Morning came rather quickly and outside Katalina could hear the birds meerily chirping away in the trees.
Sliding out of her bed, she walked over to the window and drew back the curtains allowing the morning rays
of sunlight to shine through the room.
She than made her way to the kitchen to grab herself a coffee, only to find the kitchen completely empty.
Both her father and Kova had long left, but not before jotting down a small note reminding her about tonight.
When she had finished her coffee, she placed the empty mug in the sink, than made her way into town.
In town there was a street market taking place with all sorts of stalls on both sides of the street and ton's of people
everywhere.
In the distance she could make out the sound of someone playing a banjo.
Following the sound, it lead her to the
duck pond, where she could clearly see a stage.
All around it people swarmed to watch an older gentleman strumming away on his banjo.
" Pretty good isn't he?" she heard someone behind her say.
" He sure is," she said turning around to find Drayce standing there smiling at her.
"Oh, um ....hi."
Drayce just looked at her and flashed her one of his pearly white smiles and says hi back.
His smile was enough to make her heart melt, and those gunmetal blue eyes, she could get lost in for hours.
"Damn he's sooo handsome! " she thought to herself.
Talk about awkward...she didn't know what to think, let alone what to say.
So she turned back to face the bloke who was playing the banjo.
Drayce takes that moment to break the silence between them and ask's if she cared to join him for a coffee.
Katalina looks at him and tells him that would be lovely, but she's sorry she has to decline because she had to catch up with a friend of hers.
Drayce looks at her,than says," Oh come on, it's just a coffee. I promise you I won't bite - well not that hard anyway."
Katalina was taken by surprise by his comment, but ended up accepting his offer.
They spoke for over an hour and she thanked him for the coffee and told him she really needed to get going.
But before she left, Drayce asked if she'd care to join him for lunch tomorrow at Bethanys.
She said sure, than soon headed off to catch up with Dayana.
Katalina than darted out of the coffee shop and suddenly everything hit her like a lighting bolt.
She just realized she had agreed to meet Drayce tommrow for lunch.
"Holly crap - I've got a date.... I actually have a date with the mystery man DRAYCE!
She couldn't believe it.
"Pull yourself together Katalina - it's just a date. Act normal and don't give nothing away.
Remember, you are on your way to see Dayana and you don't want her to notice something is odd about you."
So pulling herself together, Katalina walked down the road and bumped into Dayana out the front of the candy shop.
"Hey there, I've been looking everywhere for you."
She looks at Katalina and says," Well I guess you found me...... what's up?"
Katalina than tells her about her father's dinner plans for tonight and mentions the twins are going to be there and that her father asked if she'd like to join them.
Dayana nodded her head and said she would be there.
"Excellent! I'll let my father know, and I guess I will see you tonight at 6pm."
Once back at home, Katalina decided to grab herself a book, a cold drink and headed outside.
She than made herself comfortable on the bench seat and started reading.
A few pages in and Katalina driffs off automatically and starts dreaming about her up coming date with Drayce.
Suddenly Maximous came running outside, jumps up on her and starts licking her face.
"Stop that, get down you great big lug. Can't you see I was sleeping? "
Maximous just barks at her wanting her attention.
Kova stands there looking at her as he asked," Having fun are we?"
"Oh yeah, I'm having a fucken ball!"
"I did try to stop him, but he just took off once I opened the door."
Katalina glared at her brother as she said," Oh I bet you did."
Getting up of the bench, Katalina headed inside to go get herself ready before dinner.
After she finished having a shower, she quickly got changed into a floral dress, tied her hair back, that went to set the table up.
She placed the good china down, wine glasses and some freshly picked flowers from the garden as the centre piece.
Feeling happy with her choices, she than went back out to the lounge-room and watched a bit of telly before the guest started to arrive.
In the meantime her father was busy in the kitchen working up a storm, when the doorbell rang.
"I've got it," Kova yelled out as he went to open the front door.
Opening it, he finds Dayana standing there.
"Hey there stranger. Come in, make yourself at home," Kova told her as he shut the front door behind her
and went to join them in the lounge-room.
Dead on 6pm Ksenia and Keane showed up and they all sat down to have dinner.
Their father had cooked basted mushrooms and garlic cod with some greens on the side, followed by a banana poke cake.
The food was absolutely amazing and not long after they had finished eatting, they moved into the lounge-room and sat down to have an after dinner drink, and a bit of a yarn.
Both the twins digusted what they had been up to lately and talked about the changes that they've made around there places lately.
They spoke for hour's about all kinds of different things, when Keane looked at the time and said, " Gee's I didn't realize it was that late. I really should be going. "
That's when her father spoke up and said, " Look, why don't you all stay the night. We have plenty of room and it would be nice to have all my children under the one roof. Even if it is for only one night, and Dayana your more than welcomed too stay. "
Once they had all agreed on staying the night, everyone than headed off to bed.
Dayana bunked in with Katalina.
" Well doesn't this take you back to when we were kids? Remember the fort houses we would make out of your bed covers, than we'd head downstairs to steal food from the pantry? "
Katalina smiles and says she remembers it well, that she remembers trying to blame the twins for stealing the food.
Ten minutes later both girl's called it a night and soon crashed out.
In the morning their father had whipped up some pancakes, made a fresh pot of coffee, poured some orange-juice
and just sat down as Kova, Ksenia, keane, Katalina and Dayana walked into the kitchen and took a seat.
" Morning everyone, I made some pancakes for you all. Please take a seat and enjoy. "
Sitting down everyone dug in and an hour later when breakfast was over and done with Ksenia, keane and Dayana thanked everyone for a great night and made there way home to attend to a few things.
Kova and his father left to go to work and Katalina stayed home to tidy up around the house.
Katalina was trying to find things to do to fill the time before she had to go meet Drayce for lunch.
Did she feel nervous - heck yeah!
By 11:30am Katalina made her way to Bethanys to meet Drayce for lunch.
It was a beautiful little cafe done up in a peach and cream paint on the walls.
There were all sorts of different oil paintings hung on the walls of olden day cabins.
Pot plants in beautiful golden pots were scattered throughout the cafe and outside the front were garden beds full of snap dragons, poppies and ferns in all varieties of colour you could possibly imagine.
The place was so inviting, so peaceful and the people were friendly.
Drayce was already inside waiting, and when he spotted Katalina he raised his hand up in the air to signal her over to join him.
"It's nice of you to join me, please take a seat. And might I add now that you look really pretty today."
Katalina blushed at that comment.
A young male waiter walked up to their table and asked what they would like to order and Drayce asked for two counter meals of fish and chips, plus 1 beer and 1 glass of wine.
The young male waiter wrote down their order and told them it would be ready in roughly 20 minutes, as he walked away to get their drinks.
Returning he placed their drinks down in front of them and told them if they needed anything else, just yell out.
Raising his beer he said," To us, may this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "
Katalina smiled at him, as she clicked her glass against his beer bottle.
They were deep in conversation when the waiter from before brought there food out to them and told them to enjoy while he also placed two more drinks down in front of them.
Not long after they had finished eatting there meal, Drayce spoke about his new job and about living in town.
They spoke about all kinds of topics trying to learn more about each other.
There likes, there dislikes etc, etc.
The conversation was interesting and as the time went by they had learned alot about each other.
By 2pm Katalina thanked Drayce for inviting her to lunch and told him she had fun.
Drayce also thanked her and said they should catch up again soon..... Maybe next time go for dinner or something.
Katalina told him she would love that.