Sadie (18+)

Chapter 26

A/N: thank you all for 100k reads <3

There are days where Vincent and I don't speak at all, but the sun rises and a new day forms, in the same way it has for the past three months I've spent at the Alessi household.

Julia and I go to school, and Vincent and Gina go to work. Routine. I stop home very briefly to chat with my mother, who is either enthusiastic or distant. Julia sees Justin for a bit, sometimes they grab a bite to eat. Routine. We have dinner together after our engagements; it is often home-made, but occasionally take-out. Routine. Julia and I go upstairs and do our homework afterwards. We watch Gordon Ramsey's cooking show, we paint our nails, we talk, we laugh, sometimes we cry. Routine. Everybody goes to bed, but the television in the living room snaps on at ten, sometimes eleven-at-night, muted with subtitles on. Routine.

There are minor, intricate changes of pattern, however, and today, I found myself standing alongside Vincent in the kitchen, Julia on my other side. Gina had to work overtime today; she works at a middle school in the administration department, and agreed to chaperone an event. She wouldn't be long, but she had asked Vincent to get a head start on the pizza.

"She's much better at this," Vincent was saying, "but instead of making a big pie like she usually does, I thought we could make our own."

Julia nodded. "That's fun. I'll be putting mushrooms all over mine."

Vincent's nose scrunched up. "That's precisely why I've decided we'd make our own, so that Mom and I don't have to pick them off our slices this time."

He pulled out the chilled pizza dough from the fridge, which Gina had prepared the night before. He carefully peeled away the plastic wrap, then used a dough cutter to divide it into four pieces.

Julia wasn't her typical, energetic self today. She didn't know what was going on between her and Justin, but the possibility of a break-up loomed over the fragile relationship. He had expressed a lack of confidence in where their relationship was headed, which had happened almost immediately after she told him about her acceptance into Oakwood.

Vincent had picked up on this, and was taking extra measures to try and cheer up his daughter.

"Alright," Vincent said, grabbing his quarter of the dough. "I'm going to show you two how to properly roll out the dough."

He molded the thick piece of dough in his hands until it was fully round, Julia and I copying his movements with our own pieces. "Now you're going to use the rolling pin, but don't just move it back and fourth. You'll want to roll it and turn it as you go, that way you'll get a nice edge."

He rolled his dough first, his movements swift and natural. He had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, which exposed his firm arms covered in thick hair, and the prominent veins that lined the skin.

He handed the rolling pin to Julia, who mimicked his performance almost perfectly. It wouldn't surprise me if she'd done this before. After all, her mother was an exceptional cook.

I'd personally never touched a rolling pin, as my mother wasn't exploratory in the kitchen. Her meals, while not bad by any means, were often basic—grilled chicken with a side of green beans, that sort of thing.

Julia handed the rolling pin over to me. I felt the weight of Vincent's gaze as I rolled it against the dough, then let out a sigh when the center ripped, leaving a small gap. "I'm no good at this."

"That's okay," Vincent replied casually. "We're learning, right?" He came up beside me, inspected the gap, then pinched the two sides together, closing it back up. He fixed the edges of my dough, too, so that they were rounded better.