Hannah shook the tightly wrapped box, listening carefully to the rattling inside, "What is it?" she asked, as she held the box at arms length and tilted it in the light.
"Well go ahead and open it," Tom laughed, "You'll find out a lot quicker that way."
Hannah smiled, and began to tear back the paper, reveling what appeared to be a board game. She looked quizically at Tom, although the box undoubtedly made it look interesting the game was clearly second hand and gosspip from Sue had lead her to expect that Tom would be getting her something fairly special.
"It's a clue," he said, "To your main present."
Hannah's face brightend up considerably; She looked at the box. "The Game of Change," she read aloud, "You haven't got me a money box have you?" She joked, and Tom gave a look of mock hurt in reply.
"I threw away the reciept as well," he joked, removing an envelope from within his coat pocket. "I know it doesn't look much, thats why I gave you the game, so you'd have something to actually open." Tom watched her face carefuly as she opened the envelope and removed the card; was that a smile, a frown? Damnit! It was difficult to tell; she could so easily take it the wrong way.
Sue looked over Hannah's shoulder and a disaproving look passed briefly over her face, she raised an eyebrow at Tom, crushing him. "An day at Blake Farm Health and Beauty Spa," she said, the rest of her scentence implied not stated.
"Smoooth," said Terry, who was now craning over both Sue and Hannah to get a better look at the card. Tom shot him a dirty look, being carefult to avoid catching Hannah's eye. He didn't want this, he had intended to give his presnt to her alone, but when the party was put forwards at short notice he was unable to engineer the time to do so. He hadn't considered that he could have just given her the game now and the card later, but the damage was done.
"Thank you Tom," she said finally, although it was impossible to judge whether she meant it.
As soon as Hannah had put the card on the table behind her, Terry thrust a small parcel into her hand. "No shaking and feeling this one, you've spent about ten minutes opening every single one of your other presents, try and be spontaneous."
Sarah raised the eyebrows, paused, dug her nails in, and tore the paper off in one sweep. A thong; She rolled her eyes, trust Terry. "I suppose you want me to wear this now don't you?" she asked.
"No no, just look at it. Open it out."
She did so, only to find it emblazoned with an image of a kangaroo. It had become a bit of an injoke lately, especially with Terry's trip to Australia over the summer. When, in a moment of drink induced openness, Hannah revealed to her friends that she used to pretend to be a kangaroo when she was little, there was nothing that could stop the jokes or influx of roo inspired presents. Initialy it had started with a soft toy from Sue, but soon she had a small collection of kangaroo paraphinalia.
Soon people spread off about the room into pair and chatted. Sue was speaking to Annabel, the other female member of the close knit frienship group, whilst Terry was talking to Dave, Tom's closet friend. Meanwhile Sarah Walked over to the window, where Tom was standing. "Thanks for the present," she smiled.
Tom tried to explain, "Well I was thinking about..." He stammered off and started again, carefuly watching her eyes, "I know you're not a girly girl, but I remember what you said back in June," the 24th to be precise, but that was immaterial at the moment, "How you wanted, just sometimes to feel like that, like you could keep up with all the... " He was about to say attractive, he didn't mean it - Hannah was attractive, to him at least - but it almost slipped out, "girly girls, to be one... just sometimes."
"I know, and I saw Sue's face. But I mean it, thank you." She smiled at him warmly, hugged him briefly, and moved off to talk to Sue and Annabel.
Dave moved over to Tom and used his shoulder as an arm rest. Dave was considerably taller than Tom, promting the nicknames 'little and large,' not entierly appropriate as despite being tall Dave wasn't particulalry overweight. "You really like her don't you," he whispered.
Tom nodded, "Any hope?"
"She likes you."
"She liked my present, there's a difference."
"She liked it because it came from you. She'd still have hugged you then if you'd only given her that odd game."
Tom smiled, "Well if things did 'happen' then that would be Terry and Sue, and me and Hannah... any chance of you and Annabel getting together?"
Dave laughed, "Nahh, nothing against her but there's just no feeling there. Besides, she's got that guy back home, Kim or whatever it is."