Page 5 of The Sinner: James

She cuts her eyes at me.

“It’s easy for you to talk. You’re not even bothered by it.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel good?”

She shrugs.

“I don’t know. You don’t seem interested in men, anyway.”

“Right.”

“Okay. Maybe you are, but Daria gets all the dicks in that family of yours.”

I chuckle, amused.

“Stop saying that. She’s my sister.”

“It’s the truth,” she grins.

“She’s older. Of course, she gets them,” I say, defending my evil sister.

“That’s the problem with older sisters. They get all the dicks,” she murmurs.

“She can have them. I’m not looking for dick.”

My voice trails off, my eyes moving to the road.

Decades-old trees line the path, their branches creating a canopy of leaves above the ground.

“What are you looking for then?” she asks softly.

I muse for a second, my eyes still trained in the distance.

“I don’t know. Something different, I guess… Something I could never forget,” I murmur, longing for things unknown to me as my mind drifts away.

A few seconds pass before I swivel my head to her and notice the melancholy in her gaze.

It doesn’t take long, and a rumbling sound rips through the air, bringing reality into sharper focus.

We flick our eyes to the road, the loud noise of revving bikes permeating the air.

She claps her hands, ecstatic, and we crane our necks, our eyes rooted on the sunny meadow peeking through the trees where the road turns slightly.

Almost forgetting how to breathe, we wait, our mouths agape, our eyes wide.

“Oh, my God...” she murmurs when the first two bikers enter our line of sight, a black car with tinted windows right behind them.

I count two more riders in the background.

Mesmerized and unaware that we look like fools, we stare at them.

The more they draw closer, the more we zoom in on their faces, taking inventory of their stern expressions, dark sunglasses, muscular arms, jeans-clad thighs, biker boots, and tight T-shirts stretched deliciously across their chests.

The wind tousles their hair.

Blonde, brown, dark, and blonde again.

We slip off the bench and stand tall on the side of the road like we witness a parade.

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