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“Uncle, it’s my turn! MY TURN!” hollered Kili, clinging to Thorin’s waist like a barnacle as the waves buffeted them.
“Almost,” Thorin assured him. “Come on, Fili, ready?”
“Almost,” his older nephew echoed. Fili stood on Thorin’s shoulders, steadied by his uncle’s hands on his hips. “I’m waiting for a really big one.”
“You can’t wait forever, your brother wants a turn.” Thorin observed the incoming waves through spray-speckled sunglasses. “Here, this one is big enough.”
He strode forward to meet the next wave, easily dragging Kili along, then launched Fili over its foaming crest. The boy splashed down with flailing limbs and a—hopefully happy—scream.
As soon as Thorin saw the golden head pop back above water, he glanced down at Kili. “Okay, buddy, it’s your—hey, what’s wrong?”
Kili was sobbing and hiccupping, his little fists clenched so tightly in Thorin’s swimsuit that it was about to be dragged off. Thorin eased his nephew’s grip before he gave everyone at the beach a free show, and scooped the boy up in his arms.
“The water—it burns—up my nose—owww!”
Thorin winced. Wading deeper to toss Fili, he hadn’t given Kili enough warning to hold his breath when the wave broke. Never mind that Thorin had been hurrying in order to get Kili his turn. Good intentions held no weight against an unexpected faceful of saltwater.
Before Thorin could apologize, he got his own unexpected faceful—of a second angry nephew.
“I wasn’t ready, Uncle Thorin! You threw me but I wasn’t ready! That’s not fair! I wasn’t ready!”
It was a funny thing, Thorin thought wryly, that black-haired Kili looked just like himself when he was young, but it was blonde Fili who shared his uncle’s temper.
“I’m sorry, Fee,” said Thorin, shifting Kili from two arms to one so he could reach out and hoist Fili up before another wave broke over the boy’s head. “I think we’re all getting cold and tired. Let’s head in.”
“I haven’t had my tuuuurrrn!” wailed Kili, and at the same time Fili protested furiously, “I get another turn, since you messed up my last one!”
Gritting his teeth, Thorin looked up at the sky in case it might start raining patience. “How does my sister handle you two?”
“Ice cream,” said Kili promptly.
Both boys stopped resisting Thorin’s efforts to leave the water, scrambled out of his arms, grabbed his hands, and took the initiative of dragging him back toward the sand. At five and eight years old, they couldn’t actually shift Thorin’s bulk any more than they could move a mountain, but he stumbled after them, pretending that they were doing all the work. At least they weren’t mad at him anymore.
“Yes, that’s how Mum handles us,” confirmed Fili. “Ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” As soon as they were out of the surf, Thorin headed toward the spot where they’d left their towels. “Besides, we didn’t bring any ice cream to the beach with us.”
“Uncle Thorin,” said Kili scornfully. “We can buy ice cream.”
“We can?” He let his mouth fall open in exaggerated shock. “With what?”
“With money,” said Fili, rolling his eyes.
“You brought money?” Thorin grabbed Fili around the waist and flipped him upside down. “Where is it?”
“I—don’t—have—money!”
“Do me! Do me!” shrieked Kili, laughing and jumping.
Thorin started to lower Fili, who yelled, “No, don’t put me down!”
Kili was laughing so hard he had fallen over in the sand. Thorin considered the situation, assessing anatomy, momentum, and gravity as if he were on the mat at the gym, then switched his grip to Fili’s ankle, reached down with his free hand, and hoisted Kili by one leg. “How about you, little boy, do you have any money?”
“No—I—don’t—you have it!” gasped Kili between giggles.
“Me? What a preposterous notion.” Still swinging his nephews upside-down, Thorin arrived at the patch of sand he’d been aiming for, only to find it empty.
“Uncle? What is it?” Somehow Fili managed to twist around, grab Thorin’s forearm, break the hold on his leg, and drop to the sand. “Where’s our stuff?”
“We’ve been burgled,” said Thorin lightly, turning Kili right-side up and lowering him as well. What was more likely was that his sense of direction had gotten muddled while they were swimming, and he’d led them to the wrong part of the beach.
And yet, as he looked around for landmarks, he recognized the position of the little building between the beach and the parking lot, with its colourful ICE CREAM sign that Kili had no doubt deciphered despite not yet having learned to read. And he remembered those trees, with the beach chair under them, and—
“That man is waving at us,” said Fili. “Do you think he’s the burglar?”
“No, no.” Thorin took the boys’ hands and started toward the trees. “Let’s go say hello. Maybe he saw our towels get blown away, and he can tell us where they went.”
“There’s not enough wind to pick up towels,” scoffed Fili, as Kili asked, “What’s a burgle?”
Thorin chuckled. “A burglar is a kind of thief.”
They’d gotten close enough to fully appreciate the man’s cozy setup. Under the shade of the palms, he reclined on a low beach chair with a fruity drink at his side and a child curled under a towel on his lap, seemingly asleep. The man seemed scarcely larger than a child himself, though the faint crinkles around his eyes suggested he couldn’t be much younger than Thorin.
“Hello there!” the man called, gesturing to a pile next to his chair. The child must have been a deep sleeper, for there was no movement under the towel. “I believe these are yours?”
“Uncle, he is a burgle!” cried Kili, eyes wide.
“Kili,” groaned Thorin, fighting the urge to cover his face with his hands.
“Oh, no, no, oh dear, it’s only that I watched you arrive at the beach and leave your things, not that I was watching, I mean, I simply noticed.” The man sounded nearly as flustered as Thorin felt. “Then as soon as you went in the water, a rather rambunctious group of seagulls came after your bag and towels, so Frodo and I took the liberty of moving them over here to keep them safe.”
Fili was already rummaging through the pile. “Aww, the gulls got into the crisps.”
“Hooray, they opened the bag for us!” cheered Kili, reaching into the ragged hole to stuff his mouth before anyone could stop him.
“Kee, that’s disgusting, birds ate those,” said Fili.
“Noo vey dint eeet theese ungs,” Kili pointed out.
The man in the chair laughed so merrily that Thorin almost joined in, but his mortification overwhelmed his sense of humor. He cleared his throat. “Well, thank you very much, ah . . .”
“Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins,” the man introduced himself, offering a hand along with an utterly charming smile. “At your service.”
Thorin took his hand. It was delightfully soft, attached to the most attractive man Thorin had met in ages—who had a child, and was probably married. Thorin struggled desperately for something appropriate to say, and found himself uttering with courtroom gravitas, “Thorin Oakenshield, at yours and your family’s.”
“I’m never, ever going to live this down.”
Bilbo chuckled at the man who had sunk onto the sand next to his chair, face buried in his hands. Bilbo had been so discombobulated when he had to actually speak to the handsome stranger he’d been surreptitiously ogling all afternoon that it was something of a relief for Thorin to embarrass himself, too.
“Bilbo Baggins, at your service,” quoted the taller boy, grinning.
The smaller one stood on tiptoe as he answered, “Thorin Oaken-ha!-shield, ha! At yours and your fa-hahaha!”
He was giggling too hard to finish, so they swapped roles again, as they had been doing for the last five minutes. The taller boy pitched his voice as low as he could and intoned, “Thorin Oakenshield, at yours and your family’s,” making both boys laugh until tears ran down their cheeks.
“The worst of it is,” said Thorin, peering out between his fingers. “They’re going to tell their mother.”
“Ah, that would be your sister?” Bilbo guessed.
“My little sister. And she’ll tell our little brother, and they’ll gang up and give me hell.”
“Give ‘em hell!” piped up the smaller boy, reaching for another handful of crisps.
Thorin groaned. “Don’t say that. Don’t eat that. You can have chocolate sprinkles on your ice cream if you stop eating those crisps and never say hell in your mother’s hearing, Kili.”
Bilbo perked up, grateful that Thorin had addressed the boy by name. During introductions he’d been so shamefully focused on Thorin’s wet chest that he’d promptly forgotten which name belonged to which child.
“Hang on, that’s not fair,” said the taller boy—who must be Fili. “I want sprinkles, too.”
“Me, too,” came a voice from under the towel on Bilbo’s chest.
“Me, three,” Bilbo chimed in, partly because he loved chocolate sprinkles, but mostly because the other children were staring curiously at Frodo’s now-raised head, and he wanted to ease the burden of their attention. “Is someone buying us all ice cream?”
“Uncle Thorin is,” Kili assured Bilbo.
Fili still gazed with interest at Frodo, who had sat up fully with the towel draped around his shoulders. “Who are you?”
“Give the kid a minute to wake up,” Thorin told his nephew, with an apologetic glance at both Frodo and Bilbo. “Sorry.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” said Frodo. To Bilbo’s surprise, he hopped down to the sand and said to Fili, “Frodo Baggins, at your service.”
After a moment of silence, all three children dissolved into shrieks of laughter, sounding not unlike seagulls.
“All right, all right, you can stop making fun of poor Mr. Oakenshield,” said Bilbo with a smile. Truly, he was delighted to see his little cousin join the game so readily.
“I was making fun of you, Bilbo,” Frodo pointed out, blinking those huge, too-innocent eyes. Bilbo pretended to glare back at him.
“Why were you under the towel if you weren’t asleep?” Kili inquired.
Before Bilbo could jump in, Frodo surprised him again. “I was hiding. I don’t like to meet new people. They always want to talk about my dead parents.”
Both boys looked shocked, and Fili spoke up firmly. “We don’t want to talk about dead parents, that’s awful. Let’s build a sand castle instead. We brought a bucket.”
“I have a spade,” said Frodo, and the tools were promptly carried off a little distance and put to use, amid a lively discussion of moats, towers, and bridges.
Bilbo breathed a sigh of relief, then turned with some caution to Thorin. Adults were not always as good as children at dropping the subject. Thorin leaned closer, and Bilbo braced himself for a hushed question about the tragedy.
Thorin whispered, “Do you think I’m off the hook for ice cream?”
Bilbo let out a squeak of a laugh. This man was altogether too perfect. Bilbo settled his face into what he hoped was a look of determination, rather than infatuation. “I am not so easily distracted, once I’ve been promised chocolate sprinkles.”
“I don’t recall making any promises,” objected Thorin, but a smile hid under his beard.
“I’m not sure what else ‘at your service’ could possibly mean. I’ve already rendered my service,” said Bilbo, waving at the rescued bags and towels. “I expect remuneration.”
“Remuneration, eh?” Thorin chuckled. “I may be able to escape my siblings' teasing if I tell them that the person to whom I so awkwardly introduced myself is nearly as stuffy as they’ve accused me of being.”
“Stuffy! You?” Bilbo was more offended for Thorin than he was for himself. “The man who swims with his nephews for hours, swings them around like monkeys, and buys them ice cream?”
“You are very tenacious about that ice cream, Mr. Baggins."
“I know what I like,” said Bilbo, only realizing after he said it that his eyes were lingering on Thorin’s broad shoulders. He turned to hide his burning face in his drink.
Oh, he should not be flirting like this. Not when he was only a few months into guardianship of Frodo, not when the poor lad’s life had been turned so terribly upside-down. Hiding under a towel pretending to be asleep was the least concerning of his coping mechanisms. Bilbo grimaced, remembering the call he’d gotten from school about Frodo stealing from his classmates’ lunches, their backpacks, their pockets. The boy needed all of Bilbo’s attention.
Fortunately Thorin had been distracted from Bilbo's brazen words by his nephews demanding appreciation for their castle. He shouted encouragement to them. Bilbo admired the project more quietly, but no less sincerely. He could hardly believe how well Fili and Kili had absorbed Frodo into their play, even following his lead by bringing seaweed to plant in the garden beds he'd marked out within the castle walls.
“He—Frodo, I mean—doesn’t warm up to new people quickly," Bilbo found himself telling Thorin. "He used to, before, but—well. Your nephews are quite special.”
Thorin's face glowed with obvious affection. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak Kili hurtled into him, half-tackling and half-climbing, ending up draped around his neck. “Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!”
The other boys took up the chant, and so there was nothing to do but pack up and move the whole company to the ice cream hut.
Fully aware that Thorin's nephews had bullied him into buying, Bilbo did try to pay for his own and Frodo’s, but Thorin scowled at him. “Absolutely not,” he said, almost brusquely. “Thorin Oakenshield is a man of his word.”
“He’s also rich as hell, so you might as well let him pay for things,” put in Fili.
Thorin's cheeks turned pink. “Fili!”
The boy shrugged unrepentently. “It’s what Mum says.”
“He said hell, I get to eat his sprinkles!” squealed Kili, the lower half of his face already covered with a chocolate beard to rival his uncle’s.
“But you just said it too, and your mum isn’t here,” Frodo pointed out very reasonably. He had ice cream on his nose. Bilbo leaned over to wipe it off with a napkin, then looked at Kili again, hand poised to continue cleaning.
“You can try,” said Thorin wearily. “But he’ll just get covered in ice cream again. Best to wait until he’s done, then dunk him in the ocean and let the fish lick it off.”
However, by the time everyone had finished eating, the evening was cool and late enough that Thorin had to tell his nephews there wasn't time for another swim, and resorted to napkins for cleanup after all. With Kili still sporting a few smears of chocolate, the boys balanced on the rocks that lined the parking lot, while Bilbo stood on one foot and tried to figure out how to say good-bye.
“We could reconvene at a future time, any place of your choosing, if you’re amenable,” Thorin blurted out.
Bilbo bit his lip, because oh, Thorin was stuffy when he was nervous, and why was that so cute? He should explain that he couldn’t date, before either of them got their hopes up. “It’s been so lovely to, to meet you, and the children get along so well, it's been a delight to see them playing together, so yes, please do let’s have a—playdate,” he said instead, all in a rush. He fumbled a business card out of his pocket and pushed it into Thorin’s hand. “Here’s my number, please call anytime—why not tomorrow? Call tomorrow. And we can—Frodo! It’s time to go. Good-bye, Fili and Kili, good-bye, Thorin! It was so nice to meet you, thank you for the ice cream.”
Barely giving Frodo time to say his own farewells, Bilbo snatched the boy's hand and scurried off to his car. "Well, Bilbo Baggins, you've gone and put your foot in it this time," he muttered to himself as he started driving. He was infinitely grateful that Frodo always wanted to listen to his favorite fairy tales in the car, which gave Bilbo a chance to gather his scattered thoughts.
They were nearly home when Frodo's small voice rose from the backseat. “Bilbo?”
He paused the audiobook. “Yes, dear?”
“Remember how you asked me to tell you if I took something that wasn’t mine . . . and you promised not to get mad?”
“Yes . . .?”
“I have Mr. Oakenshield’s wallet.”