Chapter 11

"Hello, sunshine!"

The exclamation made Kate suddenly open her eyes, just to stare her newfound partner in the eyes. Victoria laughed out loud at Kate's surprised expression, and after giving her a little kiss on the cheek, she pulled away and stood up to start stretching.

At first Kate didn't believe what just happened, but after her confusion went away and she got her bearings, she recalled the events of yesterday, and a wide smile lightened up her expression. She let out a sigh, relaxed again after the first confusion, and, as she still didn't remember everything that happened, she decided to look around in hope to recall more.

She found herself, again, on the floor of Victoria's room, so she concluded that they must have watched a movie again, but all that Kate could recall was pulling Victoria closer in in a hug and falling asleep next to her. Then she remembered one more important part of their plans for today. "She's taking me on a date… Victoria Chase is taking me out on a date…" Kate thought to herself happily. She looked at Victoria, who was still doing some rather simple exercises for her morning stretching routine, and she started thinking about her thoughts from the morning three days ago. "I was afraid to even talk to her… I was even afraid to think about what I felt for her…" Kate thought, with the fact of how quickly their relationship progressed making her think that all that recently happened was just parts of an elaborate dream.

After a while of laying down and watching Victoria in a dreamful state, Kate decided to finally pull herself together and get herself up and ready for the important day that was about to come.

"I'll be going for now, Vic" she said, her tone naturally relaxed and friendly, which made Victoria happy. It was a really enjoyable change, to hear that there was no more acting needed between them. She stopped stretching and decided to try to make Kate laugh.

"Oh no, you're leaving so quickly? That was only about… twenty-one hours! You can stay a bit longer!" she said with a smirk, and she got a satisfying burst of laughter in return.

"We have a big day ahead of us, Vicky" Kate answered with a smile. "I gotta get ready" she added.

"Actually, as I woke up first, I've had time to make up the perfect plan for today!" Victoria exclaimed energetically, eager to see the other girl's reaction to her idea. "We're going to a restaurant for lunch, then we're going for a movie, which finishes just in time to catch the last rays of sun on the beach" she said, and then looked at Kate, curious to see her reaction. "Whatcha think?"

Kate's chest instantly felt warm at the very idea of finishing off their first date with watching a sunset on the beach together. "It sounds perfect Vicky!" she shouted out, and run up to Victoria to give her a hug, which caught the other girl a bit off-guard.

"Woah. That was… nice. Unexpected, but nice" Victoria said, and laughed at her own lack of words.

"I… I just still can't believe this. I feel like I'm in a dream…" Kate said thoughtfully, but then, wanting to bring back the careless joyful feeling the conversation had before, she added: "… So I want to profit as much as I can right now, in case you change your mind!", which made Victoria laugh, and hug Kate in return.

"I feel exactly the same way Katie… So I will profit a bit too!" Victoria exclaimed quickly, and before she would get too scared to do it, she pulled Kate in a kiss. This did surprise Kate a bit, but now, it was only the purely happy form of surprise, so she immediately returned the kiss.

This time, it was Victoria who ended it.

"We were supposed to get up and running, weren't we?" she said with a smile. "I gotta do this more often, now that I know she doesn't mind", she kept on saying to herself in her head.

Kate replied with the best confident tone she could pull off, wanting to make Victoria laugh in return for the beginning of their conversation.

"You know… Now that kissing is an option… Staying in your room all day doesn't seem like that bad of an idea, you know?" she said, which resulted in immediate laughter from her partner, and earned her one more quick kiss, but then Victoria pushed her away, with the words "Come on. It took me some time to set up our date. Don't disappoint me now!" she said. After a second, when Kate was already heading for the door, she added "I'm quite sure that you have a perfect outfit for this occasion…", which resulted in a nod from Kate, which confirmed to her that they both knew what she was thinking about. "Well, I must admit, if any occasion deserves clothing with that price, it is our first date" Kate thought to herself as she left Victoria's room.

The moment Kate left, Victoria grabbed her phone and sat down on her bed. Her phone received a bunch of messages this morning, but as she was scared that Kate would wake up and see Victoria's attention devoted to something else than her cute face, Victoria decided to wait a bit with reading them.

Her phone has shown her a long list of messages sent in regular ten minute intervals, all from Rachel. At first she was curious what could have been so urgent for Rachel to send so many messages, but opening her inbox revealed to Victoria that it was the same message sent over and over again, with a variating amount of exclamation marks, and with the comment "(now Chloe is waiting for the answer too)" added after one of the messages.

"Did you tell Kate? Or did you chicken out? How did she react? And how long did she keep blushing? Are you going on a date today? Report ASAP!", most of the messages said, which caused a mixed reaction in Victoria. While it was nice to have someone to support you in a situation like this one, and she was happy that the choice to trust Rachel payed off, she also thought that to this moment, this moment was personal, and Rachel sounded as if she wanted to take that secrecy away from her and Kate. But after a second thought, Victoria realized that she actually preferred to slowly make her relationship with Kate known in order for it to continue without obstacles. With that thought, she got around answering Rachel.

Meanwhile, Kate was going through her everyday morning routine, with a small line to thank God for giving her a chance with Victoria added to her normal prayer. At first she felt weird about mixing those two parts of her life, but then she realized that if she wanted Victoria to stay as a part of her life, she couldn't exclude her from other parts of her life, because she would never give up on neither Victoria nor her religion.

After an especially careful shower, and using her "for-special-occasions" perfume (that she was usually too scared to use), she put on the white jeans and the blue top that Victoria bought her two days ago. The outfit did in fact, confirming Victoria's statements while still in the shop, fit quite nicely with Kate's golden necklace.

Kate did also think a bit about trying to put on some makeup (that she usually stayed as far away from as possible), but after a while she decided that if Victoria did, in fact, like her, it was for how she always looked, not for how she could look with a bunch of misused beauty products smeared on her face. After that, she gave herself a last look in the mirror, she asked Alice to wish her luck, and she left her room, just to run into Max in the hallway.

"Hey there!" she exclaimed at her sight. Max seemed to have been bothered, but once she noticed Kate, her expression instantly lit up.

"Hi Kate! What's up?" she asked with a bit of a sad smile, but instead of an answer, Kate just gave her a quick hug.

"Thank you so much!" Kate exclaimed. At the sight of Max's confused expression, she decided to explain. "I don't know how you did that, and I don't care, but I'm going on a date with Victoria today" she said. "I already thanked God, so you're the only one left to thank."

Max's smile now settled a bit better, and she actually seemed happy now, while she still definitely had something on her mind. "It's all you, Katie, this once, it's all you", she said. "I might get Chloe to start going to Blackwell again, and know what song you will play to join you, but even I can't change anyone's feelings." After a second, she added: "I guess that your date explains the fancy outfit?" she said with a smirk. She wanted to check Kate's current confidence, but to her surprise, Kate didn't even blush.

"Yup!" Kate exclaimed, energetically. "Vic… I bought it two days ago, just in case of this occasion" she added with a smile.

Max decided not to ask about the perfume, and instead she simply said: "Well… Have fun then! Good I guess?" Kate thanked them, and both of them laughed out, but then Max's bother seemed to come back to her mind, for her face momentarily turned serious again. "Well, I have to go for now, see you later" she said, and then quickly headed straight out of the dorm.

Kate decided that she didn't want to darken down her perfect day with bothers like this one, so instead, she walked out of the dorm, and yet again sat down on one of the benches. As she didn't have her sketchbook with her, she simply relaxed and observed nature, but at one point, a vibration from her phone woke her up from her dreamful state. She quickly pulled said phone out, and as the message was from Victoria, she opened it, only to be surprised by the words: "Look a bit up, and to the left". As she decided to never question Victoria, she put her phone back in her pocket, and followed the instructions, just to notice the quick flash of Victoria's camera in the corner of her eye. She then instantly looked at where the light originated, just to see the nice sight of Victoria's smile from one of the windows. It made her smile and wave at Victoria at first, but once the window closed and Kate thought about what happened, she realized that her and Victoria's rooms were on the other side of the building. "Victoria working with Max: confirmed", Kate thought to herself grumpily. She was a bit irritated that Max did help Victoria, but neither of them would confirm it to her. At first, Kate wanted to ask Victoria about that, but as she could never stay angry at Victoria for too long, by the time Victoria came out of the girls' dorm, all of her irritation faded away.

"What took you so long? I already started to miss you!", Kate exclaimed as Victoria approached her, and the two then engaged in a conversation, and, while tightly holding hands, departed in the search for breakfast. As their lunch and evening was supposed to be paid for entirely by Victoria, Kate convinced her to go to a cheaper café for breakfast, in order for Kate to also be able to contribute to their special day.