"God, she is gorgeous," I thought to myself as I stared at Laura from across the table at this small French restaurant a few blocks from her place. Lit by a single candle, the dinner had been fantastic, and quite expensive, but it was our six month anniversary and she had been hinting at this place for a while.
"So, is my favourite nice guy ready for desert?" she asked, idly twirling a lock of her long, wavy brown hair around her index finger and staring at me with her crystal blue eyes. She had had a few glasses of red wine and he body language was definitely promising something that made me want to skip desert.
She was wearing a low cut, deep blue cocktail dress that highlighted her ample and perfectly formed breasts and hung on tightly around that swimmer body she knew drove me to distraction.
"I, uh, ... do you really mean desert, or are..."
Suddenly the phone she had left on the table lit up with the green bubble of a text message. She always needed to keep it nearby in case her mother needed her urgently, so getting interrupted was pretty common, and always at the most inconvenient times.
"Ah well," she said, "I need to step out for a moment anyways, two birds with one stone." She picked up her phone, pushed back her chair and stood up. She swayed a little as the wine hit her and she glanced at me with a smile.
"Hey, so I'm tipsy," she snickered, "and nice guys don't make fun of their girlfriends anyways."
She managed to keep it together and get most of the way to the women's room before having to grab some guy's chair for balance, but got the rest of the way without event.
I was left alone at the table. I pushed around the remainder of the food on my plate, not really hungry anymore. Not hungry for food, at any rate. Wow, Laura looked like a calendar model tonight, or maybe, I thought wickedly, the 'before' look of a classy porno.
Laura and I had met at a dog park that was a block away from each of our apartments. She always said she could tell I was a nice guy from how I handled my puppy, Watson. In fact, 'Nice Guy' was her nickname for me, which I really wasn't a fan of, but it seemed to make her happy.
Given that she was 28 and I was 32, she had mentioned a couple times about how "Nice Guys can turn into Mr. Rights, one day," so things were going pretty well between us. We were seeing each other at least every second day, sex perhaps once a week, so I'd started putting away for a diamond ring, just in case. Luckily, we'd started dating on the 1st of May, so it was easy to remember anniversaries, and today was November 1st which was a pretty long relationship for me. Girls had a tendency to drift away from relationships I was in, saying things like "it's not you, it's me," or "you're just so nice, you'll meet a better girl."
Just then, the women's room opened and Laura came out, looking a little unsteady. She made her way over to our table and said "I'm so sorry, I'm feeling horrid, can you walk me back to my place?"
"Of course," I said, showing concern and trying to hide my disappointment that there was now a very slim chance I'd finish up the night peeling her out of that dress.
I left a modest stack of bills on the table, nodded to the hostess, looped my arm around Laura's shoulders and we started the short walk back to her place.
"God, I'm so sorry," she said, "that wine has hit me harder than I thought it would. I think I need to call it a night."
"It's alright," I said, some disappointment evident in my voice.
"Oh, you're such a nice guy," she said, "I promise I'll make it up to you." She tried to look and give me a wink but lost her balance, tripped and I caught her just before she went face-first into the sidewalk.
"Oh shit!" she exclaimed, then looked down and said "oh fuck, my heel."
Her right shoe had its high heel hanging on by a thread.
"I got you," I said, and reached down, sliding one arm behind her (rather amazing) ass and lifted her up in both arms, like a groom carrying a bride across a threshold.
"Wow," she murmured, "aren't you romantic?"
I carried her the last block and deposited her back on her feet at the door to her apartment building.
"You're so good to me," she said.
"Well, you're worth every step," I panted. Hey, you try carrying someone a full block and tell me you wouldn't be winded.
She, barefoot and much shorter than before, went up on her toes and kissed me lightly on the lips.
"Goodnight, nice guy. See you tomorrow for brunch maybe?" she asked.
"Uh, sure. Are you positive you don't need help getting upstairs?" I ventured, trying one last time to salvage tonight.
"Nah, I'm ok. See you tomorrow," and with that, she turned and went inside.
I was, again, left to my own devices, standing outside my girlfriend's apartment building, with half a hard-on and perhaps $200 less in my pocket.
"Fuck it," I thought, "if I've got the night off, maybe Josh is around and wants to head out for some drinks."
I walked the few blocks to my building and buzzed Josh's place. He lived in the apartment below mine.
"Hello?" came Josh's voice from the speaker.
"Hey man, get down here, we're going for beers," I said.
"I *know* this can't be Rob, because he's supposed to be on a hot date with his girlfriend right now."
"Fuck off, just get down here," I said in my best Sean Connery voice.
A few minutes later, Josh and I were sitting at the local pub, putting down pints.
"So, she gets a text, disappears to the bathroom, comes back and is all woozy?" Josh asked, the skepticism evident in his voice.
"Yeah," I said. "She's always got her phone out in case her mom needs her."
"Did you see who texted her or what it said?" asked Josh.
"No, actually," I said thoughtfully. "She's normally pretty quick to snap up her phone, and she's always got it on her. I guess she's just a private person."
"Well, at least she's less of a crazy than the girls that you wind up with from the club," Josh said. "Those relationships never last long or go well."
"It's a hazard of being a DJ," I said, "attracts the attention starved, self-centred girls."
"Yeah, and then when they see what a nice guy you are..." Josh trailed off, then quickly picked up his pint and took a long swig.
"What?" I asked. "What's wrong with being a nice guy?"
"Well," Josh said reluctantly, "I think you get taken advantage of, and then when the girl thinks she has it too easy she gets bored and drifts away. I've seen it a couple times now and I can tell when it starts happening. We'll all be out at brunch or something and I just get this... I don't know, call it an impression that the girl just gets bored with Nice Guy Rob."
