You're not half as clever as you think you are

Daniel shuffled a deck of cards, splaying them between his fingers and just as quickly dealing them out, then sweeping them back into a deck. His index fingers created a bridge between the cards, the faces and colors and suites flashing by too quickly for any average eye to notice any particular pattern or number.

The cards flew through his hands as though alive as he fanned them out, again and again, moving silkily despite their cheapness and the calluses running along the bottoms of his fingers and at his fingertips.

As he spun the cards every which way, fingers nimble, hands graceful, he thought. Daniel liked to think as he played with the cards. It was all muscle memory and the familiarity of the cards were comforting, no matter how expensive or cheap they were.

He preferred the cheap ones.

Henley leaned against the doorframe as she watched him give a subtle flick of the wrist and poof, it was gone, vanished into thin air. Magic.

She broke the silence, spinning a chair on one leg before sitting down. That was the thing about magicians; they just had to put on a show, regardless of where they were or who they were with. It was practically written into their DNA.

Daniel looked up, brows lifting into a look of wry surprise. "Henley," he greeted coolly, fanning out the cards before her with the ease of a…well. A magician. "Pick a card," he smirked.

"Any card," they said together, smiling at the old joke.

Henley smiled despite herself, giving into the magic of his cards and his hands. Just this once, she told herself. Henley plucked a card from the offered fan, knowing full well that before her fingers even touched the edge of one of the cool, thin cards, her decision had already been predicted, analyzed and accommodated.

There was a reason Daniel was the magician and Henley, the escape artist.

Henley took a card and flipped it over onto the table between them so that they both saw it at once. Ace of Spades.

Daniel's dark blue eyes narrowed at her action. "That's not what you were supposed to do," he told her, annoyance tingeing his voice.

Henley arched a brow. "You already knew what the card was going to be anyway," she replied, hiding a smile. Daniel's OCD got the better of him sometimes.

He shrugged it off, a twinge of irritation still in his features. "Perhaps," Daniel allowed.

He took the card and mixed into the deck, shuffling them into three different piles. "Flip over the tops of the piles," he instructed, as though he and Henley had never done this particular trick before.

She obeyed silently, lithe fingers snapping cards over speedily and precisely. At the top of every pile lay the aces from every suit.

Henley smirked and looked bored, because she knew it would annoy him. "However did you do it?"

Predictably, Daniel looked annoyed at her lack of enthusiasm, plucking up the Ace of Spades with a snap of his long fingers. "Come on, give me some credit."

"Right, because I have no clue how you could possibly have done that," Henley snorted sarcastically.

His fingers stilled on the Ace of Spades. Then, without warning, he flicked it between his fingers and it disappeared. He raised his brows at her challengingly, smirk emphasizing the curve of his cheekbones. "How'd I do it, then?"

"Up your sleeves," Henley replied stonily.

"I'm wearing short sleeves," he countered, confused.

"Does it matter?"

Daniel laughed, shaking his head. "Nope."

He flicked his wrist and the ace reappeared into his right hand, between his index and middle finger. "How about that? That gets me something, right?"

"A gold star," she pronounced gravely, rising from her seat. "Have fun with your cards, Daniel."

His hand closed over her smaller one, warm from dealing the cards so many times. "You don't have to go, Henl-"

The door burst open and Jack barged in, adrenaline flooding off him in waves. "The plane lands in half an hour! Las Vegas, here we come!"

He left with a whoop, probably off to wake Merritt from his nap. Henley twisted her hand from Daniel's and managed to pull herself together by the time his sharp, blue-eyes gaze snapped onto her. "I should go."

"But-"

Before he could get more than a word out, Henley left, slim hips swinging subtly under his eye. Daniel returned to shuffling his cards, thinking.

There was a reason he was the magician and Henley, the escape artist.