Serendipity

Chapter 4

"Hi Gabe." Caterina smiled, helping herself to an empty chair.

"Hey!" Gabe exclaimed. "I was hoping I would run into you again."

"Sorry about not saying hi earlier," Caterina sighed. "My friends have made this a strictly no-guys trip."

"Funny, my friends made this a girls-everywhere trip."

They both laughed.

"You know, boys aren't so bad." Gabe teased. "Thought about telling your friends that?"

"I don't know. I don't blame them though. Why get emotionally attached to someone who you'll never see again?" Caterina mused.

Gabe shrugged at the question. "Perhaps that's for the best. They can hurt you and you'll never see them again." He mumbled.

"What?" Caterina questioned.

"Nothing." Gabe answered, shaking his head.

"Maybe you and your friends can magically run into me and my friends tonight and we can all hang out or something." Caterina suggested.

"I like your plan." Gabe smiled as he reached out to hi five Caterina.

"I remember seeing on the timesheet that there is a night time pool party. Maybe we can all just magically find each other." Caterina shrugged.

"Great. We can meet by the pool. I'll get the guys down by 9."

"Sounds good. I'll see you later." Caterina smiled, departing from the ice cream shop.

Caterina went back to the room and laid on her bed, deciding to take a nap.

After what felt like 5 minutes, the other two girls burst into the room.

"Hey, Cat, feeling better?" Rosalie asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just took some time to rest." Caterina replied with a yawn.

"Well, do you think you feel better enough to go to the night time pool party?" Ashlyn inquired.

Caterina perked up at the question. "Yeah, I'll be fine." She sighed in relief. She was glad she didn't have to try and convince them to go.

"Awesome. We actually came to go get you to eat dinner." Informed Ashlyn.

"That sounds great. Let's go." Caterina responded.

The girls took the elevator down to the buffet deck and entered the line, each grabbing a plate.

"Oh man, the dessert table has chocolate covered strawberries today." Rosalie groaned.

"Rose, dinner first. Then dessert." Ashlyn stated firmly.

"Okay, mom." Rosalie whined sarcastically as they continued down the line of various food displays.

Once the girls piled up on their plates, they sat down.

"When this vacation is over, I'm going to be so sad. I'll miss all the food." Caterina sighed.

"It's so weird how fast time is going. It's already almost the end of our first night on the ship." Ashlyn muttered.

"I can't wait until we get to the Bahamas." Rosalie squealed. "Its going to be amazing!"

"Hey, there's that hot guy I saw earlier." Ashlyn grinned, gesturing to the buffet line he was navigating through.

Caterina looked up to see Gabe conversing with the other boy, and quickly concluded that these two were friends.

The boys came and sat down at the table located next to the girls, and Gabe quickly exchanged a smirk with Caterina.

Caterina was satisfied that this coincidence only seemed to improve their plan to spend time together.