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Chapter Forty One

"I'd love to be in Times Square right now," Ally sighed.

"Me too," Joe said. He kept pointing out this one guy in the crowd who had a hat with hands attached. Every time the guy tugged the string, the hands clapped together.

"Me threes!"

"Me fours!"

"They don't allow monkeys in Times Square," I said. Brayden and Tristan both looked at me and giggled.

There wasn't a lot of exciting places to go to celebrate New Years Eve when you were under eighteen. Mason and I had decided to expand our dual-babysitting skills by watching the kids. Mom and dad had gone out with Kristin somewhere to celebrate.

"Hey Shel, when do you officially turn seventeen?" Ally asked. I smiled.

"Not until five in the morning."

"We should stay up!" Joe said.

"YEAH!" the twins cried in unison.

Mason and I had strict orders to get all the kids to bed no later than twelve thirty.

"If you do that, you won't be awake for my party," I said.

"Yeah, you'll miss the cake," Mason said.

The twins eyes got HUGE. They had developed dad's sweet tooth.

"We don't wanna miss cake," Brayden said seriously. Tristan shook his head.

After one last performance, the camera panned over the crowd and back onto the announcer. Then it was time for the last ten second count before the ball drop.

Mason took my hand. I smiled. He was leaving tomorrow night after my birthday lunch, but I was trying not to think about that. I was going to stay positive. New year, new attitude...

New baby.

"NINE!"

"EIGHT!"

"SEVEN!"

Joe burped out the six. Brayden fell over clutching his stomach. Tristan jumped on him.

"FIVE!"

"FOUR!"

"Guys shut up!" Ally complained. She leaned towards the TV.

"TWO!"

"ONE!"

Joe and Ally screamed out Happy New Year. I wasn't listening. This was the first year that I had someone to kiss and I was making the most out of it. Mason and I shared a long kiss. The moment was broken when Joe blew a noisemaker right into our faces. I pressed my hand into Joe's face and pushed him back. He ran off to make Ally his next unfortunate victim.

"Happy New Year," Mason said, his lips brushing mine once more.

"Happy New Year." I whispered.

As we kissed again, I couldn't help but think what a year it was going to be...

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"Happy Birthday!"

It was the one morning out of the year (sans Christmas) when I actually didn't mind being woken out of a sound sleep. I stared up at mom and smiled.

"Seventeen years ago today," she began. I closed my eyes and groaned. "The most beautiful girl in all the world was born."

"Mom..."

"Let me finish Shel. This is probably the last year."

I looked up at her in surprise. She had a glint of sadness in her eyes.

"And when I stared into your little face and counted your ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, I just knew that you were going to grow up to be anything you wanted to be. So Shel, what do you want to be this year?"

I thought back to all the years that we had been playing this game. When I was four, I was sure I wanted to be a goldfish (at least until my own goldfish was found belly-up because I fed it too much). When I was five, I wanted to be an astronaut ballerina. When I was eight, I had wanted to be a rodeo cowgirl. When I was twelve, I had wanted to be the most popular girl in the world. And last year, I had just wanted to be a famous painter.

But this year...

I stared up into mom's face. The face that I had inherited.

"I want to be a great mom like you," I said softly. Mom looked surprised. Her mouth opened and closed. She took a deep breath.

"Oh, Shel, you will be."

And then mom lost it. I mean really lost it. And of course when she started crying, I started crying. She sat down on my bed and hugged my tightly.

"What a mush fest."

Through my tears, I saw Joe standing in the doorway shaking his head. He took off down the hallway.

When we finally dabbed the last of the tears off our faces, mom took my hand and squeezed it.

"Okay enough crying. Get up birthday girl. We've got a fun day ahead."

She got up and kissed my forehead. I fell back into my pillows with a smile.

Seventeen.

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"Wow, look at that!"

"Cool!"

Dad and I had put our heads together to figure out where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner (which actually turned out to be lunch). We finally found an open-grill concept Chinese place that had gotten great reviews. Our chef was in the middle of our large square table and I knew why the reviews were so good. A huge flame shot up when the guy tossed some onions in. He had been slicing and dicing and tossing things behind his back for twenty minutes now.

"Hey, guy, I bet you I can catch a piece of shrimp in mid-air!" Joe called. Our chef glanced over at him, smirked, and without warning there was some airborne shrimp. Joe scrambled and practically snapped his neck in half, but he caught it. I clapped.

Ten minutes later, amazing aromas drifted off of our plates. Mason was sitting on my left. He took a big bite.

"Mmm, this is good," he said.

"I bet you guys don't have this back in Shelbyville," dad said. Mason and him shared a look. Mason chewed vigorously and swallowed.

"No," he said lightly. "But I bet Lexington does."

There was a little bit of an awkward silence. I had been talking a little more about Kentucky in the last three days or so and I think it was making dad nervous. I decided to change the subject.

"So, three weeks until the gender ultrasound!" I blurted. I cleared my throat. "Any guesses?"

I think the word ultrasound was too big for the twins to understand. They were too busy playing with a pile of crunchy noodles.

"Boy," Dad, Kristin, and Joe said in unison.

"Girl," Ally said. Mom studied me thoughtfully.

"Girl," she said.

"I don't think so," Kristin said. "The Richardson family is boy-heavy."

"What do you think Shel?" Mason asked. He was the only one that didn't bother to guess.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't care. I mean I care, but..."

Mason smiled. "Exactly."

Everyone broke into little arguments defending their position. Mason held out a bite of cauliflower. I took it and smiled.

I had managed to postpone the moving argument. Now, all that was left was cake, presents, and going to the airport to see Mason off.

Out of those three things, I was only looking forward to the first two.