Emmett tells everybody it’s showtime. He’s going to do the gender reveal.
He has the canisters set up outside that will blow up and release the color that will indicate the gender of the baby. We all go outside on the snow-dusted balcony.
Briar comes up to me and says, “Emmett’s been worried, so I hope you love it.”
I nod. “I’m sure I will. I gave him the envelope the doctor gave us last week.”
She shrugs. “I hope so. You know, he had to rework his plan. There was a shipping problem, so he had to get the canisters through Amazon.”
I smile and squeeze her shoulder. “I’m not worried.”
“Let’s go, Emmett!” Ben shouts down. “It’s freezing.”
“I’m the one freezing my balls off,” he calls up.
“Oh, come on. Just do it,” Lottie says.
“We’re working on it!” Bennett shouts from beside Emmett.
All the cousins are pestering him to get going with it.
They’re looking down at one of the canisters and talking intently as if they’re trying to figure something out down there, but I don’t really know what it is. Zander looks at me, and I mouth, “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
“He does the gender reveals for the ranch,” I say. “I’m sure he knows how to work these powder things, right?”
Emmett gives a thumbs-up and walks into the vineyard where he has the rest of the canisters set up.
Then someone uses the audio system to start a countdown. “Three… two… one…”
A big puff of purple smoke shoots out.
We all kind of stare at each other.
“Is that supposed to be pink?” my mom asks.
“I don’t know…” I frown.
Then green smoke shoots up to the sky.
“I was afraid of this,” Briar says next to me, covering her face with her hands.
Poppy mutters, “Oh, Jesus Christ. I can’t believe we left these two buffoons in charge of it.”
Then Bennett shouts, “Hold on, hold on, hold on! Just wait! There’s more.”
“More?” I look at Zander with wide eyes.
A shot of blue comes out.
“That’s three,” Zander whispers.
Then pink right after.
“Four.” I rub my hand over my forehead.
“What does this mean?” my dad asks. “Wouldn’t four colors mean four?—”
“Oh my god! Are we having quadruplets or something?” I scream down at Emmett.
