Yep, short story from me.  That’s right, a SHORT STORY.  There’s not going to be any continuation or anything… this is it.  And it’s a REALLY short story… it’s just over a page on Word.

It sounded a lot better in my head… I’m not sure if I like how it turned out when it was written… but let me know what you think.

Beautiful Night

© Kayli E. Schaaf

It was twilight.  The stars in the faded blue sky had just begun to twinkle through the departing clouds.  The air smelled of freshly fallen snow, of cold, of beauty.

Never mind that they were in a parking lot... or that the nearest restaurant caused the air to smell of hamburgers when the wind would occasionally shift from the northwest.  This was the most beautiful thing he could imagine.

He would never know how it happened.  He was leaving work with her, after an extremely slow caused by the good six inches of freshly fallen snow.

She had stopped in the middle of the nearly empty parking lot, snowflakes landing in her hair and disappearing just as quickly.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she asked him, looking around.  Her sapphire eyes twinkling like the stars above, but he hadn’t noticed that yet.

He didn’t see the beauty yet, either.  He saw the parking lot, the slushy snow that was now soaking the bottom of his favorite jeans.  He saw her.

And he nodded.  “The most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”

She didn’t notice the underlying meaning of his comments, or if she did, she ignored it.  Her eyes were fixated on the western horizon, the lightest point in the sky, where the last bit of royal purple dipped below the trees.

He hadn’t realized how close he was to her until she turned to face him.  She smelled like vanilla, her hair of jasmine.

He hadn’t intended to touch her at all until he noticed how pink her cheeks were, how her arms were wrapped around herself, trying to keep her warmth in.

She hadn’t protested when he carefully wrapped his arms around her.  In fact, she seemed to snuggle closer to him.  He wondered if he might have been dreaming.  This was something that had been haunting his dreams and thoughts for months.  Now that he finally had it, he began to notice his surroundings; he began to notice the beauty.

They stood like they, together as one, for quite a while, staring into the sky in companionable silence.

His heart started to hammer when she shifted in his arms, turning to face him, resting her hand directly on top of his heart.  She didn’t speak, but the corners of her mouth twitched upward into a knowing smile.  He felt the back of his neck burn, partially from embarrassment, but mostly because of her touch.

Her free hand shifted from his shoulder to the back of his neck.  This time the blush shifted to his face.  Her eyes shone brightly, a few shades lighter than the rapidly darkening sky.

“What does this mean?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but his voice came out an octave or two higher than normal.

She smiled, “Does it matter?”

He paused and realized it didn’t.  If nothing came from this, if nothing more happened, this was the most beautiful night of his life thus far.

She kissed him suddenly, softly.  He realized it was her lips that smelled of vanilla.  He held onto their entrancing kiss for as long as he could, one of his hands getting lost in her hair.

She pulled away slowly, grasping his hands in hers softly.  “Thanks for enjoying this with me.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.  She pushed her lips to his again, quickly and fiercely, before walking to her car, not looking back.

He stood in silence, staring at the dim, twinkling stars above.

“See you tomorrow,” he heard her say faintly before getting in her car.  He wouldn’t have known for sure that she said it at all if she wouldn’t have driven past him, a huge smile on her face.

Yeah, he thought, a big grin of his own forming, it’s a beautiful night.