"I love the scents of winter! For me, it's all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce." – Taylor Swift

Dedication: walksonMainStreet for the support and much appreciated patience for updates that I don't see often on Wattpad. Thanks so much, babe! <3

Extra: My four year anniversary giveaway winner, visheretowrite, is featured in this chapter as herself, Violet. She has a one-off appearance, and it's going to be good ;)

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Andrew's POV

"Your face is weird!" Andrew protested through the phone as he emerged from his cozy little bedroom, making a beeline for the roaring fireplace of flickering orange.

He plopped down beside the flames, wedging the phone between his shoulder and ear. He wrung out his saturated clothing into a bucket and lay his shoes on a piece of newspaper, letting them dry from the heat of the fire. Then he stretched out his legs and let the warmth wash over his goosebump covered skin. You see, he'd been skiing that morning with Penelope and having the time of his life. She'd taught him more than Quinn's lame flirting advice had, that's for sure.

The girl in question snottily said, "also, I don't think anything can get weirder than the fact that you were actually excited to talk to my co-worker, Chipmunk."

Andrew rolled his eyes at the nickname. Out of all the entire universe of nicknames, the one she chose was a mutated squirrel? He understood that they had somewhat of a mutual hate and therefore she would try to think of the most demeaning nickname her pea-sized brain could come up with, but after Andrew's immediate discovery that there was a rat stealing all his scraps in the lodge, he was feeling particularly nasty towards rodents.

"Andrew," he said so suddenly that he almost gave himself a shock.

"Say what now?" came Quinn's confused response.

A jolt of electricity sparked along Andrew's arms; he wondered whether he'd touched a spark plug, since clumsiness was one of the qualities that he did, unfortunately, inherit from his mother. He glanced around. No outlets in sight. Then a wave of realisation rippled through his bones, through his very core, as he realised that that simple question Quinn just asked, mimicked what he had said days ago. What did this mean?

Unfortunately, Andrew's mouth didn't let his brain have adequate time to ponder on this revelation. His lips opened up on their own and words flooded out, words that solidified the awkward tension of his abrupt change of subject. "The name's Andrew."

No time for an adequate response was drawn, for Andrew quickly ended the call and set his phone down as if it was a hot rod. Gingerly, he lifted a blanket, since there were often hints of gunk on these lodge-supplied resources. He sighed in relief once he inspected it closely and found no signs of squashed bugs. In fact, it looked brand new, infused with a creamy beige colour. Maybe Quinn had decided to stop torturing him with bug guts. How nice.

Next thing he knew, she'd be sending over some bald Asian monks to recite fairytales and feed him fried grasshoppers or something.

Honestly, he couldn't figure that girl out, as much as he tried. She was sarcastic, she was brutal. She had taught him a grand total of zilch about flirting so far, but somehow, her mere presence either caused Andrew to scuttle angrily out of his shell or blubber like a kid who'd just had their Halloween candy confiscated. He still wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. Besides, the blubbering business also activated around a certain redhead. Penelope.

Truth be told, Andrew didn't know much about her. She was a gorgeous girl, and he was a sucker for gorgeous girls. Penelope was a tomboy though, and would rather be making snow angels than snuggling with a box of pepperoni pizza. Andrew, being the introverted type, preferred the latter.

Just as his train of thought was getting into its rhythm, a sudden knock slammed on the breaks and made the train screech to an abrupt halt. Andrew somehow jumped in shock while sitting and landed straight on his backside, bruising it more than ever before. A groan escaped his lips as he clambered up from the floor and dragged himself to the door, wrenching it open.

"Can I help you?" he asked snappishly, without even taking a look at who he was talking to.

He was warming beside the fire, okay? It was a cold day, sue him for wanting to feel better after a chilly session in the snow. No, not like that, you perverts. Either way, whatever interrupted him from his cozy doze by the fire was worthy of being chucked into said fire.

"Maybe letting me in would be a good start," a distinctly familiar voice graced his ears. Andrew blinked and glanced up to greet lively forest eyes.

Andrew sucked in a breath. "Hey Penelope."

"Why do I get the feeling that 'hey' stands for 'I don't want you here but my parents forced me to socially interact so I have to be welcoming to guests but trust me, I don't want to be, so don't talk to me and we'll get along fine'?" Penelope asked.

Andrew, taken aback, spent a few seconds blinking at this flood of words. Penelope, with her quick-paced and active personality, forgot that people such as Andrew didn't talk nor process words at the speed of light. That was one of her only flaws that Andrew had spotted so far.

"Uh, totally," Andrew agreed, giving up on trying to understand whatever she just blurted out.

"You have no idea what I just said, do you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. Andrew's terrified expression apparently told her enough, because she rolled her eyes jokingly and nodded towards his snug hideout. "In that case, I'm going to barge into your house uninvited."

"What kind of logic is that?" Andrew scoffed, though he was feeling a layer of frost creeping up his legs from the outside chill, so he relented and closed the door. As much as he tried to direct his eyes anywhere else, they couldn't help but land on Penelope, her graceful manner.

As sporty as Penelope was, she glided with the air of a swan on mirrored water, demonstrating unattainable gracefulness. She also had a signature swish of fiery locks to show that she wasn't the damsel in distress. Even if she was, it wasn't like Andrew was Prince Charming. If a girl got kidnapped, he'd search for her for like, five minutes before heading home and raiding the fridge.

"So! Back to business," Penelope said briskly. Her mischievous grin screamed trouble to Andrew, but he was too sluggish from the fire to react as she asked, "how're the flirting lessons going?"

Andrew, who'd conveniently just taken a sip of tea which he'd brewed when he got back to the lodge, choked on it and spluttered wildly. Penelope thumped him on the back and he felt his airways promptly clear. "Ahem," he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You and Quinn? Flirting lessons? I'd say that's conveniency at its finest," Penelope giggled, resting her hands near the crackling flames and sighing contently. Her eyes twinkled at Andrew as if she knew something he didn't. "You guys are pretty adorable, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't use the word 'adorable' to describe someone who calls me a rodent and hates on everything that I like," Andrew said after a pause. He'd always been a realist and less of a dreamy romantic, which was one of the few qualities that he and Quinn seemed to share.

Penelope let out a sigh. "Andrew?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think she gives everyone pet names and calls them on a daily basis?"

"Don't most girls?" Andrew asked.

Penelope stared at him incredulously. "Yeah, and we also have sexy pillow fights in our underwear and are desperate housewives. We also dress simply to be objectified and we don't play sport. Oh, and how could I forget that we always wear pink on Wednesdays?"

"Are you doing a Simon Cowell on me right now?" Andrew asked, feeling lost.

Penelope threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. "Andrew, don't you see that Quinn likes you? She dumps coffee on guys because they piss her off so much. I mean, it's not like she's met you, but I'm sure she's gotten past that stage by now. Well, I hope so..."

But Andrew wasn't even listening to her anymore. Instead, the only thing his eyes were latched onto was Penelope's snowflake necklace, which swung rhythmically as she ranted and ranted and ranted and slowly, her voice was becoming fainter and fainter.

Andrew felt himself slowly being tugged from this world of reality, tugged into the realm of his own thoughts, floating up and away. Only one face blossomed in his mind. His version of Quinn. Blonde? No, brunette. Speckled- wait, no, mossy green eyes. Slender but petite, perhaps? From her voice, she sounded like the small type determined to show others how tough she was.

Quinn was a strange one, he could say that. Not necessarily in a bad way, but just someone who he hadn't encountered in a friendly manner. His mother had a similar personality to Quinn, but the former loved attacking him with bear hugs and kisses on the cheek, even though she was known to be very headstrong when she was younger. He doubted that Quinn would be very appreciative if Andrew attacked her from behind and slobbered over her like an excited dog.

But he didn't know what to make of Quinn; she was nasty, she was rude, she was fun, she was quirky. She was all seven colours of the rainbow and more. But what was he to her? That girl was full of mystery, and Andrew didn't know how he felt about that. In fact, he couldn't feel anything except the force of gravity tugging his gut, bringing him back down to earth...

"...And you guys have so much chemistry together! Do you know how frustrating it is to see two people care for each other and are too stubborn to admit it?" Penelope finished off as Andrew jerked out of his doze. Penelope didn't even need to look at him this time. "You weren't listening to a thing I said, were you?"

"That depends on how much bodily harm I get if I say yes."

Penelope, having given up on him, stared back at the fireplace. Andrew couldn't help but inspect her eyes from afar, dimming with lost hope. Then, suddenly, her eyes lit up like bulbs. She turned to Andrew so quickly that he flinched. "That's it!" she exclaimed.

"That's it?" Andrew echoed half a second late. "That's what?"

"You know how to get the girl?" she asked, winking.

"How?" he said slowly.

Penelope's smirk was a recipe for trouble. "You make her jealous."

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Quinn's POV

"Your face is sad!" Chipmunk's voice reverberated from the speaker of Quinn's phone. She was leaning on the receptionist's table, with her cheek smushed against the wood as though her face was attracted to the hundreds of billions of bacteria that probably resided there.

Quinn internally scoffed at his incompetent, yet enthusiastically delivered comeback. Honestly, her pet parrot could come up with a better retort than that. Hell, her parrot also had a lower voice than that chipmunk. So far, she'd taught her parrot every swear word she could think of, along with the lines, "ice cream is bae!" and "bitch better have my waffles!"

"Also, I don't think anything can get sadder than the fact that you were actually excited to talk to my co-worker, Chipmunk," Quinn diverted the subject of having a sad face, even though she probably did, considering she was working with her stupid Oliver Twist knockoff co-worker.

Speaking of Oliver, where the hell was he? One minute he was frolicking amongst the bits and bobs of a nearby gift shop; the next, he had disappeared. The boy had the heart of a kitten and the enthusiasm of a child though, she'll give him that.

Even though they'd only been working together for a few days at best, she had found someone just as annoying as Chipmunk, so it was strange that the two happened to get along just fine. What happened to opposites attracting, huh? Since when have south poles eyed up south poles and thought, "hey, I can think of a way to heat up that ice!" and north poles checking out north poles, thinking, "Santa's workshop ain't just reserved for making gifts, you know!"

"Andrew," Quinn was jolted out of her thoughts by Chipmunk's change of subject and frowned, wondering whether this Andrew person was someone she was supposed to know. Andrew Garfield, maybe? She didn't see any reason for him to be mentioning Spiderman. Or maybe he was just referring to that dude Eduardo from The Social Network, also played by Mr Garfield.

No, not the cat, but she wished it was the cat. Real talk though, how cool would it be to have a cat playing Spiderman? Spidercat, coming out in theatres near you!

"Say what now?" Quinn asked.

"The name's Andrew."

The words circulated through Quinn like a river of extra honeyed caramel as she realised that that Andrew, Andrew, Andrew was his name. Chipmunk's name. Surprisingly enough, the name satisfied her picky name requests and she could easily put that name to the voice over the phone, the shy but stubborn tone that flooded warmly through her every day. Quinn didn't even need to see his face. She could just Photoshop Andrew Garfield's face onto a chipmunk body.

Before she could ponder any further on the beauty of Andrew Chipmunk, an abrupt click of a phone resonated and Quinn stared at her phone incomprehensibly, before realising that Chipmunk- oh wait- Andrew, had hung up on her. The nerve of that boy! No one hangs up on Quinn Avrett! No one who wants death by embarrassing Photoshop, that is.

A sigh escaped Quinn's lips as she stood up, grabbing a duster. For some reason, customers were thinning out. She had no idea why. The conditions were perfect! Through the small windows of the receptionist area, she saw a thick jumper of snow curtaining the ground and draping itself elegantly over the frosty pine trees, which somehow weren't already dead. On the contrary, there were a nice green, reminding her of Andrew's voice. Soothing and gentle.

Before her thoughts could annoy her any further, the gentle chiming of a bell interrupted whatever the choo-choo train could've lead to. In came a teenaged girl, probably around fifteen by the looks of it, meaning that one Taylor Swift song would apply to her. She was fairly petite, decked out in a bundle of warm, yet fashionable clothes. Quinn was jealous. Whenever she dressed up in this weather, she always ended up looking like a plump little snowball.

The girl strolled up to her, chocolate eyes sparkling with mischief, brown skin shimmering under the luminescence of the lights above. Quinn perked up in eagerness, but before she could open her mouth, Oliver Twist bounded into the room with a bundle of Christmas lights tangled up in his arms, looking like a kid in a candy store.

"Look at what I found!" he exclaimed. "Christmas lights, see?" he held them out to show Quinn and the customer.

The former rolled her eyes and emitted a loud groan, while the latter tired to look politely interested, but was clearly weirded out from the you're-going-to-kidnap-me-and-feed-my-family-candy-canes-until-they-explode-oh-shit-help-me expression on her face. She fiddled with the hem of her loose sweater, before taking interest in some snowglobes nearby.

"Oh, how wonderful," said Quinn irritably. "It's bad enough that you work here, but now you're scaring off our limited stream of customers? Great going, Oliver Twist. Don't you just win at life?"

"Yeah, I do," Oliver grinned, unruffled. He, with an air of enthusiasm, began running around and stringing the Christmas lights wherever he could. Quinn, feeling as though she'd end up becoming a mummified Christmas tree if she wasn't careful, quickly stepped into the middle of the room to avoid being attacked by festive decorations.

"God- stop- what the hell are you doing?!" Quinn spluttered as part of the string slapped her in the face and almost caught in her mouth. "Why're you trying to Christmasify this store? Jesus, do you have any common sense? Is there a loose gear in your brain? Can I slam my fist onto it?"

Oliver paused in his tracks at the first sentence, his eyes widened and alight with wonder. "Christmasify," he said as though it was some sort of magic spell. "You're a genius! Someone needs to put that in the dictionary, seriously. Christmasify!" he repeated.

"You'd better give me credit then!" Quinn shouted through the thick tangle of lights that she was currently being buried under. If Santa was listening, she hoped she made it onto the nice list this year and he'd save her from this awful predicament of death-by-Christmas-lights. "Otherwise I'll make sure that you roast your chestnuts in a fire!"

Oliver smirked impishly and took off like a rocket. "Only if you can catch me!"

"Get your chestnuts back here!" Quinn commanded, weaving between ornaments scattered on the floor. Oliver eventually slowed down, but by then, Quinn had given up on catching him.

"Not happening! Anyway, what's she here for?" Oliver jerked his head towards the customer, who'd been observing their interaction. "To admire my looks?"

"Hell no!" Quinn and the girl snorted at the same time, raising an eyebrow at each other in approval. "I'm Violet, just dropping by to rent out a lodge and intrude on your lovefest," the customer said with a suggestive wink. "Maybe I should just leave you two to it, though. Even though the guy's dimwitted, I'm sure you can teach each other a ton about chemistry."

"Hell no!" Quinn and Oliver exclaimed in alarm. "We're not lovebirds," Oliver said quickly at the same time Quinn snorted, "I'll date this guy when hell freezes over!"

"Hasn't it already?" Oliver challenged as Quinn shot daggers at him. He got the message and turned back to Violet, raising an eyebrow. "Also, did you call me stupid before?"

"If I compared Rita Skeeter to you right now, she'd look like freaking Einstein," Violet sassed, smirking.

Oliver blinked, not knowing how to reply, therefore he went with his usual impoliteness. "Oh, don't start with the Harry Potter references. I've had enough of them from that fangirl," he jerked his thumb towards Quinn, who was doubled over in laughter and high fived Violet.

Violet chuckled, "well, as fun as this experience has been, I'd like to excuse myself and pay for my lodge, since I see that my sass pupil certainly isn't as good as the master."

Oliver exclaimed, "what's that supposed to mean?!" as Quinn gave her the keys with a cheerful smile. Violet strolled back out of the shop in her warm, fancy clothes, and immediately after she was gone, awkward tension seemed to flood the room. Oliver seemed to be finished with his Christmas light stringing and Quinn dusted through the silence.

After a few minutes, Oliver clearly couldn't handle the silence anymore, so he spoke up. "Have you ever thought about being together with Andrew?" he asked, fiddling with his fingers.

"Explanation," Quinn replied curtly.

"Like, together together. You two are like two peas in a pod. Two angry peas who don't ever stop trying to kill each other, but it's romantic, don't you think?" Quinn spared a glance at Oliver, who seemed genuinely interested in her love life. Since when were guys- never mind.

"Nope," she said shortly, but even so, an image of Andrew couldn't help but crop up in her mind- average height, definitely taller than her. Black? No, blond hair, a dirty blonde with hints of gold. Blue eyes, definitely. Beautiful and crystallised. Faint freckles. Dimples. Cheekbones to die for. Shy but humorous, attractive without realising. That seemed to be what Andrew was like.

And strangely enough, she liked it.

Oliver noticed the small hint of a smile on Quinn's features. "Oh yeah," he grinned. "I ship it. You like him. I don't care if you don't like me, but I want what's best for my new friend."

"I don't like him," Quinn mumbled, but she wasn't even convincing herself.

"You do, you do!" Oliver sang, before growing serious for a second and putting his finger to his chin for thought. Suddenly, he perked up as though struck by lightning, and turned to Quinn with an animated, almost madman grin on his face. "You know how you get the guy?"

"I'm listening," Quinn said slowly.

The moment Oliver Twist's face morphed into that smirk, was when Quinn knew never to underestimate him. "You make him jealous."

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Woo, I finally stopped being useless at updating! Seriously, I said I'd update in a week and I didn't update for a month, which is not okay, but please bear with the fact that I've had mock exams for the past week. My last one's on Wednesday, but I'm on holiday overseas from Saturday onwards, so this story won't be updated in the thirteen or so days I'm travelling.

What'd ya think of Oliver and Penelope? Should they be featured more or less? I'm not going to ask you who you ship so far because y'all know where this is going and who's endgame. Also, question, who would you cast as Oliver? I'm not actually going to cast him, but it's way easier to write about a character when I can visualise them.