Visually distraught Dave is escorted away by a friend who is trying to console him, and we are just talking amongst ourselves and enjoying our libations. Dave would not be seen again....for a little while, anyway. I'm sticking close to Stacy who is chatting me up and seems to be enjoying my company thus far. We hang out for maybe another hour or so until closing time at 4. You might think we'd head on home now or go to get some greasy food somewhere, but ohhhhh no. I told you, this crew goes hard. We are off to another section of town that has establishments that are open until 6. So we are walking out of the 4am spot and everybody is breaking into groups to catch rides. There were several people I definitely wouldn't have gotten into the car with at that point, as they weren't walking too well. Stacy is in good shape though, so I ask if I can catch a ride with her and she says "of course!"
We commute over to the other place which is about 15 minutes away. By the time we get there, I'm still slightly buzzed, but in good enough shape to know that I'm super thirsty, so I get a bottled water and everybody else orders drinks. Stacy and I, along with two other girls I had just met that night, find a table and have a seat and chitchat for a bit. Kate, as before, is all over the room. She knows everybody there, or at least felt like she did. Stacy and I chitchat a little bit. We are positioned so that we are facing each other. I notice that she keeps touching me throughout the chitchat, brushing my hand or arm, and sitting with her legs positioned inside my knees. I'm no expert but I'm thinking to myself this is good body language.

About an hour in, Kate gets pissed off at something and storms out. Nobody has a clue what she was mad at. A hot young waitress comes by with a tray full of assorted shots for sale, but looked at our group and said "y'all just grab one if you want one." A few people around us, including Stacy, took her up on the offer. I passed. Waitress makes her way around the room and passes back by us. She has 2 shots left on her tray. She says "here, somebody take these." One of the other girls grabs one of them, and the waitress picks the last one up and hands it to me and winks and says "all yours." I am DONE with alcohol at that point and still thirsty as #### so I tell her "if you will trade this in on a bottled water I will love you forever" or something goofy like that and she says "I can do that" and heads off to the bar. Kate's BFF (who is a solid 7 herself), we shall call her Margot, comes up and sits at our table, and a random guy (to me anyway, and not part of the night's festivities) starts chatting Margot up. Waitress brings me back a water and didn't even charge me for it so I tip her a few bucks for her efforts. Kate is sill not back, and nobody had seen her since she stormed out so I called her. She answers and tells me that she is at another little dive bar, which I have no clue where it is, but I whisper the name to Stacy and she says it's a block down so I go to tell Kate to stay there we are coming there to get her because everyone is ready to leave, but before I could get that out, the ##### hung up on me! I wait a few minutes and try again. She answers and I say we are ready to go and she says "y'all go ahead, I don't have to go anywhere, I'm not ready to leave" and hung up on me AGAIN.

I was pissed. Stacy calls Kate and she answers and they talk for a minute and she tells Kate we will come there and to stay there. We are all getting a little worried at Kate's behavior at that point.
Margot, random guy, Stacy and I head outside and start down the street towards the dive bar. Stacy grabs my hand as we are walking there and we are all goofing off. The 2 ladies are pretty drunk, but not sloppy. I have no idea about random guy. He didn't seem too drunk, but was playing along with our shenanigans and #### talking. We get to the dive bar and finally find Kate in the very back at a table with people that the girls knew, but I didn't know. I hit the head and the girls are all chatting for another 15-20 minutes and we were all ready to go. It's probably 5:45 at this point. I walk over to Kate and say "let's go, we're all ready to get out of here, I'm driving" and she says "y'all leave then! I'll Uber home or to birthday girl's house." Birthday girl had gone home about 2 hours prior, after a few margaritas and several rounds of birthday shots, and I'm fairly sure she was unconscious at that point. Margot, Stacy and even random guy tried to coax Kate into leaving. Her response was to take a seat at the bar and wave

to all of us. I said "#### this, y'all, let's go, she can Uber" We walked outside and Stacy grabs my hand again as we head back towards the parking lot.
Stacy was saying she was supposed to go crash at birthday girl's house. I said "nope, she's been asleep for hours, I need a ride and no way am I letting you drive anywhere, so I will drive us back to Kate's apartment. We can crash on her couch." For those wondering, Kate's couch is a luxurious over-sized leather sectional in the shade of dark chocolate. Margot lives in the same building as Kate so she was good with this plan and encouraged it even. She had noticed Stacy sitting close to me earlier and had pointed at us, grinned, and winked at her and made Stacy blush, so she was enjoying egging this on (and I certainly wasn't complaining). Random guy was just along for the ride so he jumped in with us.
So we head off to Kate's. It's around 6AM and the morning sun is beginning to vanquish the horrible night....