Double Blind by Heidi Cullinan

stupid and flighty, because I enjoy manipulating people, and you’re quite a puzzle to put together. But you assume I’m doing this because I’m restless.”
     
    Ethan faltered for a second, self-conscious. Then he got a better look at Randy’s face and shook his head. “But you are. You’re the other, too, because you are an ass, but you’re also restless.”
     
    He watched Randy’s expression try to shutter, but he couldn’t quite manage it, and he just looked surprised. “Do you, Mr. Ellison, by any chance play poker?”
     
    Ethan shook his head. “Never. Why?”
     
    “Because I think,” Randy said, taking his arm again, “that you would be a natural. Come on. You don’t want shops. You don’t want the Strip, either. You want a casino.”
     
    “I don’t want to go back to Herod’s,” Ethan said quickly.
     
    “God no,” Randy agreed. “But Herod’s isn’t really a casino. It used to be, but now it’s sort of casino theater. Billy’s a dick. Worse, he’s a dick with a trust fund. He doesn’t run the place as a business but as a playground for whatever whim has taken him for the moment. He’s vacant and stupid, and all he wants to do is manipulate people.”
     
    Ethan snorted. “Unlike you.”
     
    “Hey!” Randy drew back, looking genuinely offended. “I play with people. With them. Big fucking difference, Slick.”
     
    “Do you have a nickname I can toss back at you?” Ethan asked wearily.
     
    “Sure,” Randy said. “Go ahead and give me one.”
     
    “I’d be fine with recycling one already in circulation.”
     
    “My CB handle is Skeet,” Randy offered.
     
    “Skeet?” Ethan repeated, wrinkling his nose. “Like the stuff you shoot?”
     
    “It’s a poker term,” Randy said. He aimed Ethan around a corner and back onto the street. “It’s only used in home games, but it’s kind of like a straight. It ranks between three-of-a-kind and a regular straight. Nine and five and two, and a little something in between.”
     
    Ethan had no idea what Randy was talking about. “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
     
    “No, you wanted something embarrassing to poke at me with. Tough luck, Slick. You’ll have to invent that yourself.” He pointed down the street. “There—see that shitload of lights ahead? That’s where we’re going: to the Golden Nugget.”
     
    At first Ethan had no idea how he was supposed to distinguish between one “shitload of lights” and another, but then he saw the glittering, golden galaxy of lights at the very end of their path. Of course, it was difficult to distinguish it from all the other garish displays.
     
    Ethan shook his head. “This place is just insane. The energy you must waste.”
     
    “Yeah, we’re real low on yurts around here.” Randy gestured to the panorama of decadence around them, of lights and shops and people, half of them drunk, all of them laughing and talking and soaking in the dizzy madness that was the city. “Isn’t it gorgeous? I love to go up in the Stratosphere tower just to look down on it all. So much sin wrapped up in so much pretty.”
     
    “Hedonism,” Ethan corrected him.
     
    Randy patted his arm but didn’t look at him, just kept scanning the street and the people. “It’s cute how you contradict everything I say, and it’s nice foreplay, but be careful how you don your monk cowl. You’ll only feel foolish later when you inevitably cut loose. Because you will, Slick. And it is going to be fucking glorious.”
     
    Ethan opened his mouth to argue, to demand to know how Randy presumed to think he knew what Ethan would or wouldn’t do, but he found he didn’t have the energy for it, and he deflated. “All right, I’ll admit I don’t really care about the environment, and no, I’m not a monk. But I still don’t like it.”
     
    Randy nodded and went back to watching the street traffic. “Because you’re jealous of the people who can cut loose when you can’t. I know. But