“You came,” Vino said, not looking up.

He dropped spaghetti into boiling water. “Nine minutes. Not eight. Not ten. Nine.”

While it cooked, he added a ladle of pasta water to the garlic-chili oil. It erupted into a furious sizzle— that was the sizzlelini sound. Violent. Alive. Then he turned off the heat.

“When the first clove turns honey-brown,” Vino said, “you add the chili.”

“Ah, the notebook.” Vino tapped his chest. “That was for the bank. And for your mother. She said, ‘Vino, write it down before you forget.’ So I wrote something down. But the real Sizzlelini…” He stood up, groaning. “Come. I’ll show you.”