The Kept Secret (Slowly Editing)

Chapter 15: Always there to help

"Man that guy's an asshole, why does Greg keep him around." I heard one of the younger cooks ask. I turn and looked over at him as he shrugged his shoulders, "Sorry, but it's true." Not wanting to cause more of a scene in front of my kitchen staff, I just shook my head and walked over to help with the finished dishes.

About an hour later we're in the heat of our dinner rush with cooks pretty much running over one another trying to get dishes out in time, so we didn't have to deal with Marcus coming in asking what's taking so long, when the kitchen doors open. Turning around about to get ready to scream at Marcus to leave, but saw Chance starting walking over to one of the smaller workstations to a girl who seemed to be struggling at keeping up with everything going on.

I stood there dumbfounded, thinking what he was doing here. Taking in his appearance, though I could tell he came to help, wearing the blue chef's jacket my father would wear when working in the kitchen with the cook's hat lying flat to the side of his head just a little. He didn't seem to notice how the kitchen had gone steal with his arrival, but turns and gave me a small smile before turn back to the worker at the station he was working at before the kitchen went back into full swing.

Somewhere in the middle of the night when the dinner rush finally slowed down, he walked over to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, "Don't worry Ayanna went to Aunt Maria's and was almost asleep when I drop her off."

"Well, there one question I was wondering about, but the other is what in god's name on you doing here?" I asked handing off a dish to one of the waitresses. "Plus, I told you to take care of Ayanna, not take her to Aunt Maria's."

Chance took a dish from one of the cooks before handing it off to me smiling, "I have you know Aunt Maria called the house asking for me to bring Ayanna over, saying something about not trusting that sack of shit. Give her telling me to come here and watch over him, but when I walked in and saw how busy you where I went and got the chef suit your father gave me and thought I try to help, which I think I did quite well in."

"Yes Chance you did great at keeping the chop vegetables stocked." I laughed, leaning up and kissing him on the cheek. "But you know I could get in trouble having you back here since you don't work here."

"Yeah, I didn't think about that." He said looking around has people started closing up some of the stations that weren't needed anymore. "Maybe I'll go wait up front and wait."

"Chance just goes home, I'll be there in about an hour." I told him to take in how tired my kitchen staff had become. "As you can see your help is no longer needed."

"No, I'm not leaving here knowing that Marcus guy is walking about and could cause some kind of trouble. I'll wait up front." He said walking out of the kitchen.

"I like him, he seemed like he really cares about you." The girl who was working at the same station with Chance. "He helps me out a great deal."

"Yeah, I'm glad you were able to get some help, but you need to learn to speed up when we get busier." I said, walking away not really wanting to talk to my staff about my personal life. Given thought I was thankful that Chance did show up to help and make sure Marcus didn't cause any more problem for me tonight, but I still could stop thinking way Aunt Maria would send him and not show up herself.

In the past three months she hadn't shown any sign on liking Chance and would always be calling him names behind his back. She didn't know the truth behind mine and Chance's relationship thinking that he had left me when I found myself pregnant. Maybe it was time to sit down with her and explain what really happen so she doesn't always hold a grudge over him about that, but then again with her calling him, maybe she was finally warm up to the idea that he was here to stay.