I wasn’t even aware of her shoes making a noise against the hard floors. Maybe I was starting to hallucinate. How long had I been at the studio? If my brain was already starting to fry this early into the recording process, we were in trouble. Aurora paused in the center of the gallery and turned to face me again. For reasons I can’t explain, I suddenly felt vulnerable standing there with her in the shadows of the gallery as a single light from an unseen source glowed from above. My heartbeat quickened under her unfaltering gaze and I cleared my throat. She turned and walked over to the wall where she flipped a light switch, illuminating the showroom. “I … I hope I’m not interrupting something,” I said. Aurora opened her mouth to speak but the voice I heard came from behind and belonged to a man. “Aurora, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” I spun around to find a man peering over the edge of a partial wall at the top of the stairway. He was resting on his elbows and studying me through a pair of black rimmed glasses.
