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[m_pinocchio]

"Daddy, found tarfish," Mack calls merrily, crouched down in her sundress and poking at something in the sand. Mike leans over to peer at it, a greenish round thing, and shakes his head, grinning. Beside him, Flo is filling her hat with sand and shells with extraordinary concentration

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[out_of_realm]

In fact, Tom was running late. He'd dodged back to the hut after his run and, almost against his will, had fallen asleep fully dressed on top of the blankets on the bed, feet still flat on the ground. By the time he woke up, it was midmorning, and he still had to make lunch before making his way down to the beach with Mike and girls.

After a harried half hour in the kitchen, assembling PB&J and a cold pasta salad thing for him and Mike, pouring milk and water into canteens for the trip out, Tom was jogging the last half mile down to the water when he heard the familiar little girl voices washing up with the surf. Mike's voice a deeper but no less gentle tone of their voices and the sea.

Just another afternoon in paradise.

"Sorry," He called out, sticky with exhertion and dropping his backpack onto the sand. He gave Mike a big, brilliant grin. He was always just a little bit different when he was around his girls.

"Morning got away from me. What's going on out here?"

[m_pinocchio]

"We want lunch," he says, looking up as Flo yells "Daddy!" and stumps toward Tom with sandy hands outstretched for a hug. Mack looks up from her shell and grins.

"You overslept, didn't you? And look, you're all gross."

[out_of_realm]

Hearing that simple little word from the girls still made Tom's chest tight in a wonderful, aching way that he didn't understand. He bent and scooped Flo up in his arms and swung her around in a big circle, watching her grin and laugh and grab onto him.

"I took a nap by mistake," he admitted, setting Flo down before scooping her sister up for similar treatment. They were big now, he thought, arms aching a little with the effort of swining them around. He could look down at them now and see the shape of their faces that they would still have in ten, twenty years. Little women, growing up fast.

"I was rushing," he said, still holding a giggling Mack against him as he leaned in to steal a kiss, "To get you food. I know how cranky you get when you're hungry."

[m_pinocchio]

"You're such a goddamned family man," he murmurs, catching the side of Tom's neck with a gentle hand and holding him there for a few seconds. "C'mon, have a seat. In an hour or so ity's gonna be too hot to stay out here." By then, maybe, the shade and a nap, at least for the girls.