Valentine’s Day wasn’t too long after that, either.
I sighed aloud, my breath puffing white in front of me.
I looked up at the sky, the clouds were few, and fluffy white.
We very rarely got snow in Foggy Basin, but it was chilly all the same. The hint of snow, even if we weren’t likely to see snow. I always liked to check for the heavy purple clouds, just in case.
The thing that was weighing on me was pretty clear. Proposing was such a big step. It was a commitment, it meant something.
I was relatively sure that Tane would say yes, but I wanted to do it right.
Make it romantic.
Make it something as special as Tane himself was.
I balanced the pizza carefully as I went up the stairs to the apartment, and opened the door to a huge surprise.
The room was filled with the festive scent of Christmas — and the source? A big fluffy pine tree positioned in the corner by the window. Tane leaped out of the couch and gave me a sheepish smile.
The coffee table was covered with bits of paper and a roll of sticky tape. The tree was garlanded with a simple paper chain, and on top sat a handmade paper angel.
“Surprise! Merry Christmas!” Tane said. “Do you like it?”
“It’s wonderful.” I said it quickly, to reassure Tane, but in truth I was a bit dumbfounded. “You did this? Today?”
“Yes, and there’s more coming tomorrow, I did an order, um. But it wasn’t going to turn up in time and the tree looked sad with nothing on it, so I started handmaking stuff.”
Tane moved closer, took the pizza out of my hands and placed a semi-circle of paper in his hand instead. “Your job is to make another angel, decorate it any way you like and it can go on the mantelpiece.”
I looked at the mantel and saw a carefully-made paper angel. It was so simple, so sweet, soearnest.My heart throbbed with affection.
“I... Thank you. This is amazing.”
Tane kissed my cheek. “Thanks for the pizza, got so wrapped up in this I forgot about eating. I’ll get it cooked.”
“I can do it,” I protested, but Tane had already taken the pizza into the kitchen.
Left alone, I thought about what he said. He’d given me a job, so I might as well do it. I sat down, picked up a gold metallic marker pen and drew a little grocer’s apron on the angel’s body.
My lines were a bit wobbly, and I wasn’t as delicate at drawing as I’d hoped. Iit came out a little messy, but it was at least recognisable.
“That’s cute.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Tane smiling. “You’re just saying that.”
“Nope, it’s cute. It’s very you. Now the wings...” he pointed at an already cut out set of white wings on the table.
I dutifully decorated the wings, using the small, colourful scraps of paper Tane had left behind and glueing them down. The effect was sort of feathery, and all colours of the rainbow.
Something about working with my hands, doing crafts that absolutely didn’thaveto be done was soothing. I hadn’t expected that. The stress and tension from the day left me and I found himself smiling at my little haphazard creation.
Tane taped it together for me and set it on the mantel next to his own.
“Where’d you learn to make those?” I asked.
Tane flopped onto the couch beside me with a happy sigh. “Made them as a kid. We didn’t always have a lot of money so we often made our own decorations. There’s something sweet about them, eh?”
He put his arm around me and I leaned into his warmth.
