The live gig had gone so well that he was wondering if he'd made the right choice in stepping away from his career as a musician to focus on the recording studio.The leather pants, which he'd bought as a joke to wear ironically, had felt good. On the tiny stage, even with the scent of fried cheese and hummus in the air, he'd lost himself in the magic of performing. The music flowed, the lyrics came from muscle memory without effort, and he'd been in that state of flow.Then he'd seen Nora. Sassy little scrapper Nora, who'd caught tadpoles in her bare hands in the pond behind the school, and laughed at him for being squeamish. He wouldn't even touch them, let alone walk around with a wriggling handful, pants rolled up and ankles deep in more of them, clotting the edges of the pond. They were such troubling things, those half-frogs, with their budding arms and legs, caught between two states.The other boys at school had teased her, called her names he couldn't remember. She was a gorgeous woman, and had been a cute kid.
