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“You know,” Scar’s eyes took on a dangerous glint as he pushed their shopping cart through the aisles of the small grocery store. “They are selling firewood.”
Jimmy couldn’t see Tango’s smile, but he could feel it in the way the ghost leaned forward next to him. “Oh, this is a plan I like.”
“Absolutely not.” Grian smacked him with his notebook, currently flipped to a grocery list. “I don’t trust you to not set yourself on fire again.”
“Aww, but Grian—” Scar whined. “That was one time. Promise. Don’t you want s’mores?”
“I want to get to Vernonia tomorrow, without having to make a detour to A&E.” Grian strode right past him, grabbing a box of granola bars and throwing it in the cart. “You’d better make sure we get more ice for the cooler.”
“Aren’t you Mr. Notebook Man?” Scar teased as he stepped forward to keep pace with Grian.
Beside him, Tango deflated. Jimmy chewed on his lip for a second. They’d only known each other again a day before Grian announced they’d found a new job and were packing up to leave Diamond, but the disappointment still made him pause.
“I don’t know, Grian.” He offered cautiously. “I think a campfire could be a fun way to celebrate a job well-done.”
“Not you too, Timmy.” Grian turned to give him a flat stare. Jimmy tried not to wither. “I don’t want to babysit you all night.”
“You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be a little bit fun.” Scar wiggled his eyebrows. “I know you, Grian. You absolutely want to set something on fire.”
Grian paused and crossed his arms. “I can’t believe the both of you.”
“You aren’t saying no.” Scar smiled at him. Jimmy tried to look confident.
“Throw it in the cart.” Grian pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe I’m listening to the two of you. Why am I doing this?”
“Because you like arson?” Scar slung a package of firewood into the cart, along with a packet of firestarters. Tango leaned in to inspect the package, perching himself on the edge to get a closer look.
“What are these?” He asked Jimmy. Jimmy blinked a few times.
“Firestarters. They’re little sticks that work as fuel to help get a fire going, I think. Grian knows more about fire than I do.” He shrugged. Scar cast him a weird look.
“Talking to yourself, Jimmy?”
“Tango.” He gestured with his head.
“Right.” Scar turned back forward. They trailed through the rest of the grocery store, stopping only for Grian to pick out some fresh fruit and Scar to sweep s’mores making supplies into the cart.
The campsite was a small-ish one, set back a ways from the reservoir. As soon as Grian had parked the van in the driveway he jumped out and yanked the tent out from the back. Scar followed behind him and took custody of the box of cooking supplies.
By the time Grian and Jimmy had finished wrestling with the tent, it was nearing sunset. Jimmy simply chucked their sleeping bags inside and zipped the door shut before turning towards the fire.
Grian was piling logs up into a roughly triangular shape when he turned his back while Scar was fiddling with a lighter. If he looked just closely enough, he could see Tango’s footsteps stirring the dust on the ground.
“You’re doing it wrong.” Tango announced. Grian and Scar jumped about a foot in the air each.
“What on earth?” Grian turned around.
“Hi.” The sticks in the firepit started moving. “Believe me, I don’t know why you can hear me either, but if you want to cook something like this you want coals.”
“Who made you king of the firepit?” Grian grumbled and dropped his piece of kindling. Tango picked it up and added it to the small pyramid he was building at the center of the firepit.
“I don’t know.” Jimmy could hear the amusement in his voice. “Maybe it’s just that I had to make a fire every night we wanted to cook. Jimmy, can you do something for me?”
“What?”
“Grab hold of that horseshoe. I have a bit of a theory.” The pile of kindling stopped stirring. Jimmy grabbed his bag out of the van and fished around for the horseshoe inside. As soon as his hand made contact, the spectral form of Tango flickered to life.
“Oh, that helps a lot.” Tango looked at his hand before turning towards Jimmy and smiling. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Jimmy stared at his back as he leaned over the firepit.
Tango lifted one of the logs and arranged it horizontally on the floor of the pit. “If you want something that’s going to burn down to coals well, you want something more like a log cabin. I’m assuming that’s what you want if you’re trying to cook.”
“Yep!” Scar cut in before Grian could make the slightly rude remark clearly brewing on his face. “We’re going to make s’mores.”
“I heard.” Tango laid another log horizontally in parallel with the first two before picking up another one and laying it down perpendicularly. “Can’t say I know what a s’more is, but—”
“Graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows.” Scar waved the package of marshmallows at him. “Only one of the best deserts to ever exist.”
Tango squinted at him. “I know what one of those things is. Can someone else finish building the fire? I don’t know how much longer I can keep lifting.”
Wordlessly, Grian picked up a log from the pile and returned to stacking the log cabin structure. Tango turned instead to inspect the package in Scar’s hands while Scar gaped at him.
“You don’t know what those are?”
“I mean, I’ve had chocolate before.” Tango shrugged. “Only a few times, though.”
“Hold on.” Grian whipped out his cell phone and started typing something in. Scar put down the package of marshmallows and picked up the torch of finishing the fire. “S’mores were invented in the 1920s, marshmallows got introduced to the US in the early 1900s, and graham crackers became commercially produced in the 1880s.”
“—And I died in ‘68.” Tango finished. The air was quiet for a long moment after. After a second, he snapped back to reality. “Anybody got a match? I really want to light this sucker up.”
“We’ve got a lighter.” Scar handed it to him, seemingly a little surprised when it didn’t drop through his still faintly transparent hand. “You press down both that bit on the top and the trigger at the same time.”
“Right.” Tango fiddled with it for a few seconds. Jimmy watched as his face contorted with a familiar expression of concentration before he crouched down next to the firepit and lit the pile of kindling. The fire caught more or less immediately, flickering away happily as it munched on the pile of kindling. Tango smiled.
When Jimmy sat down on the picnic bench to watch the fire, Tango sat down next to him. Scar busied himself with setting up the camp stove while Grian pulled out his notebook and grimoire along with a small lamp. Tango leaned his head against Jimmy’s shoulder. Like this, it almost felt solid.
“I’m impressed.” Jimmy mumbled as he leaned his head back against Tango’s. “You might be better at starting fires than Grian. Don’t tell him I said that, though.”
“I’m always listening, Tim.” Grian didn’t look up at them at all.
“What can I say?” Tango smiled. “Lots of practice. Speaking of—”
He scooted forward and leaned over until he was close enough to touch the flames, at which point he stuck his hand in to re-adjust some of the kindling. Jimmy watched in a bit of horror. Tango simply pulled his hand out and shook it off. “It should burn much better now.”
“Right.” Jimmy stared at his hand.
“You do know I’m a ghost, right?” Tango bonked him playfully on the head. “It’s not like it’ll kill me.”
“Guess you’re right.” Jimmy leaned back against the picnic table, already cursing the way he knew it would make his back feel in the morning. Tango settled back down with him. “I’m glad you’re around, Tango.”
“I’m glad I found you again.”