“So I’ve heard.” He takes the gift, his eyes immediately staring at the wrapping paper. “How do you even find this stuff? I’ve clearly been looking in the wrong areas. Should I open it now or wait until next year?”
“You should open it now. I made it, actually. Well, okay, I bought the box — it’s for keeping things in — but I made the paper — ” She shut up. Babbling. Bad. Don’t babble. She put her hands behind her back, yanking on the end of her braid before pulling it over one shoulder.
“Did you just ruin the surprise for me? By telling me it was a box? Or is there something in the box that’s the actual gift and not the box? The paper is very nice by the way.” In fact, he even tried to unwrap the gift without ripping the paper in any way. Hey, it was nice paper—he was going to keep it, what with the Iron Man print all over it.
“Nono, there’s stuff /in/ the box.” There was a lot, actually. A couple of books she hoped he’d like, a couple of bracelets she’d made with the Iron Man helmet and the arc reactor in beadwork, some cat toys and a little, carefully labelled, packet of catnip, because she heard he liked cats. “But the box is for keeping, too.”