A house of cards is fragile enough. At least make sure the foundation's solid.

“Um...I need to learn about dealing,” Joey summoned the words.

“Why didn’t you say so? Ok, I’m Amy,” she said as she put her hand out.

Joey wasn’t accustomed to touching people. It made him feel too many things. He stared at her hand a long while before raising his to meet it. Whether it was the smoothness of her skin or the light scent of lavender wafting from her body, these were very strong sensations that muddled his mind.

There was something else as well. ‘I’m...shy?’ Joey thought. ‘No...it’s her. She’s feeling shy...Wow. I didn’t expect that from her demeanor.’ He took another glance at her before pulling his hand away, noticing the light red blush spreading on her pale cheeks.

They once again stood in awkward silence until Amy remembered her task. “Right, let me show you around,” she stated with a smooth, but monotone voice. She gave him a tour of the space while explaining the norms and customs of the staff and players. “You know how to play right?” She asked.

“A bit,” he replied.

“Alright, well professor Amy is going to start the lecture so you just tell me if you don’t understand something,” she said with a serious face. “Snacks, coffee, I don’t need to explain that to you. The dealer part is what you need to focus on and also where the tips will come from. Ok, you see this poker table?” she pointed.

Joey nodded.

“The dealer sits in this chair. As the dealer, your job is simple. First, deal the cards according to the rules of the game. Second, follow the action.”

“Action?” Joey asked.

“Action refers to what’s happened so far during a hand: who bet, raised, and checked, and most importantly, who needs to make the current decision. Only one player can make a decision at a time. Whoever’s turn that is, we say the action’s on that player. The dealer tracks that and other things like who has the button.”

“Button? What’s that?”

Amy stared at Joey in confusion. “I’m curious where Angelo found you. If he hired you for this, it’s not because of your extensive experience. Did you save him in a past life?” She gazed at Joey, awaiting an answer.

“Um...unlikely,” he replied, not sure what to make of this situation.

“Ok students, let’s start this semester’s session of Poker 101,” Amy carried on her roleplay while Joey wondered if this was her fetish or something. “In every hold ‘em hand, there’s one player who has the button, which stays in front of his chips for everyone to see. It’s that white thing there.” She pointed to a round white object shaped like an air hockey puck.

Amy continued. “At the end of every hand, it’s the dealer’s job to slide the button over one spot to the left for the next player. Got that? Now, the first reason the button is important is position.”

“Position?”

Amy stared at Joey this time with her emerald eyes, unblinking, body frozen. Confused, he looked around for hidden cameras.. After a minute passed, he couldn’t take it anymore. “Wha--“

“No,” she unfroze. “Position determines who acts later during a poker hand. The player with the button has the privilege of acting last. Acting later is an enormous advantage because you collect more information from the actions of the opponents who acted before. For example, if they bet or checked, you’ll have a better grasp of whether they’re strong or weak.”

Joey was...lost. ‘Is she an android? What the f*ck is going on?’

Amy continued. “The second reason the button' is important is the two players to the left of the button are the blinds.”

“…Blinds?”

Amy’s eyes entered a bout of furious blinking, as if they were hoping, wishing...that the blink would come, the one foretold, the one that would erase Joey from his senseless existence.

Joey’s intuition made him take a step back. ‘Am I in danger?’

A few seconds later, Amy answered. “The blinds are the positions of the two players to the left of the button. When the button moves left, the blinds also move left. The further clockwise you are from the blinds, the better your position is, with the best being the button. The blinds are the worst positions to be in for two reasons...”

She continued. “The first is because they have to act first anytime betting starts. Like how acting last is an advantage for the button, acting first is a disadvantage for the blinds. The only exception to that is on the initial betting round when each player gets two down cards, the blinds act last only then. Afterward, they always act first. The second reason it’s bad to be the blinds is that at the start of a hand, they’re forced to put chips into the pot.”

“I don’t see a pot...Is it under the table?”

Amy glanced up. It was on the off chance there was a wormhole she could jump into...one that could help her escape into another dimension, a simpler dimension...one without these struggles and vicissitudes.

None. She cursed her bad luck. “The pot is just the center of the table. That’s where the chips that players wager during a hand stay until that hand is over. Once it’s over, the winner gets the pot. After that, a new hand starts, the button and blinds all slide one position left, and the blinds are forced to pay a few chips into the pot. Then everyone gets dealt two new down-cards again for the next hand. In summary: button good, blinds bad.”

As the responsible teacher, Amy paused to give Joey a chance to ask a question. She looked at him with kind encouraging eyes.

She also held a knife behind her back...

At some point, she had grabbed one from Angelo’s kitchen.

...

Joey’s instincts didn’t fail him today. He didn’t know why but his mouth was too dry to speak.

Amy finished up. “That’s the gist of it. At the end of every hand, it’s a custom for the winner to throw the dealer a tip. That’s our wage. Questions?”

Joey shook his head in slow motion, relieved when he felt the thick bloodlust receding.

“Alright, let me show you how to shuffle the cards,” she said as they started the next lesson.

‘He better have the shuffling technique of David Blaine or it’s gonna be Chernobyl up in here.’ Amy gave Joey a warm smile.

For good or bad, Joey was unaware of the specifics of Amy’s thoughts during this whole process. Empath or not, some people’s minds are too...unique. Still, without knowing why, he would have strange nightmares tonight.