Life Is What You Bake It // A Harry Styles AU

Chapter 4 - Term 3, Week 3

Monday

"Oh my God..." Adele whimpers as she pulls the tray out of the oven with her pizza on it. "It's a disaster."

Bella sniggers, hand covering her mouth to hide her oncoming laughter. "It's not that bad..."

"It's a mess!" Adele retorts, slapping her oven cloth on the table with a huff.

"In my defence, I did say that a star-shaped base was pretty ambitious of you." Bella raises her hands limply before turning her gaze back to the pizza.

What had initially meant to be a star has now come out of the oven appearing more like a speech bubble, or a cloud, perhaps. It's cooked to perfection otherwise, but the shape of it is pretty unappealing. Adele knows she was probably getting ahead of herself with specially shaped pizza bases, but she wanted to try something different.

"You are not helping." She grumbles, gritting her teeth as she glares at her failure. "I just need to make the dough less wet next time-,"

"Adele," Bella frowns, shaking her head disapprovingly.

"Girls," Steve appears between them, glancing at the mess on the table. "What's that supposed to be, exactly?"

"Adele wanted to test her abilities." Bella mumbles, scratching the side of her face.

"At what? It looks like something my dog would eat."

"Ouch." Adele pouts.

"Well, depending on which way you read it, it could easily be a compliment." Steve returns flatly. "What were you attempting?"

"I wanted to make a star-shaped pizza base."

He nods slowly, bringing his arms across his chest. "I see... Can I give y'a bit of advice?"

She nods.

"Don't bother with fancy twists on dishes like that. You're making it harder for yourself. You've got your theme, so keep it simple, you don't need any more frills or whatever. Your idea is good. Don't ruin it."

Steve wanders off to the front of the room then without another word. Adele looks to Bella bewilderedly.

"Was he just nice?"

Bella hums sceptically. "Yeah. S'weird, I don't like it."

"Me neither." Adele agrees, narrowing her eyes.

"Maybe he just got a Monday morning shag."

Adele rolls her eyes, and pulls the pizza off the tray onto a cutting board to slice it up. "Want half of this or nah?"

"No offence mate, but you couldn't pay me to eat that."

She scoffs. "Rude."

"Nah, I just don't like pizza."

"WHAT?!"

Bella laughs, locating a pizza box from the shelves behind. "I know, I'm a freak or whatever."

"You really are."

After the pizza is boxed up and she's written her name on it in big black letters, Adele leaves it on the workstation at the front of the room to be collected once she's changed. They clean down their surfaces, and then wait for Steve to excuse them for lunch.

In the changing room, Adele checks her phone for any messages, finding one from Harry:

Harry 12:14

How do you fancy going back to our old Monday ritual ;) xxx

She narrows her eyes at her screen, keeping her gaze away and into her locker as a blush creeps onto her cheeks.