Free Con Academy by Joe Schreiber

campfire is that you’re a regular five-card stud. What’s your game?”
    Blackjack
is the word on my lips when I turn to approach the table and see the dealer standing behind it, shuffling the cards.
    â€œYou already met my girlfriend, right?” Brandt asks, and grins at Andrea. “Take good care of him, huh?”
    And Andrea smiles back at Brandt and then at me. “Absolutely.”

Eleven
    â€œI’ LL GIVE YOU THIS, ” I SAY, STANDING IN FRONT OF THE TABLE , close enough to whisper. “You
are
good.”
    Andrea just keeps smiling, as radiant as the lights on Las Vegas Boulevard, as she shuffles the deck. She’s already on to the next thing: dealing in new players on both sides of me as they move in, stacking up chips and tossing crisp piles of twenties across the green velvet. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out what it means that she’s dealing cards for the guy that we’re both supposed to be scamming.
    When she doles out my cards, I lean in again and whisper, “It didn’t take you long to make your move.”
    â€œTurns out Brandt likes to jump right into new relationships,” she says. “Who knew?”
    â€œSo how long have
you
been dating him, thirty-six hours?”
    She smiles. “You play him your way, I’ll play him mine.”
    â€œMy thoughts exactly.”
    My mom was the one who taught me how to count cards. She’d been dealing blackjack at the Palms when she’d met my dad, and my lessons started back when I was eight years old; I was what you might call homeschooled at the time, so I guess that part counted as math. By the time most boys my age were playing Little League and swapping Pokémon cards, I was already dragging in massive pots in basement games against disgruntled, chain-smoking weekend warriors while my dad sat behind me in case anybody got irritated about losing his grocery money to a kid whose voice hadn’t even changed yet. People occasionally used words like “prodigy.” And “phenomenon.” And “cheat.”
    When Andrea turns back to me now, I flick a fresh hundred-dollar bill onto the table like it’s the first one of a long night, even though it represents slightly more than a tenth of my current life savings. And just like that, I’m in the game, counting cards without really realizing what I’m doing. Even out of practice, I’m still quick enough that I can do it while holding up my end of the conversation.
    And I win.
    And win.
    And keep winning.
    Normally I’d take it easy, but I’m trying to get Brandt’s attention, and in a situation like this, there’s only one way to go about it. Nine hands in, I’m up a little more than six hundred dollars and feeling confident enough to slip some of my own cards into my hand, at which point even Andrea can’t ignore me anymore.
    â€œWhat are you
doing?
” she hisses.
    â€œI guess I could ask you the same question,” I say. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I did.”
    â€œHe’s already
watching
you. He knows you’re cheating.”
    â€œGood. I want him to.” But before I can say anything else, Brandt drifts over, his joviality just slightly more affected than it had been.
    â€œYo, Willpower,” he says, slapping me on the back. “Looks like you’re killing it over here, huh?”
    â€œWhat can I say?” I shrug. “Beginner’s luck.”
    â€œSure. You think maybe you want to pace yourself, give somebody else a chance?”
    â€œHey,” I say. “The way that I look at it, if you can’t take the heat, you shouldn’t be running a place like this, right?”
    Brandt looks like he’s just swallowed one of his dad’s golf balls, and then he just grins. “Uh-huh.” He shoots a glance at Andrea. “Why don’t you take a breather, Dre?”
    Andrea shrugs, then wraps herself around him for a