Gold Rush

Chapter Twelve

“Luke! Dude! Come on!”

            “Noah, shut up!” Luke growled, swatting his friend on the shoulder as he went to retrieve the little plastic ball. “I don’t see you returning any of her hits!”

            “That’s because I’m not the one playing,” Noah said in a duh voice.

            Chloe smirked across the ping-pong table at Luke, tapping her paddle against her hip. “It looks like I’m going to win this round.”

            He pursed his lips at her. “I wouldn’t plan on it.” With that he served the ping-pong ball to her with a violent swing.

            “Hey,” Rian started in a whisper, nudging my side with his elbow. “Who do you think is going to win?”

            For a moment I stayed silent, watching the plastic ball bounce across the table and back. Luke and Chloe seemed pretty even, but Luke always slipped up at the worst possible second. “Chloe,” I finally returned.

            “I think so too,” he commented, standing uncomfortably close to me. “Luke is pretty clumsy.”

            I murmured in agreement, trying to inconspicuously move away from him. Just being near him made my pulse pick up now. It didn’t make sense! Before when Rian was around me I wasn’t this nervous. Even if I did like him, I would have been nervous from the start. It wouldn’t of just suddenly sprung up on me.

            “I’m playing you next,” Rian told me.

            My head snapped toward him. “What?”

            “What?” he responded, cocking an eyebrow.

            “What do you mean by that?” I demanded, frowning at him. He was going to play me? How could he say that so proudly?

            Rian furrowed his eyebrows. “I thought we settled this earlier? After Luke and Chloe are finished, we’re playing.”

            “Oh.” That’s what he meant. Mentally slapping a hand to my forehead, I returned my attention to the ping-pong table. Now I was being paranoid.

            “My older sister and I used to always play ping-pong together,” Rian continued. “That’s how I got good.”

            I turned to look at him now. “Did you stop playing because you got famous?”

            “No,” Rian responded with a little laugh. “I would definitely still play with her if I could. She died about two years ago.”

            I blinked. Did I just hear him correctly? His sister died? How did I not know that? “Rian, I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

            “I know,” he cut me off, grinning. “It’s fine. Actually, not a lot of people know, so it’d be awesome if you kept this quiet.”

            “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re famous. Why don’t people know?” I asked curiously.

            Rian rolled his eyes at me. “When did you first hear of Gold, Iris?”

            Confused by his question, I furrowed my eyebrows. Was he trying to change the subject? “Um, I guess about nine months ago?”

            “Exactly.”

            “Exactly what?”

            Rian gave me a look that made me think he thought I was stupid. “I wasn’t famous when my sister died, so not a lot of people know about her since I don’t like to talk about her.”