The bonfire was a roiling beast. Even from his place on the outer fringes of the group, Sheldon could feel the heat baking into his skin. It was a nice contrast to the chilly breeze hitting the back of his thick coat and jeans. He hated the cold. It was the end of July but an unseasonable wind was blowing through, dropping tempertures to the single digits in that night.
A perfect night for a thirty foot bonfire.
It was an annual tradition he's been told by his friend, the owners of the house and huge field saving every huge thing that could burn all year for this night. She had invited Sheldon and he loved the moment when they doused all the refuge with gas and then lit it. It was actually his second time seeing this monster churning up into the air, all the smoke invisible in the night, all but the barest scent carried away on the cold gusts of wind that blew across his face the strands of hair that had escaped his pony tail. It was his second favourite thing about the parties. He turned his head and saw his first.
Her name was Jane.
They had met the year before, at his first fire. A friend of the daughters of the family. Even when she wasn't right next to him, before he even knew she was really there, he could feel her. Like someone had suddnely lit a torch in the room. She seemed to fill up all the space with her heat. She was funny, she was smart, she told the dirtiest stories to a rrom ful of people and she flirted with Sheldon constantly, a no-bull shit style that made him want her more and more towards the end of that night. She made no bones about feeling the same when they had one moment alone together before her friend showed up to usher Jane home.
Sheldon felt like falling on the ground in a tantrum when she said Jane was married.
And now here it was a year a later, Jane looking at him across the flickering darkness from the fringes of the party, everyone else watching those brave enough to get really close the fire, risking a burn. He knew how they felt. His own personal bonfire was right here looking at him. Her smouldering eyes seemed to make his skin tighten even more as if he were only a few feet away from an open furnace. Under her eyes there was no cool breeze, he could only feel the heat of her green eyes as if no time had passed.
She stood with her denim jacket undone, a white tee-shirt that seemed to shimmer in the shadows from the flickering light. It moulded her body tight across her heavy breast's and a waist that fell straight. A single black star was stamped near on it at the hem near her left hip, a hip cocked at an angle. Her long legs were wrapped in back tights and a short denim skirt. A pale face glowed with red lips slightly parted. She was tall and could look into Sheldon's own blue eyes six feet above the ground.
Her heat was roaring over him even from so far away. He shouldn't get closer. Not because she was married. Not because people might get the wrong, or right, idea. Those were incidental consequences. He didn't want to get burned getting that close. She was Fire. She was would singe him with the first touch.
Would it be worth it?
She tilted her head ever so slightly, never losing his eyes and headed with a long, rolling gait down the field, into the trees. Before too long she was disappeared into the shadows.
He watched her go, thinking he could close his eyes and simply follow the heat left by her wake, finding everyone one of her steps without fault. He wanted to follow. Find her in the darkness where she could only be glowing like an ember in the dark, waiting.
He found his feet slowly taking him away from the party, the chattering groups and drunken shouts dying behind him with the heat as he followed. The shill wind bit deeper into him but he could swear, knew it was imagination but could SWEAR that he could follow her path. A current of slightly warmer air winding through the night, into the trees at the edge of the property. Into the dark.
Sheldon felt the warmth a split second before the hand slapped his shoulder and a voice roughened from smoking said "and how the fuck have you been, Shel?"
