> Talking to women is a lot like playing poker...just don't tell anyone I said that. Wait...aren't you a reporter? Damn, who do you work for?!?

A few minutes later, the main power turned back on. Unfortunately, some things can never be taken back. For the rest of the weekend, anytime Joey stood somewhere, it had to be with his back against a wall. At least while sitting playing poker, the chair would protect him, but it wouldn't pay for his therapy.  So he had to collect those expenses from his opponents.

There was one amazing thing during the power outage. While people in the rest of the casino stopped everything they were doing, the poker players continued playing in the low light without a care in the world. It was the peak of degeneracy. Not even the lack of sight would stop them from getting their poker fix. Joey imagined that if zombies ran into the room, they would probably have to eat a dozen people before the first player said, "Deal me out."

After waiting for a while, Joey finally got a seat. He really enjoyed playing here. The convenience was far better than in private clubs and some games even went 24 hours. The only criteria to keep a game running was if there were two or more players who wanted to play; The casino would never stop them. Joey even lost track of time until he finally felt the arrival of exhaustion. He actually lost a little today, but that's not unexpected. In poker, you simply can't win every session, or even the majority of them. On top of that, it was his first time playing in a casino, and he didn't know any of these players.

...

Joey was in the elevator, pressing the floor to go up to his room when he heard a shout.

"Ah, hold it!" A few seconds later someone ran in panting. Unexpectedly, it was Ellie. She took a second to catch her breath before finally realizing it was Joey there. "Oh, hey." When she noticed that she was panting like that in public, her cheeks turned slightly red.

"You could've just waited for the next one. Did you see me get into this elevator, and just had to follow me?" Joey asked, with a light smirk.

"Ah! No, no! I'm just in a rush to grab my phone from my room. I left it to charge," she tried to explain, as her face turned properly red.

"Mmmhm, sure." Joey lightly nodded, teasing her with his disbelief.

"Really!" She couldn't help but let out a nervous giggle now as the elevator doors closed.

"So are you planning to come to my room or?" Joey questioned, pointing at the floor buttons where only his was selected.

Ellie's face turned into a tomato as she rushed to press her floor button, accidentally pushing a few others in the process.

The elevator started moving upwards. They were stuck in a nervous silence for a few seconds, with Ellie still trying to recover from her embarrassment. "So...do you like the casin--."  The lights suddenly went out.

"AAAHHHH!" Joey heard a girl's scream followed by the feeling of someone jumping into his chest.

'...Logic says there's only one other person here, but goddamnit, I won't be fooled again!' Numerous haunting images of Pedro's head flooded out from the deep of his subconscious, assaulting his mind and soul. He quickly took out his phone to use the light for confirmation.

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As the light came on, he first saw slender, long legs in black tights. They ran up to curvy hips in a flower patterned red skirt, ending in a tight, slim waist. From there, the light reached a pair of round C cup breasts, squeezed within a black long sleeve blouse with laces on the front, exposing white cleavage partially covered by silky blue hair. Continuing upwards was a face that couldn't be improved in any way. Finally, the climax was reached...a furry brown hat with horns on it...

...

'She needs to work on her hat game, but besides for that, this girl is really beautiful,' Joey thought. "You ok?"

"Yea...I'm just...a little scared of the dark is all."

"You better not get too far away from this phone then." Joey smiled as he moved the phone closer to himself, joking with her. Ellie's face became even redder as she looked down, but she still didn't move away from embracing Joey. "It must be another power outage," he said.

"How long do you think until they fix it?"

"Depends. Could be a few minutes, could be a few days. It could even be the apocalypse and we'd have to make this our home."

*PFFT* Ellie broke into laughter. The joke eased her nerves. At that moment, something in her eyes changed. She started to look at Joey differently.

"Let's grab a seat, we might be here a while." Joey took off his jacket and laid it on the floor against the wall. He sat down and patted the spot next to him indicating for Ellie to sit.

"That's nice of you. Putting your jacket down like that."

"...This? No, this is Anwar's. I stole it earlier."

"Haha." She sat down next to him, feeling safer.

"...The answer is it's enjoyable so far, but we'll see how it goes," Joey said.

"...What?" Ellie asked, as her thoughts started spinning.

"You asked me earlier if I like the casino."

"Oh...yea."

"It's my first time here though. You seem like you come here a lot..."

"Not that much. I mostly play in Queens, but I've been coming here more recently because there are some good tournaments. I'm training to become a better tournament player. That's also why I play all the freerolls at PR. I've only been playing for a year so I'm just getting used to it." She felt like she was rambling a bit and stopped herself.

"...I'm also working on getting better at tournaments. I just started playing too, but one year...how are you playing in such big games already? You're not some kind of cheater are you?" Joey asked with a teasing tone.

"No!" She slapped his arm. "I just started playing and...I guess I had a natural talent for it so I did pretty well. Over time, I just gradually moved up..."

"Wow, that's actually impressive. I've never heard of a blue haired person being good at poker. You're a real trailblazer for your race."

"Hahaha what race? I'm human!"

"You promise? I thought you were a mermaid or something."

"Yea! My hair wasn't always blue."

"What was it before?" Joey lifted her cap to take a look if she had the color showing in her roots.

Ellie's face turned red. "...Black, my father's Asian after all."

"Oh. Your family is in New York?"

At that question, Ellie grew silent and put her head down in her lap. "...They're in California. We're...not close."

Joey felt Ellie's sadness and realized he hit a sensative topic. "At least you know where they are. I have no idea where my dad is..." Joey sighed.

Ellie couldn't avoid looking at him...

"I guess we're on our own, but...that doesn't mean we can't do anything. We just have to get stronger." Joey smiled at her. To Ellie, that smile practically lit up the room. She had a strange feeling, one she's never had before, and she suddenly...wanted to know more about Joey.

"Tell me about...your hobbies." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she realized how awkward she sounded. She buried her head into her knees to cover her blushing face. At that moment, she felt an arm wrap around her shoulders and looked up to see Joey smiling with his eyes.

"I like chatting with cute, weird girls in elevators."

Ellie felt an overpowering heat develop in her chest. Her heart thumped and her breath became short. She felt lost in Joey's eyes. Before she knew it, his face was mere centimeters away from hers. She closed her eyes...

*Ting*

The elevator lights suddenly turned on and it started to ascend.

...

Waking up from her spell, Ellie abruptly stuttered "We, we shou--."

Her lips were sealed with a kiss from Joey. Her eyes slowly closed again. Things went back to the way they should've been.

Joey already learned that you should never let life's opportunities pass you by.