Chapter 65

I stopped down at the bottom of the spiral stairs on the lower porch of the houseboat, stepping across the small space to allow Leia and then Zenya to follow me.

Leia was dressed in a black halter bikini that showed off the floral tattoos on her left hip and thigh, while the top had a slightly gothy vibe with a webbing of black strings across a hole between the cleavage and up to the neck reminiscent of a corset. Zenya was on the opposite vibe, wearing a classic bright pastel pink bikini with a pair of ripped-up daisy dukes over the bottoms, and her vibrant red-maroon dyed hair loose in a wavy mane over one shoulder. Her bust required rather large cups for the top and unlike Heather, Zenya actually seemed to buy for her size so she was properly supported despite showing off some nice cleavage.

“I’m really hoping I was reading you right, Leia,” I said, as I turned to the women. “If not, I-”

“Nope, that was perfect,” Leia said, stepping forward and pulling me into a quick hug. “Honestly, the guy was boring as hell, but he was starting to give off Nice Guy vibes.”

“Oooh,” Zenya made a face. “That’s not good.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “What does ‘Nice Guy vibes’ mean?”

Leia, who stepped back a bit from me after the hug but kept her hand on my waist, made a thinking face. Zenya held up a hand to tell her not to worry, though. “I got this,” she said. “Basically, women like bad boys and want to teach them to be good boys. We have a built-in desire to try and fix something we think is broken, but then we complain about just wanting to meet a ‘nice guy’ for once and not getting treated like garbage. But the ‘Type of Guy’ spectrum isn’t a line, it’s a graph. If the X axis is ‘Niceness’ and the Y axis is ‘Attractiveness’, then Bad Boys are high on attractive but low on nice. ‘Nice Guys’ aren’t the opposite, they’re the inverse - low attractiveness, and low niceness. It’s an ironic name because no matter how hard they simp, when they hit a wall they all end up screaming ‘I’m a nice guy, but-.’”

“Way to make a simple concept complicated, Zee,” Leia rolled her eyes. “Basically, if someone has to tell you they are smart, they aren’t that smart. If someone has to tell you how nice they are, they aren’t that nice.”

“Way to simplify a complicated concept, Leia,” Zenya mocked her.

I chuckled and shook my head, wiping at my forehead. “OK, I think I get what both of you are saying. Cass has had to deal with enough weird messages on social media and stuff that I get the archetype. What was up with that guy up there though?”

Leia sighed. “Well, Francis up there was fine to talk to for a while, but then Ginnie decided she liked his buddy Vince enough that she brought him down to our room for some ‘fun.’” She air-quoted. “At that point I think Francis got it in his head that if Vince was getting some, then he was going to as well but didn’t want to just come out and say that.”

“Right,” I said, and subconsciously cracked my knuckles. “So if you ladies want to stay down here, I’ll go start getting those guys on the move.”

“No! No,” Leia said, grabbing onto my arm. “It’s fine, Robbie. He was just shooting his shot and didn’t pick up on my softer cues. There’s no point in making a big deal out of it, you got me out of the conversation.”