The salt wind off Waikiki carries coconut oil and plumeria at ten in the morning. I’m seven, bare feet sinking into warm sand the color of fresh cream, chasing a red bucket that keeps rolling away from the tide. Grandpa Charles (crown traded for a faded Panama hat) sits under a striped umbrella, trousers rolled to his knees, building a moat around a lopsided castle. His glasses fog every time he leans close to the water. Grandma Camilla is farther up the beach, sarong knotted at her waist, reading a paperback with a cracked spine. No aides. No equerries. Just the three of us and the hush of waves.

I sneak behind the castle. Scoop a handful of wet sand. Pack it tight. Grandpa’s back is turned; he’s muttering to a crab about drainage systems. I lob the sandball. It splats between his shoulder blades. He startles, hat tipping over one eye.

“Louis!” His voice is mock-stern, but his mouth twitches. “That’s treason.”

I giggle, sprint. He lumbers after me, knees high like a heron, sand flying. I dodge between deckchairs. Trip. Face-plant. Taste salt and grit. He scoops me up before I cry, brushes my cheeks with thumbs that smell of suncream and earth.

“Got you, Your Royal Mischief.” He sets me on his hip. My legs dangle. “Now, help reinforce the east tower before the tide mounts a coup.”

We kneel together. I dig with a plastic spade; he packs the walls with the precision of a man who’s planted a thousand trees. A wave sneaks in, licks the base. The castle sighs, leans.

“Abandon ship!” I yell.

He laughs (deep, surprised, the sound he saves for gardens and grandchildren). We watch the moat fill, turrets slump into foam. He doesn’t try to save it. Just squeezes my shoulder.

Grandma appears, tray balanced on one hand like a seasoned waitress. China teapot (wrapped in a tea towel to keep it hot), three mismatched cups, a plate of scones still steaming. She sets it on the flattened sandcastle remains.

“Peace treaty,” she declares. “Scones for the rebels.”

I scramble over. Jam first, always. She spreads it thick, clotted cream on top like snow on volcanoes. Grandpa pours tea (milk in first, the way he insists drives the palace staff mad). The cup is too big for my hands; he steadies it. Steam curls between us.

A gull swoops low, eyes the crumbs. I tear off a corner of scone, toss it. The bird snatches mid-air. Grandpa applauds with sandy fingers.

Camilla leans back on her elbows, toes wiggling. “Remember when you were this small, Charles? Chasing pigeons in the Kensington gardens. Your nanny despaired.”

He snorts. “She despaired more when I tried to plant runner beans in the flowerbeds.”

I picture it: Grandpa in short trousers, mud to the elbows. The image makes me bold. I crawl into his lap, sticky fingers in his beard.

“Tell me the bean story.”

He glances at Camilla. She nods, eyes crinkling. He begins (voice low, conspiratorial). How he smuggled seeds in his pocket. How the head gardener found six-foot runners strangling the roses. How the Queen (my great-grandma) laughed so hard she had to sit on the palace steps.

I listen, chin on his collarbone. The sun climbs. My eyelids droop. The tea grows cold. Somewhere, a ukulele starts up (lazy chords drifting from a beach bar). Camilla hums along, off-key but happy.

Grandpa shifts me so my head rests in the crook of his arm. His heartbeat is steady under my ear. I smell salt, bergamot, and something green (like the orangery at home). My thumb finds its way to my mouth (old habit I’m meant to have outgrown). He doesn’t scold. Just strokes my hair with the same hand that signs laws and plants oaks.

A bigger wave rushes in, swirls around the tray. Camilla lifts the teapot just in time. The scones float like tiny rafts. We watch them bob, then sink. No one moves to save them.

“Offerings to Neptune,” Grandpa murmurs.

I yawn. “Neptune’s greedy.”

“Kings and gods,” Camilla says, “both impossible to please.”

She packs the cups into the basket. Grandpa eases me down onto the towel. The sand is warm through the fabric. He tucks his hat over my eyes. Darkness smells of straw and his aftershave.

I’m half-asleep when I feel it: his lips on my forehead, light as a moth. Camilla’s hand finds his. Their shadows merge over me (one tall, one curved, both soft at the edges).

The ukulele fades. Gulls cry overhead. The tide keeps its ancient rhythm. For one afternoon, the crown is just a circle of shells I placed on Grandpa’s head earlier, before the sandball war. He wore it without complaint until the wind stole it.

I dream of castles that don’t fall, of beans climbing to the sky, of a king who smells like earth and lets me win.

When I wake, the sun is lower, painting everything gold. Grandpa is sketching in the sand with a stick (plans for a new wildflower meadow, arrows and Latin names). Camilla dozes beside him, book open on her chest. The tray is gone; only footprints remain (mine small and frantic, theirs slow and side by side).

I crawl over, add a lopsided heart around his diagram. He looks up, eyes soft behind salt-specked glasses.

“Ready for ice cream, Your Majesty?” he asks.

I nod. He stands, offers his hand. Camilla stirs, smiles sleepy. We walk toward the pastel carts, three silhouettes stretching long across the sand. Behind us, the tide smooths our battlefield flat (no trace of moats or treaties, only the faint scent of jam and the echo of ordinary laughter).