Chapter 99

I’d been vaguely aware of the gas gauge lowering on the houseboats as we drove around. The engines obviously took up the most gas usage, but the generators that gave us electricity even when we weren’t driving around used the same fuel tanks and after a few days of use they were starting to run dry.

We had a couple of options for refuelling. One of them was to spend half the day boating back to the Rental place and paying for gas there. The other was to go to one of the few boat-up gas bars on the lake, and one was about a half hour from us so that’s where we headed.

Once breakfast was mostly cleaned up, JC helped me disengage the houseboats from each other and I took command of the pilot’s cabin. Cassidy and Wanda joined me shortly after, though other than a quick hug and a peck on the lips we didn’t get up to any hanky panky or deeper conversations. I had boating to do, and we’d quickly developed an easy friendship with Wanda outside of the sexual situation.

They did, however, both giggle to themselves when I radioed with Becca that we were ready to go and I noticed that she’d changed since breakfast. She was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt with a ripped collar that went halfway down her abdomen and a white bikini top underneath - along with a baseball cap backwards on her head.

“Really?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Cassidy nodded with a grin. “You think we organize something with your girls and don’t include Becca?”

The journey was through another beautiful day on the lake and soon all of the girls and JC were up on the top deck to enjoy the weather. It turned out that Zenya and Leia had hung out with Heels on our boat, and apparently Heather and Cattie were over on the single’s boat for the trip. Both of our guests came in to say hello, and I got hugs from both of them

The girls chatted away about work stuff - telling stories about the weird shit people messaged them, or the good and bad Cons they had been to, or tips for making different cosplay costumes. Leia and Zenya were bigger into the crafting side than Cassidy was, and Wanda pretty much just used commissioned costumes from other models since she said had two left hands and no thumbs when it came to crafty stuff.

Right around the time I’d been expecting, Becca pulled us towards the shore and a stretch of buildings with a pair of docks. As we got closer I saw they were built right onto the edge of a small rock shelf with a pair of wooden docks running out into the water and splitting into T-shapes so small boats could moor up in the little port area they made while bigger boats like ours could moor up at the ends. Six old-school gas pumps that looked like they’d been refurbished from the fifties were set up on the docks, and the land-side of the docks had a half dozen wooden steps up to a covered porch area where a diner, general store and the gas place shared space.