Her expression is unreadable no matter how hard John tries to decipher it. He studies her eye, green and emotionless. He can't glean any information from them, though. If anything they just distract him. He watches her lips for twitches, quirks. They're still, annoyingly unmoving. His eyes flit back to hers uselessly, then dart to her fingers. There are no tells to be discovered there. She's watching him as he inspects her, waiting.
"John, have you decided?"
He glances down, then closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He moves to slide a stack of poker chips across the carpet. He is met with a raised eyebrow and a slightly amused smile. She tosses out her own stack of chips, then hesitates for a moment and goes all in. John groans and slides the rest of his chips in as well. He can't tell if she's bluffing or not. He's not sure what the stakes are, because she insisted she wasn't going to pay for her chips or anything like that. He's honestly not sure why they're sitting on the floor of his flat playing poker.
When they reveal their cards she's beaten him.
She rakes the chips towards her with a giddy, giggly smirk. He flashes a smirk of his own, raising an eyebrow at her. "You aren't going to spend those all in one place, are you?" She tosses one of the chips at him with a playful sneer
"Haha. I plan on cashing these in, thank you very much."
"But you didn't pay for them."
She doesn't reply. Instead she leans forward and puts a chip in his hand, closing the space between them to place a feather soft, lingering kiss on his lips. His eyes slid shut, but as soon as he began to lean towards her, reaching up to thread his fingers through her hair, the barely there pressure against his lips was gone. When he opens his eyes she is standing, a chip between her fingers, a soft apology in her eyes. There is silence as she heads for the door. He doesn't ask her to stay. He knows he can't. But she has that chip, and that prize isn't just for her. He may have lost that poker game, but even with her walking out the door, he feels like a winner. The small victories are his favorite prizes.