and the distinctive sound of someone smacking someone's head, confirmed by an expression of pain on the part of the smacked, greet Evangeline's ears as she trots down the stairs towards the noise. "Grandma?" she calls at the suspicious lack of people in the house, despite the evidence for the contrary.

As she turns the corner into the kitchen, she jumps in surprise and the sight of her four friends, grabbing onto the bannister of the stairs as the group laughs at her reaction. "It's not funny, guys, I could have died."

As she slowly recovers, an ear-splitting happy bastille day! yelled by Eric at the head of the long table pierces the air. Hyde smacks his head and Eric whines, "Stop hitting me, man!" his voice cracking slightly at the end.

"Happy birthday!" Fez and Jackie chorus. Fez is wearing a funny cone-shaped hat on his head and Jackie keeps glancing at Hyde and then the cake then Hyde again as he approaches the blonde with the perpetual look of surprise on her face.

"Surprise," Hyde says as he walks over to her and presses his lips to hers.

Jackie groans and covers her eyes, ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach. "Ew, can you not? I don't feel like throwing up today."

Fez shoves Jackie's head away and shakes his hands out towards them urging them to keep going. "Don't listen to her! Keep going! Hyde, grab her boob!" He continues to shout gross suggestions until Hyde reaches over and flicks his nose, causing him to cry owie like a little child.

Hyde turns back to his girl, giving her a tiny smile. He pecks her on the lips again and then wraps his arm around her shoulder.

"Y'all did this for me?" Evie takes a looks round the room at the decorations and the cake, sparse as they may be, and she starts to tear up. Before long, she's full-on crying with no indication of stopping anytime soon. The group glance nervously at each other, wondering what they did. "I—I don't know what to say!"

"Evie, are you okay?" Hyde brushes away a tear running down her cheek, only for it to be replaced by another one immediately after. "What is it?"

"It's just—no one's ever done anything like this for me before," Evangeline says, gesturing to everything they've set up.

Eric screws up his face and shakes his head slightly. "It's just a cake? What—you've never had one of those before?"

Evangeline sniffles, wiping her eyes as she takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. Hyde lets his arm fall, reaching for his hand with his and lacing their fingers together. "No, not really."

For the second time the group look at each other tom surprise. "You've never had cake for your birthday?" Fez asks in shock, his mouth falling all the way down to the hems of his brightly-colored pants. "How is that possible?"

Evangeline shrugs and squeezes Hyde's hand three times. "My parents never had parties or presents for us. We got one gift a year on Christmas, and usually it was something educational, like the copy of War and Peace I got when I was eight." When they all start to put in their two-cents about it, she stops them and says, "I don't care anymore. I don't want to think about anything except how amazing my friends are."

Jackie pops her hip, setting her hand on it as she examines her nails. "If my parents didn't get me a present, I'd—" she glances up at the group and shrugs, abandoning whatever she was going to say in favor of: "well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty."

"Jackie, go eat some cake," Hyde says, rolling his eyes. She mocks him behind his back as she takes a seat next to Eric and sets her head in her hands. "Well, this is our present to you, then."

Evie hugs him around the waist with a grin as he wraps his arms around her in return. "You guys are the best!" Hyde ushers her to the table before heading to the fridge for drinks. She sits down at the front of the cake and tilts her head at the sloppy, uphill writing. "Happy birthday, Evange—where's the rest of my name?"

"Hey, you're lucky we got you a cake," Eric says. Hyde smacks him again, earning a hiss and a glare in return. "I ran out of space."

"Steven, grab me a pop from the fridge," Jackie orders the boy already closing the blue door without even turning around to face him. He pauses for a second before grunting and pulling it open again, grabbing a third from the inside of the door. Then an idea pops into his twisted brain and, with an evil grin, Hyde shakes the third one up.

The three onlookers try to stifle their laughter, to which Jackie screws up her face and asks them all what? in her usual, holier-than-thou tone. "'bout time," she mumbles as he hands it to her. The three watch as she opens it and is immediately met with a spray of the brown, sugary liquid. Jackie squeals, jumping up from the chair and knocking it over in the process. She drops the can on the table and turns to glare at Hyde, pointing a finger in his face as he feigns innocence. "You little—ugh! This is silk!"

Evangeline giggles as Jackie storms out the house, shouting about Steven laying her dry cleaning bill, simultaneously amused and sad for the girl. "You know, that was a little mean. Funny—but mean."

Hyde shrugs, setting down the two soda cans in front of them and taking a seat in the now empty chair beside Evie. "She had it coming." Evangeline glances up and points out the stain on the ceiling, teasing him with a did the ceiling have it coming too? The boy rolls his eyes and shoves her hand away as she laughs. "Eat your cake."

"Aren't you gonna sing?"

"I don't sing—" He's interrupted by Fez erupting into a song that I'm sure he thought was happy birthday but sounded more like a funeral march than anything else.

A the three stare at him as he continues, the ending flourish made perfect by his cracking voice and exaggerated hand gestures. "To you!" No one says anything as he finishes, watching them expectantly for their applause and acknowledgment of what he's just done. "I said, to you! Where's my love?"

"Oh, uh—" Evangeline starts clapping awkwardly, nudging both boys to join in. They groan out a good job, Fez with a grimace as the raven-haired boy sits down with a satisfied smile and a tiny bow.

"Thank you, thank you. But I meant the cake!"

Hyde has to physically restrain the boy as he reaches for the confection with his hands. Evie guffaws as he scratches and pulls at Hyde's arms while Eric frantically cuts it into slices, not bothering with making anything even or pretty. "Here, Fez. Have at it."

Before Eric's even given the other three pieces, Fez is already licking the plate clean and holding it out toward the server. "More?"

"Fez!" Hyde smacks him upside the head as he impatiently reaches for Evie's slice. "Go home."

"But—cake!"

"Go!"

Eric snickers as he shoves a bite into his mouth, watching the foreign boy sulk out of the house. "What a loser," he mumbles into another bite.

"Says the guy who's too chicken to call his ex-girlfriend." Hyde all but shoves his piece into his mouth; Evangeline rolls her eyes as she wipes away the crumbs sticking to the corners of his mouth.

She smiles as swats her hand a way, more crumbs falling from his mouth full of cake. "Maybe take smaller bites next time."

"I'm not a loser," Eric scoffs, stabbing the cake with his fork and twisting it until the pastry falls apart.

Hyde concedes. "Okay, just an idiot, then."

Evangeline hasn't heard much about what happened right before she arrived this summer, but she's heard that Eric and his ex-girlfriend had had some disagreement and that she had just broken up with her new boyfriend, Casey, who Evangeline knew well, unfortunately, and that that had been the tipping point for her to run off.

"I'm not an idiot! Just 'cause I didn't stop Donna from leaving for California with Kelso, with no idea or plan of when she's coming back, doesn't—" Eric's eyes widen as his face falls in realization. "Okay, maybe I am an idiot. But I can't just call her! She left. She has to make the first move. Then I'll run after her."

"So, basically, no different than from what you did when you were dating," Hyde says with a grin, leaving on his elbow and poking his fork in Eric's direction. He shakes his head and stuffs his mouth again. "She's never coming back."

Evangeline watches the exchange with interest. Despite Hyde's words that are meant to tease and annoy Eric, Evangeline can hear the care in his tone underneath that tells her Eric is important to him. In his roundabout, patented Hyde manner, he's showing that. Though she would never admit to him she knows; he's simply deny caring about anything and tell her love is for pansies and people with low self-esteem.

"Fine! I'll call her." Eric sets down his fork and shoves his chair back. "I'll go back home and get her number from Bob and I'll—I'll tell her to come home right now!"

"You tell her, Forman!" Hyde says, grabbing his half-eaten piece and scraping it onto his plate. "Don't take no for an answer!"

"Yeah! No one says no to Eric Forman!" He puffs up his chest and adjusts his collar, a confident smirk adorning his lips. Then, as if realizing something, he looks to Hyde. "Can you drive me back? It's like really hot."

"No! Now get moving!" Eric scowls for a second, before a new resolve rips through him and he runs out of the house. When the door slams shut for the third time, Hyde pushes back his plate and pulls Evie off her chair and into his lap. "I thought they'd never leave."

"Was this your plan all along? To get them to leave?" Evangeline's mouth opens into a wide o and she threads her arms under his arms as her legs fall around the sides of his thighs. "You sneaky bastard."

Hyde shrugs and covers her cheeks with the palms of his hands, bringing their lips together in a saccharine kiss, both from the feelings bubbling in their chests and the taste of the frosting on their tongues. No matter how many times he kisses her, every time feels like the first. Her stomach turns into a gymnast, flip-flopping in her abdomen and her heart tries to run a marathon. He does something to her no guy has ever done before, and she knows she can never tire from the feeling.

When Hyde pulls back and rests his forehead on hers, he whispers sweetly to her: "Happy birthday, baby."

"You're the best. I mean, getting all our friends to wish me happy birthday and a cake! This is great."

"You've really never had a part before?" Hyde raises his eyebrows, wiping away a little frosting from her cheek with a smile. "I guess that makes a lot of sense. We always just thought you felt you were too good for us and never invited us to any parties."

Evangeline shakes her head. "Like I said, my parents believe that birthdays aren't truly important. They're just the day that reminds you you're a year older." She scoffs and chuckles dryly. "I bet even your mom gave you something."

Hyde shrugs, pulling her into his chest and eating his head on hers. "Well, when she wasn't drunk, or high, or entertaining my daddy of the night."

Evangeline laughs quietly and tilts her face up to peck his lips. "Let's promise that when we have kids, we'll be better than our parents were."

Hyde smirks and brushes her hair behind her ear. "I'll do you one better; I don't even want kids, so I can't mess their lives up if I don't have them."

Evangeline frowns and pulls her lips into her mouth. "You don't want them—ever?"

"Why should I become a parent when I know I'll suck just as much as mine did?" He gives her a soft smile. "Besides, who needs kids when I have friends who can barely take care of themselves?"

Evie cracks a smile and giggles. "Very true."

"Now eat your cake, so I can have my dessert," Hyde says, eyes glancing down to her bare legs where her shorts have ridden up to her hips.

"Who says you're getting any?" Evangeline asks, sticking her neck out and her chin up in defiance. Hyde presses a kiss under her chin, trailing a line down her neck to her collarbone where he bites gently at her silky skin. With a moan she nods her head, "Never mind."

Hyde laughs as she gulps down the last bit of her cake and hops off his lap, dragging him off the chair and up the stairs to her room. They pass the next hour consuming their dessert, listening to music, and talking about everything and nothing. In the past, the girls he's 'dated' all annoyed him with their desire to talk after sex, but with Evangeline, he was suddenly the one with the desire to talk, even when he had nothing to say. She brought out a tiny part of him he didn't know existed, and he wasn't sure if he could ever go back. He wasn't sure he ever wanted to go back.