After

It was close to ten. Most of the wedding guests had left the restaurant. The staff was cleaning up, mostly ignoring the few of us that remained. I joined the best man and one of his friends sitting alone at the bar in conversation.

The best man wanted to ask our waitress for her number. He is a young kid, barely old enough to drink. "How should I do it?" He asks me. 

"Look, you are tall, good-looking. Just ask her if she would like to hang out sometime and ask for her number. What do you have to lose? The worst thing that can happen is she will say no."

She didn't say no, and they exchanged numbers.

Alexis had her mind set on going to a bar to dance after the wedding. Sam and I wanted to go home. She was drunk, and I was tried, but Alexis was offended when we wanted to call it a night, so we acquiesced. 

I drove the newlyweds. They were in no shape to drive, but I had maintained my designated driver status through the evening. We went to a microbrewery a few miles away in downtown St. Clair. The bar was not crowded, and the patrons were primarily young hipsters.

Six of us went to the bar from the wedding, the bride and groom, the groom's sister and her husband, Sam, and me. Sam and a stuffed dollars into the electronic jukebox and picked out songs, but the staff remotely turned down the music as we made our choices. They didn't want the outsiders getting rowdy.

No one danced, and the conversation revolved around childhood memories. The others have known each other since childhood, so I had little to add to the discussion. I'm not much of a social person and tend to grow silent in a crowd. It is something I should probably work on. I prefer one on one conversations.

Sam and I stayed for an hour then left the newlyweds in the hands of the other couple who were also staying the night at the motel. We discussed the evening on the ride home. Sam mostly downplayed the consequences that would later stem from the marriage. 

I forgot to ask Sam about her own relationship issues. During dinner, Alexis indicated that Sam went back to the guy she dropped after being stood up on New Year for one evening. Sam insisted her feelings had changed and she wouldn't be dating him. I noted Sam posted a selfie of her and me on Instagram where this guy would see it. He initially reached out to her on Instagram. It is one of only two photos she's ever posted.

Sam may say she is over him, but the move was calculated nonetheless. Alexis told me Sam spent an evening looking over the guy's Facebook account from her phone. Sam doesn't have her own Facebook account. This had something to do with her decision.