They entered the kitchen in good spirits and Kitty let out a delighted laugh as she saw them both. If she was confused as to what Jackie was doing there so early in the morning she gave no sign.
"Good morning, sweeties!" she sang out, herding them to their seats.
"Morning, Mom."
"Good morning, Mrs. Forman," Jackie said and went to the kitchen cabinet to get the crockery.
Red entered the kitchen a minute later with a paper in his hand. He made his way to his usual seat across from Eric.
"Well! Aren't we early this morning."
"Morning, Dad," Eric said. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was eight o'clock; he was usually up hours before that, and he felt like he had wasted an entire morning.
Jackie walked over with a stack of plates and Eric rose to help her lay them out. "Oh Eric's usually up at the crack of dawn," she told them. "The villagers keep early hours."
Kitty sailed by with a jug of orange juice and a pot of coffee. She counted the plates and said, "Oh honey, we need more plates than that. Steven and Sam are eating too, sweetie."
Jackie froze. She hadn't really expected Steven and Sam to join them for breakfast. Despite her little conversation with Eric along the corridor this morning she had honestly been hoping to waltz out of the Forman household without having to make contact with them at all.
Right on cue, Steven's booted footsteps sounded heavily on the stairs from the basement. Jackie panicked, and started looking around frantically for an exit. She wasn't sure she could sit down and breakfast with the both of them and pretend that everything was the same as before. She wasn't sure if she could act normally with Eric just sitting there next to her. Steven would see right through them both.
Before she could make a move, Eric's warm hand covered hers and he bent down slightly to catch her eye. "Hey," he said softly, "I'm here, it'll be fine."
She dragged her eyes to meet his steady green gaze; and felt a calm emanate from his solid body in waves. It flowed through her veins and she relaxed. What was she thinking? He was here, of course she could. She could do anything with him next to her.
She nodded in reply. "Okay," she said.
He squeezed her hand and continued what he was doing.
Red observed their exchange without a word. He flipped the edge of his newspaper back up as his son's best friend and the wife of that best friend that he barely tolerated traipsed through the kitchen.
"Smells good, Mrs. For—" Hyde broke off as noticed two extra people in the kitchen that morning.
As usual, his attention zoomed in on Jackie and he didn't take notice of the man next to her. His pulse leapt at the sight of her. Didn't she head home last night? He shrugged inwardly. Maybe she got invited for breakfast.
Kitty turned around from the stove where she was frying eggs. She put her spatula down in excitement.
"Steven! We have company! A-hahaha!" She turn off the gas and leaned against the stove, propping her hand on her other hip. "Look who's back!" she said, and waggled her head from side to side.
Hyde frowned at her, bemused at her over-the-top chirpiness this morning. He peered closely at the vaguely familiar back of the guy next to Jackie.
Eric hadn't been looking forward to this reunion at all. He had no idea what his reaction to seeing Hyde after almost two years away was going to be like. Especially since Eric had developed very deep, very real, and very uncompromising feelings for his best friend's ex-girlfriend, whom Eric was almost absolutely certain was also the love of his best friend's life. And what made it worse was that he was also quite certain, that the same girl, who was fast becoming the love of his life, still had unresolved feelings for the man who had broken and stomped on her heart so many times.
He turned around slowly, and when he saw Hyde again, he yo-yoed between wanting to punch the living day lights out of him and pulling him into a man-hug. He did neither, and remained standing, and an unreadable expression stole its way across his face.
Hyde obviously had no clue as to what Eric was thinking, and his reaction was the total opposite of Eric's: he was ecstatic. He had missed him more than he cared to admit, and things just weren't the same without Eric around.
"Forman!" he called out, and a huge grin split his face. "You're back!"
He crossed over to where Eric was and pulled him into a hard hug. Eric found himself thumping back on Hyde's back as a similar grin —though not as bright, and just a shade shy of being as genuine—appeared on his face too. Flashes of Jackie as she had been over the past two years: crying, broken, torn and depressed appeared in his mind's eye. Hyde released him and they both stepped back.
Hyde pushed his sunglasses up his nose. "You look… different."
Eric shrugged impassively.
"It's probably the hair," he said, and regarded Hyde's bushy curls. "You should think about getting a cut too. And probably a shave while you're at it." He fingered his upper lip. "That's not doing a thing for you, man."
Behind him, Jackie hid a smile and handed Red a fork and a knife.
"I think it makes him look sexy," came an unfamiliar voice from behind Hyde.
The stripper.
He felt Jackie stiffen involuntarily so he turned back around before the stripper came into view. Kitty came by with a pan full of bacon then and he let his arm brush Jackie's as he took the pan to transfer the bacon to the large platter in the center of the table. They shared a quick look and she gave him a weak smile.
Hyde sat down next to Red, and Jackie walked to place the empty pan in the sink. She heard him strike up a conversation with Eric about Africa. He sounded bright and alert and she was glad. Eric being back would be good for him.
She nodded a greeting to Sam (Boyfriend Stealer), whom she noted looked great this morning. Did the woman never hear about morning sickness?
Sam sashayed over to join the others at the table and Jackie wondered fleetingly if Eric liked blondes too.
Sam was a natural flirt on account of her profession, and men just couldn't help but respond to her. In turn, she enjoyed their attention and dressed to show it. This morning, despite the freezing temperatures outside, she had on a low-cut top and a pair of shorts in neon pink that showed off her endless legs to perfection.
Kitty handed Jackie a plate of sausages and she took them distractedly, feeling her gut clench as Sam took a seat between Hyde and Eric. Sam crossed her tanned legs and stroked Hyde's arm, then leaned forward for a large plate of eggs, nearly spilling out of her top to do so.
Jackie clamped her lips together in a tight line.
Flipping her blonde hair back over her shoulder, Sam turned and angled her body more fully towards Eric. She batted her eyelashes and smiled coquettishly.
And Jackie found herself gripping the edge of the plate so hard her knuckles turned white. Unable to control herself any longer, she marched over to the table and banged the plate of sausages down. They looked up at her, stunned.
What the hell, Jackie?" Hyde exclaimed and picked up a sausage from his lap.
She ignored him and shot Eric a nasty look. She dragged a chair out, letting it screech noisily against the tiled floor, and parked herself ostentatiously between Sam and Eric. Eric looked at her closely, slightly confused by her behavior, and reached out for a some eggs.
"It's Eric, isn't it?" Sam asked, and shifted herself to look around Jackie at him. Her already large breasts, now made larger by pregnancy, rested on the table in full glory.
Jackie dropped her fork with a clang. She slid her right elbow on to the table and shoved her shoulder forward to block them from view. With a murderous look on her face, she drove a forkful of eggs in her mouth with her left hand. She looked ridiculously uncomfortable, but she didn't care. And she didn't want to even think about her why she was acting so.
Eric's brows knitted. He looked at Jackie in bafflement and a fork full of food to his mouth slowly.
"Right?" Sam prompted. She wasn't used to being ignored by red-blooded young men, and Eric was definitely a red-blooded young man in her opinion. "You look so different from your pictures."
Eric's eyes were indifferent as they flicked over the girl who had caused Jackie so much pain. He nodded shortly and looked back at Jackie, who was maintaining the same awkward position, busy stabbing at a rasher of bacon.
He nudged her arm gently. She refused to look at him.
He frowned.
"More juice, Eric?" He heard his mother ask.
"Yeah. Thanks, Mom," he answered distractedly.
"Pass the sausages."
"Sure, Red." Hyde turned to his wife and pointed at the sausages. "Sam, hand him the sausages."
"Here you go, Red," Sam said.
A loud clank sounded as Red dropped his fork to his plate. "No, no. He," he pointed his finger at Hyde, "calls me Red. You. Call me Mr. Forman."
Sam barely seemed to notice the put down. "Sure, Mr. Forman," she said breezily and handed him the sausages. Red put three on his plate and handed the plate back to her. She took it and stretched over Jackie to hold it out to Eric.
"So, E-ric," she drawled breathily, drawing out the syllables of his name, "we haven't officially met. I'm Sam." She stopped to twirl a finger in her hair. "Have a sausage?"
Eric stopped eating and observed her quizzically.
"Do you have a throat infection?" he asked.
"What?"
"A throat infection. You know, laryngitis."
He took the plate of sausages from her and swept one on Kitty's plate and speared another for Jackie. "'Cos that's what I sounded like when I got it, when I first started teaching. All breathy and… raspy."
Kitty snorted into her glass of orange juice and tried to mask it with a laugh. "Ah-hahahaha!"
Sam's mouth dropped open.
Eric gestured with his knife. "You need to learn how to modulate your voice. Pitch lower. Less strain on your chords. And bye bye laryngitis."
Red looked at Eric, and nodded approvingly. "The boy's got a point," he said with a cat-like grin.
Eric paid no more attention to Sam and turned back to his food. There was nothing like a good old-fashioned American breakfast in his mother's kitchen after two years out of US soil.