“Homemade lasagna, best in New York. There’s plenty left, and it’s still warm. Marisa always gives me way too much. Want some?”

My dinner plan was to order something from the Thai restaurant down the street, which is what I usually do when Blair isn’t home to prepare a healthy dinner for the both of us. But homemade lasagna beats that a hundred to one.

“Sure there’s enough for two?” I ask.

“Yeah, even three or four.”

“All right, then.”

I grab a plate, a glass, and a fork from the cabinets and sit at the kitchen bar next to him.

Diego scoops me a generous helping of lasagna out of the aluminum tray. “Here’s the best lasagna you’ll ever have—unless you meet my mom. No one beats my mom’s.”

I take a bite and… “Mmm… this is delicious.” The lasagna is both creamy and rich, but not overwhelming. I could devour a whole tray of this.

“Told ya.” Diego smiles. “So, how was your day?”

“Stupid, yours?”

“A regular shift at the restaurant, nothing exciting,” he says, then smirks. “What happens on a stupid day?”

“Your boss poaches an unhappy client from another agency, and delivers the pitch but only brings the creative team with him…”

Diego finishes up his plate and rounds the bar to rinse his dish and drop it in the dishwasher. Gosh, he really is tidy. I would’ve dropped the dirty dish in the sink and maybe splashed water on it. I tend to postpone house chores until they become overwhelmingly necessary.

“So.” Diego leans against the counter as I scarf down the last bites of lasagna. “Did the creatives drop the ball?”

“Oh, no, they wowed the client.”

“And that’s bad because?”

“Every creative pitch has to be vetted by a producer because we’re the reality check. We understand what can be done in how much time, and at what budget… You leave the creatives free, and they’ll go overboard.”

“And they did this time?”

“For sure. The ad they pitched is brilliant and witty, but it’s a production nightmare.” I finish the lasagna and lick the fork before dropping it on the empty plate. “Too many actors, too many locations, and too little time. Not to talk about the budget; we’ll be lucky if we break even on this one.”

Promptly, Diego scoops up the plate, rinses it, and drops it into the dishwasher. “Where do you keep the dish soap?”

“There’re pods under the sink.”

He loads one, studies the dishwasher’s buttons for a few seconds, pushes a couple, and the machine awakens.

“Your boss must really trust you if he put you on this assignment,” Diego says, coming back to my side of the counter.

I stand up and move to the couch, where I kick off my shoes. “You have a future in management, you know?”