Double Blind by Heidi Cullinan Page B

the guy who should have treated you better, and you made it the world that should have wrapped you up in it. You decided that this was the moment it would do you right, and you rationalized that it was fair to ask for that, because all you wanted was five bucks. Just once. You wanted just five bucks, and you just wanted one win. You wanted to feel heard. You wanted someone to notice, but you knew they wouldn’t, so you asked black to give you a little loving. And it hurt like hell when even black let you down. For five bucks.”
     
    It was getting very, very hard for Ethan to breathe. “Stop talking,” he managed to whisper.
     
    Randy stopped shouting, but he didn’t stop talking. “I ride you, Slick, because you’re smarter than that, like I said. Don’t fucking go to roulette, where you can’t get the best of it.”
     
    “Where am I supposed to go then?” Ethan ground out, more raw than he wanted to be. He grabbed for the nearest verbal weapon he could find and added a sneer to sharpen it. “You?”
     
    But Randy just grinned. “No. You go to poker, baby.”
     
    It wasn’t right, the way the world melted when Randy looked at him like that. “I don’t know how to play poker.”
     
    Randy laughed, and the sound made Ethan’s insides hum. “By the end of the night, Mr. Ellison, you won’t be able to say that anymore.” He tucked Ethan’s hand back into his and nodded across the street where the Golden Nugget stood waiting. “Get your notebook ready, because school is in session.”
     
     
     
     
     
    “So what,” Randy asked, as he led Ethan onto the Golden Nugget’s casino floor, “do you know about poker already? Don’t tell me nothing. You haven’t lived under a rock. Just tell me how you’d describe it to someone from the moon.”
     
    “I—” Ethan trailed off before he even started, too busy taking in the glitter and glory around him. Randy was right: this was beautiful. The scene before him was built on greed and gambling and sin, but it was the most beautiful sin he’d ever seen. The casino was elegant, to start. It made him feel as if he were a king and this was his palace. Everything was posh and opulent, and every employee was slim and beautiful and smiling at him, as if they were happy only because Ethan had finally arrived. Lights flashed, people shouted and laughed over the rattle and hum of slot machines that all but drowned out the soft music playing overhead.
     
    Randy took Ethan’s chin in his hand and turned his face toward his own. “Poker,” he prompted. “Tell me about it.”
     
    “It’s a game,” Ethan began, hesitating because he felt silly. “You bet on it.”
     
    “On what?” Randy prompted.
     
    “On… the cards. On your—” Ethan tried to think of the word. “Hands? The hands of cards. What you’re dealt. And I swear, that’s all I know. Something about a full house and a straight and a flush and pairs. And I think aces are good.”
     
    “Never anything wrong with an ace,” Randy agreed. “That’s what you’ve got? That’s the poker you know?”
     
    “That’s what I’ve got.” Ethan readied himself for the ridicule.
     
    It didn’t come. Randy just nodded, accepting the facts, then led Ethan into the rows of slots. He stopped at a brightly smiling blond girl for change before taking them in deeper, back to a far wall, where he sat Ethan down on a stool beneath a row of slots under a sign which read VIDEO POKER. But Randy didn’t put any money in. Instead, he sat down on a chair beside Ethan, turned to face him, and started in on another lecture.
     
    “Okay,” Randy said, “this is what poker is. Poker is capturing the pot. To play the game, you make a bet, and you try to win your money back plus the money of everyone else playing. You don’t even need cards to play it. Go back to the River with Scully—”
     
    “What river?” Ethan interrupted, confused already.
     
    “The Ace on the River. The bar, where we made the