"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Three voices boomed through the small kitchen. Four people were wrapped around the even smaller, circular table in the middle of the room, a homemade birthday cake with candles stacked high in top of the wooden surface.

"Come on, Javi, make a wish!" Kate encouraged her foster brother.

He faked a look of deep thought, then blew out all seventeen candles in a single breath.

"Whoa," Kevin whispered. He looked up at Javier. "What did ya wish for?" he asked in his normal voice, which cracked lightly, caught between adolescence and adulthood.

"I can't tell you, dude. It's against the rules." He crossed his arms over his broad chest. "But for the record," he whispered to the boy beside him, "I wished for a chica."

"Who?"

"Oh, like any girl would ever like you!" Kate interjected, laughing and licking a bit of frosting from her finger.

"Whatever, Beckett. You know Lanie's got the hots for me."

"Yeah, in your dreams."

"Hey, guys, calm down. This is a celebration!" Roy bellowed at the bickering teenagers.

"Sorry," they said in unison.

"Hey, can we do presents now?" Kevin asked eagerly.

"Hell yes! Whatcha got for me, Ryan?"

"Language, Esposito," Roy warned.

"Aw, Cap, I'm seventeen. I think a 'hell' or a 'damn' here or there isn't a big deal."

"Whatever, boy. I won't have you talkin' like that in my house."

"Here, Javi." Kevin handed over a large box wrapped in royal blue paper.

He ripped off the paper. "Oh, a new football! Thanks, man. Now I don't have to steal—"

Roy raised his eyes to look at Javier.

"I mean borrow one from the school."

Kate giggled at the moment.

"Well, what about you, chica? What'd you get me?"

Kate brought a pair of Aviator sunglasses from behind her back.

"Ooh, shades." He plucked them from her hand and then slid them on in slow motion, "I look good, huh?"

"It's an improvement," Kate joked. "They only cover a small portion of your face, though. Next year, I'll get bigger ones."

"Shut up, you know I'm smokin'."

"I know you must be smokin' somethin' if you think you mug is anything but terrifying!"

"Hey! What did I say?" Roy cut in.

"Whatever. She's just jealous, Cap. Right, Kev?"

"No comment," he said, mouth full of cake.

Kate swiped another finger full of frosting from his piece, which got a muffled "Hey!" from him.

"What about you, Cap? Lay it on me."

"Boy, I made the cake!"

"Oh. Remind me not to eat it, then."

"You are gonna eat it, and you are gonna like it."

"Ease up, Captain. I was just kiddin'!"

"Just kiddin', my ass," Roy said under his breath.

"Hey, language!" Kevin said, after polishing off the first piece of cake and already going for a second.

"My house. I can say whatever I want."

Kate went to wash some frosting from her hand in the sink. "Cap, I promised Lanie I would help her study for a Chemistry quiz we got tomorrow."

"Sure, sure, Kate. Wanna take her a piece of cake?"

"Better make it two, I haven't had my piece yet and Kev's about to swallow the thing whole."

"It's good!" he exclaimed, mouth full again.

"You walkin' over there?" Roy asked, cutting the cake.

"No, she's picking me up in her mom's car and we're going to the library."

"Okay, but I want you back by ten."

"I know." Kate retrieved the Tupperware with the cake from the table.

"I'll, uh, walk you out," Javier said.

"You just wanna see Lanie," Kate teased.

"Psh, she ain't nothin' to see!"

"Esposito, you better not be talkin' about that nice girl like that!"

"I'm not, Cap," he sighed.

"All right, then how about we all walk Kate out?"

The four moved out of the kitchen and through the side door to the driveway.

Outside, they all watched as someone opened a huge moving truck in the driveway of the house across the street.

"Well, I guess they finally sold the place," Roy stated.

A boy, about the same age as Kate and her brothers, climbed out of the passenger side of the truck. He walked around to the back and spotted the crowd across the street. He raised his hand above his head, waving before he turned to pull a box from the truck.

Just then, Lanie pulled up. "Kay-tee! Let's go, girl!" she called from her open window. Kate jogged around to the other side and climbed in. Javier took a couple steps towards the car.

"Hey, Lanie. How 'bout a birthday kiss?" he asked playfully.

"Only in your dreams, Javi."

Kate buckled her seatbelt. "Let's go."

"Bye, Kevin. Bye, Captain," she called before pulling away from the house.

"Oh, that brother of yours is fine!" she said when they were a safe distance from the house.

"Who, Kevin?" she asked, jokingly.

"No, boo, Javi. He is one fine specimen of a man."

"Don't let him hear you say that, it will only make his ego bigger."

"Speaking of fine men, who was that hunk across the street?"

"I don't know," Kate said, and she didn't.

But she was going to find out.