Page 17 of Promise Not To Fall

½ part hibiscus syrup

4½ parts sparkling wine

Pour ingredients into a champagne glass

Hibiscus Syrup:

1 part water

1 part sugar

¾ part hibiscus

Heat water and sugar in a small pot until sugar is melted. Remove from heat, add hibiscus and steep for 10 minutes. Remove hibiscus and cool.

This is how the next three hours break down: I try the Alabama slammer, angel’s face, hurricane, jaw breaker, and black magic again. Then I move onto the oil slick, and finally a screwdriver. I’m thinking I should be done at this point. It’s been something like six hours, and that is a lot of liquor to take in and still be able to function.

Jake tries to serve me up an island affair, but I can’t feel my lips at this point. I even go on for like ten minutes telling him I think they melted off my face, only to have him touch my lips—all by design—and confirm for me they’re still on my mouth.

I dance on the bar with a girl from Cuba and take shots with a retired couple from Miami that burn my throat for fifteen minutes. I have blurred vision, no balance, poor motor skills, but I’m still standing and feeling pretty good.

And now we’re back to the present, with me shitfaced. When I get drunk, my ears get hot first. Then it moves south. When I can’t feel my lips, it’s a general assessment they won’t work either.

I yell “drinks on me!” at one point. Thankfully, Jake saves my lying ass and steals my credit card and any traveler’s checks I have.

You would think at some point I would have begun to get sick. I’m taking in a lot of alcohol, but I think Jake caught onto my declining condition and isn’t making the drinks as strong as he was when I first got here.

I end up taking an hour break, and then tell him I need more. He’s happy to provide.

“What’s this one?”

He winks, his cheeks flushed. Or maybe my vision is flushed. “Kentucky mai tai.”

I take a sip. It’s good. I love bourbon. “I’ve been thinking. I need something to remember my trip by. This bar is amazing.”

“It is pretty cool.” He agrees. “What did you have in mind?”

“Give me a cool glass at least. I need a souvenir. Back home we have all these bars that have signature glasses. I need one of those.”

Jake reaches around below the counter and then sets a glass tit on the bar. Seriously, a glass tit complete with a little hole in the nipple to drink from like it’s some kind of adult sippy cup. And on the outside of the glass it says, “It sucked in the Bahamas!”

I pick it up, eyeing the engraved glass. “Classy.”

He smiles. “We keep it real here.”

He is real. I never expected to meet someone like him, and now after only a few hours—or like seven—I want to stay right here on this barstool, watching him make drinks.

When the sun sets, I watch Jake with probably a dreamy look. Probably something similar to the way Sandy watched Danny inGrease. Every once in a while, between making drinks, I catch Jake staring out at the ocean and the white sand. Just as the ocean swallows the sun, his eyes take on a different look to me, darker, sexier, and it’s then I know exactly where I want this night to end—with that deep, brooding stare gazing into my eyes as he hovers above me.

Can you imagine?

I definitely am.

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