Forbidden Fruit

The Witch

His plump lips carefully turned up into a genuine smile when our eyes locked. It caused an unexpected warmth rush through my veins and I didn't even hear Linde anymore as he pointed around the table to call out the names of everyone one-by-one. Everything around me faded, everything but him.

My blinders evaporated when the guy with an upturned pierced nose leaned over the table, and slapped his arm. "Valo!" His smile faded and his face pulled together in annoyance instead. He narrowed his eyes and cussed at the bassist in, what I'm guessing was Finnish. "Sorry about that Eva, my friend here can be a bit slow. I'm Mige in case you didn't catch it, and that's Ville." He pointed towards him with his thumb.

Ville adjusted his shirt, still looking at Mige and mumbled. "Fuck you, I'm not slow..."

"In the right company you are." Mige said as he sat back down, sniggering all the way at Ville's now beet-red face.

"Anyway..." Linde abruptly said in an attempt to divert the attention away from his friend's brightly red cheeks. "Ladies first."

I felt Julie's hand coax me by the small of my back into the empty seat next to Ville, while she took a seat across from me on the other side of the table next to their drummer, with Linde following suit behind her. I slid in, and froze when my knee bumped against his thigh. The booth was pretty secluded, so the already dim light was even dimmer and it had felt like I had been blindly moving along the leather cushion.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I reflexively blurted out. Usually I'd awkwardly twitch away, but for some reason I didn't. Instead I kept the hidden contact between us under the table. He seemed unfazed by it, and didn't more his leg away either.

"It's fine," he warmly whispered back right next to my ear, and that same warmth I had felt earlier came flooding back from where my knee rested against his thigh.

I ran my fingers through my hair to brush it away from my face as I turned to him. A breath caught in my throat. He was even more breathtaking up close and I consciously had to will myself to keep breathing. A little dimple formed on one side of his face, as the corner of his mouth turned up into a smirk. That was all it took, and I suddenly felt a blush searching for my cheeks as his soft gaze captured my eyes for the first time since I sat down. By God he was gorgeous.

We'd been sitting in a growing, slightly uncomfortable, silence despite the noise around us and I just said the first viable thing that popped into my head. "You have an incredible voice." Fuck, I mentally kicked myself. I blamed the alcohol in my system for my unfiltered confession. "Erh, I mean all of you guys sounded... awesome." I noticed a filled beer glass on the table in front of me and I took a couple of large gulps.

He responded with a quiet, "Thank you," and caught his bottom lip between his teeth when a dimple formed on his other rosy cheek. It was almost like he had to fight the urge to shyly look away again as he said it. I melted.

"So, how long have you guys been playing together?"

"We've been playing together for a really long time actually." He briefly looked around at a couple of the guys, with this almost reminiscent look in his eyes. "Since we were kids, around 14-ish, so, well over ten years," he held a short pause before he lowly spoke, "but, it's just a hobby, or for fun, or however you'd say it."

"I honestly thought you guys were professional." His gaze turned back to me, and that mushy feeling returned. "You could pass for it."

He shrugged and his eyes drifted off to the side. "We tried to once, but it didn't work out..."

"How come?" I immediately regretted that I'd asked. I now saw the sadness he had tried to conceal in his eyes when they met mine again. Shit. I had struck a nerve, and I fought to not visibly cringe at my lack of situational awareness.