"No, nothing like that. Just thought you might want to have a warmer night."

"Warmer? Done!"

Charlie laughed. "Room Eight. Come on, whenever."

I grabbed my stuff out of my room as fast as I could. "I'm switching rooms," I said to Beth. "You can take the blanket from my bed if you want, I won't be back."

She shrugged, probably happy to get the extra blanket. "Fine by me."

Room Eight felt a good twenty degrees warmer than my old room had. Charlie had a nice fire going in the stove and, to my surprise, was sitting happily inside a huge one in the middle of the room! He waved.

"Hey, Jen."

"I take it that doesn't hurt."

He stood and yawned. The fire died down until it was just licking at his knees. "Figured I'd burn myself out, rather literally, before bed. The warmer this place gets now the less I'll have to worry about heating it later."

I nodded and laughed in disbelief. I put my things down on the nearby bed and examined my clothes. I was coated from head to toe with red sand. I was pretty sure that it was caked in my hair, and I had probably eaten some too.

"I need a shower," I groaned.

"Go for it," Charlie said.

"The water was freezing last night."

He walked into the bathroom and contemplated the shower for a moment. "This might strike you as slightly awkward," he began, "but if you really want to shower... Well, just remember that I don't like girls. And I'll keep my eyes closed."

With that, a large ball of flame burst into life on his hand. He held it up and I could actually see it growing brighter and hotter. He turned the water on, then reached his other hand up and wrapped it around the pipe sticking out of the wall behind the showerhead.

"Enjoy," he said and closed his eyes.

"If you say so," I said skeptically.

I undressed quickly, and to my surprise, he had already warmed up the room. I stuck a hand under the water. It was hot! In fact, it was almost too hot.

"Whoa!" I gasped.

"Not hot enough? Too hot?" Charlie asked, eyes still closed tightly.

"Little hot, but that's fine, I've been cold all day." I quickly jumped in and started rinsing off the sand. "What exactly are you doing?" I asked. "Heating the water?"

"Actually, I'm making the pipe so hot that the water is hot when it comes out."

"Wow."

After a quick shower, I grabbed a towel and let Charlie escape. He dropped the ball of flame onto the back of the toilet and gave me some privacy.

As I dried off, I noticed that the flame was smaller. "Is this going to go out on its own?"

"Yeah. It was feeding off of my energy instead of oxygen like a normal fire would. It'll go out in a few minutes without me taking care of it."

By the time I had finished drying off and brushed my teeth, the flame was no bigger than a candle flame. I got dressed in clean clothing for the morning and got ready to get into bed.

"So, now that we've showered together," Charlie said with a wink from the middle of the fire on the floor. "This one will start to go out once I'm not touching it, too. It is going to get pretty cold in here in a couple of hours... If you want to share the bed, I promise I'll behave."

I considered it for a moment. He always felt like he had a fever to me, so I assumed his body temperature was abnormally high. I figured that sharing a bed would result in a nice, warm night.

"I trust you," I said.

As we settled back to back in the amazingly warm bed, I realized that even if Charlie hadn't been gay, I would have trusted him. I'd always gotten the impression that he liked me and that we could be good friends, but after today it seemed like we were really starting to bond. Not only that, but we'd been through a lot together, stuff normal humans could never imagine, and I knew that I could rely on him. It wasn't long before I fell asleep. I was confused when I woke up, and it took me a moment to remember I decided to share a bed with Charlie. It took another second for me to realize that he had an arm and a leg flung over me.

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"Charlie?" I hissed. When he didn't react I elbowed him in the side. "Charlie!"

"What, Dan?" he muttered sleepily. "Oh! Oh, ashes, Jen! I'm sorry!" He quickly rolled off of me and sat up.

"It's okay."

"Sorry," he repeated, blushing bright red. He stood and stretched. "I guess we should get ready. It's a long bus ride, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

I went into the bathroom to change and came out in time to see Charlie settle down on the bed with a log from our woodpile. It burst into flames in his hands, and he closed his eyes with a content sigh.

"Are you... eating?"

"Yeah."

"How does it taste?"

"Like chicken."

I laughed and started putting on my coat and extra clothing. By the time I was done, the log was gone, and Charlie was wiping the ashes off of his hands.

"That was good," he said, sounding pleased.

"Can you actually taste it?"

He shook his head. "Not literally. But I feel full when I'm done and more satisfied than if I had, say, burned newspaper."

"Can you eat newspaper too?"

"Yep. If it's flammable I can consume it. Well, in theory. Some things are better than others of course."

We headed out and got on the bus with the rest of our group. The heater on the bus had broken, and everyone was cold. After a couple of minutes, Charlie scooted closer to me, and I started feeling warmer. In seconds, I felt like I was sitting in the sun on a hot day. We settled back and watched the desert fly by. Soon, we found ourselves way up in the mountains. Our group spent the day exploring canyons and ancient ruins, and saw all four types of camelids that inhabit South America and a condor. I couldn't wait to email Shannon pictures of the animals; she'd love them. Our last stop was a massive dune. We spent nearly twenty minutes hiking up the top. Then, we all found spots on rocks and lined up along the edge, looking out over the desert, to watch the sunset. I leaned against a large one with Charlie. While we waited for the sun to set, Charlie started playing absently with the sand. I just looked around and took pictures of the landscape, not really watching him until he nudged me.

"Here," he said, handing me something.

I held out my hand, and he set a strange flake of something in it. I picked it up with my other hand to examine it, and it shattered into a million pieces. Charlie laughed.

"What was that?"

"Glass."

"Glass? From where?"

He picked up a handful of sand and started rubbing his palms together. I watched curiously, and a moment later, he opened them to reveal a large drop of liquid. Amazed, I reached out for it with a finger, and he moved his hand out of the way.

"Watch out, it's hot," he warned, then rolled his eyes playfully. "Did you really just try to stick your finger into a puddle of molten sand?"

"You just melted sand?

"And now it's glass. Well, it's not very good glass, since it's just sand... but sort of glass," he said smugly. "All you need is something hot enough to melt it."

"How hot can you get?" I asked curiously.

"Hot enough to melt sand."

I glared at him. "I think you've been spending too much time with Dani."

"You mentioned earlier that you took a ceramics class, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I have, too, but I never needed a kiln. I hate doing glazes though. They seem to always drip onto my hands, and it's a pain to chip them off." I could tell he was elaborating for shock value. He laughed again and lifted the tiny flake of glass out of his palm. "There we are, cooled into glass." He flicked it off of the dune and settled back against the rock with a chuckle.

We sat in silence, as I tried to accept the fact that the guy next to me was essentially a walking kiln. Soon the sun began to set, and we watched in awe as the sinking sun turned the desert a deeper and deeper purple as the shadows crept across the sand. I glanced at Charlie and saw that he looked almost wistful as he watched the sunset.

"Kind of reminds me of home," he said softly.

"New York?"

"Arizona. Grew up there."

"Why would a fire elemental leave Arizona for New York?" I asked.

"Because a fire elemental will be fine in most climates if he's careful. A water elemental won't be. I'd choose Dani over the desert any day, so New York it is. My parents are still back home, though, so I visit pretty often."

"That's good."

He nodded and looked back out at the sinking sun. "This is a pretty amazing sunset though, I'm not sure I've ever seen one this incredible in Arizona." He pulled out his phone, then rolled his eyes and tucked it away. "I was going to send Dani a picture, but that idiot hasn't bought a new phone yet."

"Does he like sunsets?"

"Yeah, he loves them. I do, too, but I prefer sunrises. Something to do with the fact that there's a giant ball of fire in the sky I think," he added with a chuckle. "I'm not sure Dani's ever dragged himself out of bed early enough to see one."

We both laughed.

"You seem like total opposites," I said. "I mean, aside from the whole fire and water thing."

"We are. It works, though." His smile faded, and he sighed. "Jennifer?"

I turned to him nervously. His tone worried me, and he never used my whole name. I was even more concerned when I saw his eyes. They were such a deep red they almost looked black.

"The other night... If something had happened to him, I..." Charlie sighed heavily. "Thank you. I don't think I can ever express just how grateful I am. Thank you."

"But if it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't have been hurt in the first place."

He shook his head. "Quit beating yourself up over it. You kept your wits in a really dangerous situation. All things considered, you should be proud of yourself."

"That's sort of what Dani said."

Charlie smiled, and I saw a very tiny spark of orange flicker in his eyes. "Then, you should listen. Don't tell him I said it, but he's usually right." He turned back to the sunset with a sigh.

"How long have you and Dani been together?" I asked. I figured how long you'd been happily dating someone was usually a happy topic.

To my relief, he instantly smiled, and his eyes flared. "Twenty-four years next week."

I had heard him wrong. I must have. "Four years?"

"Twenty-four."

No way. If Charlie was twenty-one like I had thought, it wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't even be possible if he was twenty-four. He'd have to be older. A lot older. I swallowed hard and felt my heart racing.

"How... old are you?"

He grinned. "Just turned sixty."