I try really hard not to smile again. I have a feeling if I do, she’ll for sure tell me to go to hell. “Stop being so stubborn, and let me show you.”

She still gives me an unconvinced look.

“You’ve already shown me that you can do it,” I add, pointing at the tree that’s halfway sawed in two. “Point proven. Now let me teach you the proper way to do it.”

She’s still glaring. Only two people might dethrone her in the stubbornness competition: my mother and Callie.

“Fine, tell me,” she ends up saying. She acts like she doesn’t want to know what I have to say, but her eyes twinkle like she actually wants to learn how to do it right.

Maybe I’m finally starting to be able to read her.

“I’ll show you instead.” With a nudge of my chin, I say, “Grab the saw.”

Like this morning, she looks at me for a moment before making the decision to listen to me. She turns around, grabs the saw, then looks over her shoulder.

“Good, now bend your knees.”

She does.

“Okay now…” I don’t know how to explain how she needs to position herself. There’s something wrong with the way her knees are placed, but it’d be much easier to just show her how to position herself.

Fuck it.

I approach her with slow steps. The moment I near her arm, she tenses, but quickly relaxes against my touch.

“Just like this,” I say softly before repositioning her body. My body is flush against hers, and I realize I look like a cheesy trope in a rom-com, but it truly is the easiest way to teach her how to do it properly.

“Okay?” she asks, her voice airy.

“Perfect. Now—” I put my arms over hers so I can position the saw at the perfect angle and height on the tree. Her breaths cloud in the cold air in front of her, coming in fast. She must be winded from the exercise from before. Cutting down a tree is harder than it looks. “Keep the saw at this angle, then use your thighs to create the force, not your arms. Like that.”

We start cutting the tree, my frame circling hers. When I feel her body doing something wrong, I readjust it so she can only succeed. And it works. Once she’s three-quarters of the way into the tree, I take a step back. She quickly glances over her shoulder, then returns her eyes to the task at hand. Not long after, the tree falls, the sound of her success a boom choked by the thick snow.

“See?” I say with a smirk. “Much easier like this.”

“I guess, yeah,” she says, lips pursed. “Thanks.”

“You only had to ask.”