Page 22 of Shameless
“No,” she whispered. “But as the disease progresses, she’ll more than likely have difficulty walking and talking.”
“Fuck,” I groaned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah. It’s just when I tasted your drink, it reminded me of her orchard and Christmas, as I said, but then I wondered how many more Christmases will she have?”
“That could be said for all of us. Tomorrow isn’t a promise, you know.”
“I know.” She sighed.
We continued to stare at the ocean until we could no longer see the sun, and all I wanted to do was wrap Sarah in my arms and not let go.
9
Sarah
I hadn’t meantto tell Blake about Aunt Deb. When she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about a year ago, she had asked my dad not to tell anyone. A part of me thought Blake knew since his mom and my aunt were close friends, but his reaction made it clear he didn’t know. Maybe his mom didn’t know either. It was possible my aunt hadn’t told anyone except my dad. She didn’t want anyone else to know because she worried people would look or treat her like she was sick. She still managed her apple farm, and if a person didn’t know she had the disease, it was easy to miss the slight tremors in her fingers.
After the sun set, Blake and I returned to the poker game, and he became the dealer. The food arrived shortly after. Once Taylor cleaned everyone out, we called it a night and Blake went back to his room. I showered, got in my jammies, and then headed to bed.
The next day, the girls and I went snorkeling, and later met up with Blake for happy hour at the pool, followed by dinner. The day after, he joined us for a trip out to Lands End and once we were back, we had ourcouple’smassage. He was a total gentleman when I undressed. He got naked while I wasn’t looking and slipped under the sheet on the table, keeping his head on the headrest while I stripped and climbed onto the table next to him. After our massage, we hung out at the pool with my friends. It was seriously the best vacation I’d ever had, in no small part due to unexpectedly having Blake around.
The morning of the distillery tour, Blake and I toured the entire property before going to a room to infuse six bottles of Mezcal, which would be shipped to Blake.
“Have you decided on a flavor for your Mezcal?” Luis, our tour guide, asked as we slid on disposable plastic gloves.
Blake and I looked at each other, and he grinned. “We have to do apple.”
I smiled back and repeated, “Yeah, we have to do apple.”
“We thought you might say that, based on your winning cocktail, so we brought in some beautiful manzanas especial for you. Do you want cinnamon too?”
Blake shook his head. “Nah. Just apples, so we can make more than only apple and cinnamon cocktails with it.”
“Sounds good to me.” I beamed.
Luis handed us a bag of apples and gestured to the table where various items had been set up for us to use. “Go ahead and grate all of these apples. The peel is fine too. You will need at least twelve cups.”
“Twelve cups?” Blake balked.
“Si. You need two or more cups per bottle,” Luis informed us. “Más o menos, it doesn’t need to be exact.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “We’ll be here all day.”
“It will go quick. But please take your time, you are guests here even though we put you to work.” He chuckled. “You will use it to infuse the reposado, yes?”
“Yes,” Blake replied.
“Perfecto. I’ll be back with the six bottles.”
Luis left, and Blake and I started to grate the bag of apples.
“I want them to ship the bottles to you,” Blake stated.
“Me?” I asked. “Why me?”
“Well, I don’t know where I’ll live once I fly back home, since Stacey and I shared an apartment. And I’d rather you have it than me ship it to my folks or something.”
“Are you sure?”
