My free hand clutches at my throat. The whole lumbersexual thing suddenly makes perfect sense because good lord. Watching Jack chop that piece of wood in half is the single most arousing thing my demisexual brain has ever witnessed. Even though her muscles aren’t visible through her flannel, I can somehow sense the way they ripple, the tendons in her neck straining, her hands flexing against the handle of the axe. Some primal instinct in me says, This one could build you shelter.

I press my legs tightly together and clear my throat. “That was… good.”

She rolls her shoulders, and I stifle a whimper. This night will definitely end with my death.

She kicks aside the two newly cut pieces of wood and grabs another from the stack. I tell myself not to watch, but of course I do. She moves with such purpose and determination as she lines up the wood and raises the axe. I’m not sure if I want her, or if I want to be her, and I think it might be a little bit of both as she slices through another log.

The axe clatters to the ground as the two halves split, and Jack grabs her shoulder and winces.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She clenches her teeth. “I have an old shoulder injury from kneading dough that flares up sometimes.”

I cannot abide that sentence. “From kneading dough?”

“Fuck. You.”

“I’m sorry, but you have some kind of baker’s tendonitis.”

“You’re the absolute worst human,” she seethes. “Why am I always getting snowed in places with you?”

I’m not sure how genuine this hatred is (I would guess at least 50 percent, given our present circumstances), but I smile at her anyway. “Here.” I hand her the cell phone and pick up the axe. There’s a meager amount of porch light reaching us, and she immediately points the phone down at where the axe is loosely gripped in my hand. Jack puts another piece of wood on the chopping block, and I choke up on the handle.

The axe is heavier than I expect, and it feels unwieldy in my hands. I’m that much more impressed by the way Jack mastered this in one try. I lift the axe over my head the way she did, or attempt to, but the weight is too much for me, and I teeter off-balance. Jack’s steady hand appears on my waist, securing me in place.

“Widen your stance,” she orders, but she says it gently, carefully, the way she did when she was teaching me to ski. Her hand is still resting just above my hip bone. I move one foot forward and redistribute my body weight as I lean over the chopping block. “Now raise the axe again.”