,"

"Yeah, well, you should be, because I reckon, I could take you any day, aqua girl – being a child of Poseidon doesn't give you any special ping pong abilities. So, you're on the same level as me,"

"That's big talk for someone who just came second to last,"

"I know what not to do now,"

"Uh huh, come on then Valdez. Let's go,"

"Okay then, it's on,"

Leo led her to the ping pong table and handed her a paddle.

"You ready El?" He grinned.

"Come at me,"

Nel readied her paddle and Leo served, she hit it back and he missed.

"Meant to do that,"

"Sure, you did,"

They played until it was time for dinner. Nel won.

"I let you win,"

"Of course, you did. That's why you swore under your breath when you missed that last shot,"