The Unattainable (The Foreplay to Forgiveness)

Chapter 29 - ERIN

"Give it to me!" Amanda yelled, "I'm so fucking wet!"

I watched Amanda's breath come hard.

"Give it to me now!"

I grinned ruefully. She could scream all she wanted, I was keeping the umbrella.

It was late in the afternoon, two days after Thanksgiving break, and Amanda and I were heading back to Burnham after visiting a photo exhibit when the rain had started to pour down on us. Good thing I'd anticipated the weather so I'd brought an umbrella but she hadn't. So many things had happened in the Thanksgiving break and I had missed her company. And since we were heading back to the dorm I thought a little taunting wouldn't hurt.

"Addie, my butt is freezing." I heard her say and so I stopped walking.

"Alright, alright, come over here!" I finally considered sharing the umbrella but I should've known better. As soon as she caught up with me Amanda snatched the thing out of my hand and sprinted away with it.

"Now we're even!" Amanda laughed whilst running away with the umbrella I'd practically presented to her on a silver platter.

"Manda!"

"Race you to the dorm!"

Shortly after getting soaked in the rain we arrived and crashed into our dorm room.

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"Why is everything still on the floor, Manda?"

It had already been two days after we get back to the dorm but some of Amanda's suitcases were still unpacked and whatever had been unpacked was on the floor.

"Gravity, Addie. That's kind of how the earth works."

I groaned and rolled my eyes. I decided to leave it since this "clutter" issue was not new. We both took our showers and changed clothes.

"I'm thinking of sushi for dinner," she said a bit later whilst brushing her hair. "And some soup. Something hot to warm us up after the weather."

"That'd be nice," I replied. Just then my new cell phone-that Mikhail provided-chirped.

Dinner 2nyt? Will pick u up.

Amanda must have caught me smiling because for no apparent reason she snorted. "Something dreamy in the text message?"

I shook my head as if to disengage my thoughts. "Just Mikhail. He wants to have dinner."

Amanda's sardonic expression wasn't hard to miss. "Right. Of course."

"Manda!"

"No, go ahead. I'll have dinner with Teresa."

Amanda wasn't entirely supportive of my decision about getting back with Mikhail--she doesn't want me to get hurt, again. Well, even from the start Mikhail had never gained Amanda's trust, and sometimes I felt the same way she did, but Mikhail Thorne had this effect on me and I couldn't do anything about it. He was dauntless, magnetic and the sexual prowess he possesses was alluring. Just the thought of him made all my girly parts tingle.

But his mood changes whenever I talk about his brother... I remembered our conversation, the first time I knew about Erin's involvement with Hendrick Thorne's death.

"I've always thought she had something to do with my brother's death," Mikhail confessed at the lake. "And that's all I'm telling you, Addie. I don't want to start our relationship divulging the past. That was over a long time ago, he's gone. And Erin is not my woman. She will never be."

Being accused of murder is pretty heavy. Serious, even. But like Mikhail said, divulging in the past was no use so I didn't press the matter.

Another text message pulled me out of my thoughts.