Treading The Waters [on hold]

Chapter Fifteen

It's another night at work, but this time we're fully staffed. Here lately, I've been cooking in the back more. I'm still the owner and I make sure all those responsibilities are complete, but I've missed getting my hands dirty. Cooking has been something I've loved for as long as I can remember.

My dad taught me how to cook when I was 5 by teaching me to make pancakes. Then when I was 9, he let me have more freedom in the kitchen and my first solo meal was homemade spaghetti, which everyone ate and loved. By the time I was 13, I was cooking full meals on my own and helping him in the restaurant—completely operating the grill and making orders on my own. He was always there of course, but I didn't need to be babysat anymore.

A bonus to me taking over some nights is that Billy gets more evenings off to be with his kids and his husband. Plus, being able to cook again—in this restaurant of all places—makes me feel closer to my dad. It's something that I don't get often but am able to here. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm not allowed to be happy at the memories of my parents. Lyla has had a tough time with it—even now—and although it may not be the full problem, I know that it plays a part in her current defiance. But here... Here I can fully reminisce about what it felt like to be with him again. To cook and create. I smile at the memories of us here.

"Jensen, I've got a weird order that just came in," Susie says.

"What is it?"

"Well, um, it's a grilled chicken wrap with lettuce, tomato, cheese and ranch. But she wants it deep fried—gross—and topped with pickles."

I laugh at the specific order, immediately realizing that it's Baya's. She's always liked her wraps deep fried ever since she accidentally ate one. Well, it wasn't totally an accident.

When we were 15, she slipped on oil in the kitchen and the order she was carrying out flew backwards and dropped into one of the fryers. Obviously, we couldn't serve it like that, so we fixed another order, and she ate the defective wrap because 'good food shouldn't go to waste.' Ever since that day, it's how she's ordered it. It definitely got her some looks when we were out back then but to us, it was always a running joke of the time she 'broke her ass.'

"I got it, Susie. Thank you."

Once I've fixed the order how she likes it and made the sides, I personally take it up to the front and place it with the other waiting to-go orders. Looking up, I see Nikki sitting at the counter waiting. She didn't say she was coming by tonight.

"Nikki. I didn't know you were stopping by."

"I went to your house but forgot that you said you were working in the kitchen tonight." She's not amused by that. She's made it clear a few times that I should let the people I pay to work actually work but I don't have anything else to do and Billy deserves it. He's been working here for 20 years.