Never

Chapter 15: Fire

Winter's POV:

Thaddeus returned with Paula in one piece. It was a good thing, because I wasn't below finding a way around the stupid blood oath to kill him. He acted strange when he got back. We'd definitely been nicer to each other and strangely enough, maybe even bonded a little bit, so it wasn't that I expected him to be the same arrogant ass he was the first few times I saw him, but I definitely didn't expect him to be as nice as he was. He even offered to help cut up the ingredients.

"How many jokes did you get about your name growing up?" He asked as he chopped bell peppers.

I rolled my eyes. "You've no idea. It got way worse when Game of Thrones got popular."

Thaddeus chuckled, but then full on snorted and stopped what he was doing to get ahold of himself.

"Yeah, yeah, get it out."

"Winter is coming," he said, trying to stifle the laugh. "Oh, that must've been rough."

"It was more annoying than anything else," I said honestly. "I was with this guy once who thought it would be funny to say it, you know, mid.... You know. It wasn't."

Thaddeus failed to contain his laugh that time and I couldn't help my own. "It wasn't funny!"

"Oh, I disagree. Why Winter?"

I swallowed and shrugged. "Who knows? Why did your parents name you Thaddeus?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me. Don't think I buy this, 'who knows' nonsense. Was Winter a favorite season?"

"No," I said, grabbing the onion and cutting it in half. "There was just an unrelated love of snow."

"Where the hell did you see snow?" Thaddeus asked. "Did you not grow up here? This area doesn't get enough snow to even call it real snow."

"No, I did," I nodded as I chopped the onion. "But my uh... I um..." I almost spoke about my family again. I needed to be careful. I swallowed and continued chopping, ignoring the way he watched me way too closely. "I spent my winters at this place in Southern Colorado. Stayed from right before Thanksgiving to right after Valentine's Day."

"That's odd."

"Why?"

"Most people have second homes to escape the winter, not go chase after it."

I shrugged. "We liked snow."

"We who?"

I stiffened, slowly pressing the knife into the onion slices to get them finer. "You know, just, the royal we."

"I'm not sure I do know," he said, setting his knife down and turning towards me. "You tell me, Winnie."

I froze, my blood running cold as my dad's voice echoed in my head. "Come sit with me, Winnie," he grinned, patting his lap. "Let's listen to music while the fire dies out."

"What did you just call me?" I asked, dropping the knife. He started to say it again and a sharp pain in my chest had me interrupting "Stop," I snapped, turning towards him. "Don't call me that. Don't ever call me that. What the hell do you think this is? We're not friends. You don't get to give me a nickname. We're both here because we have to be and that's it."

His brows furrowed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

I may have overreacted. It wasn't like he knew. Sighing, I turned to the counter and picked up my knife again. "Sorry. I... Just don't call me that."

"Noted."

We fell into awkward silence that I was painfully aware was my fault this time. We'd been doing good and I liked it better that way. The hateful fighting turned to more teasing fighting over the past few days, so much less tense and way less a pain in my ass. I didn't want it to go away just because I was set off.